Culture Specific Items in Audiovisual Translation: Issues of Synchrony and Cultural Equivalence in the Lithuanian Dub

Audiovisual translation encompasses a number of dissimilar areas. To quote Frederic Valera Chaume, AVT “covers both well-established and new ground-breaking linguistic and semiotic transfers like dubbing, subtitling, surtitling, respeaking, audiosubtitling, voice-over, simultaneous interpreting at film festivals, free-commentary and goblin translation, subtitling for the deaf and the hard of hearing, audiodescription, fansubbing and fandubbing” (2013, p. 105). This paper analyses the importance of culture-specific elements in audiovisual products and strategies of their transfer to the target culture. Practical investigation is based on a case study of an animated film “Shrek the Third” and its Lithuanian dub. The choice for the case study was determined by the fact that the history of dubbing animated movies in independent Lithuania started with “Shrek,” the first Hollywood film dubbed into Lithuanian, which has achieved unprecedented success and become an example for further dub localizations. The aim of the research was to determine the relationship between types of synchrony that should be maintained in dubbing and culture-specific items that should be localized in the target text. The study is complemented with a research survey that questions the importance of different types of synchronies in translation. As there is no consensus about the importance of lip synchrony in dubbing, and some scholars (Doane, 1980; Chaume, 2012) claim that it plays a dominant role in dubbing, whereas others (Herbst, 1994; Jüngst, 2010) declare its overestimation, the survey research attempts to answer this debatable question.


Introduction
Audiovisual Translation: Cultural Aspects and Synchronies in Dubbing Chaume (2012) identifies three main types of synchrony in dubbing: lip synchrony, kinetic synchrony and isochrony. Isochrony is matching the time interval of audible speech spoken by the characters depicted in the visual image. Lip synchrony constitutes dealing with the synchrony of phonemes and is sometimes referred to as phonetic synchrony. While in isochrony, the "translated dialogue must fit exactly in the time between the instant screen actor opens his/her mouth" (Chaume, 2004, p. 44). Lastly, kinetic synchrony is obviously related to body movements and expressions (Chaume, 2012).
According to Chaume (2004), lip synchrony "consists of adapting the translation to the articulatory movements of the on-screen character, especially in close-ups and extreme close-ups" (p. 44). The author also suggests that in dubbing, particularly in the case of close-ups, "the source text <….> or the translated dialogue <…> must coincide with the screen actor's lip movements -especially in the case of bilabial consonants, labio-dental consonants and open vowels" (Chaume, 2004, p. 41). Hence, translators of the dub must be aware of the phonetic peculiarities of the original speech. Appropriate kinetic synchrony is crucial when dubbing animation for children since "kinetic synchrony is important to children's cartoon programs, as the cartoon characters tend to gesticulate in an exaggerated way to capture the attention of their young viewers" (Chaume, 2004, p. 46). Furthermore, Perez-Gonzalez (2009) stresses that the dubbed dialogue should aim "to recreate the dynamics of the original, particularly in terms of delivery pace and lip movements" (p. 170). Therefore, lip synchrony as the mode of dubbing "requires a complex juggling of semantic content, cadence of language and technical prosody … while bowing to the prosaic constraints of the medium itself" (Whitman-Linsen, 1992, p. 103-104).
Ultimately, Mendes (2015) argues that in audiovisual translation, there could be certain instances where the rendering has to be reworded "for better Isochrony and Lip synchrony, which, despite having a distinct purpose, are types of synchrony that necessarily complement each other" (p. 256). For example, the translator of the dub version may need to rescript part of the utterance for the purposes of synchrony in order to render the components of the film and maintain them synchronous at the same time. Thus, it might be concluded that all types of synchrony are fundamental in audiovisual translation.
Translation is a process of adopting text in a way that the source text and the target text have similar affect to the audience. To quote Newmark, the greatest obstacle the translator faces aiming for accuracy is culture (2010). Newmark emphasises the relation between culture and language and states that culture is restricted by a particular geographical area, language boundaries and manifests through a single language (2010). Meanwhile, Pettit (2009) points out that language is deeply connected with culture and that culture could be expressed through language. To rely upon House (2004, p. 494), it means that any linguistic item "can only be properly understood with reference to the cultural context enveloping it" (p. 494). Pettit further elaborates the idea that "an audiovisual text offers a cultural representation of the world, both through language and the image. It is commonly accepted that translators mediate between two linguistic and cultural systems" (Pettit, 2009, p. 44).
As CSIs develop from culture differences, it should be noted that the bigger the difference in cultures is, the more difficult it becomes to translate CSIs. Baker (1992) describes CSIs as the concepts that appear in language and refer to any cultural entity which is usually unfamiliar to the members of the other culture. Baker defines CSIs without the relation to the context. Meanwhile, Aixela (1996) identifies culture-specific items as the consequence of the opposing relationship that originates from "any linguistically represented reference in a source text which, when transferred to a target language, poses a translation problem due to the nonexistence or to the different value of the given item in the target culture" (p. 57). Therefore, culture-specific items can be viewed as the elements in the source text which are unique to the source culture and require the translator not only to render the text, but also to perform cultural transfer.
Chaume believes that the term culture-specific reference, as a complex component, should be consistently upheld in the rendering (Chaume, 2012). Therefore, the rendering of such references in the process of translation is essential. In the case where non-verbal signs are revealed through cultural signs which are only present in the target culture, the translator should try to preserve the coherence between verbal and visual implicit meanings (Chaume, 1997).

Theoretical Background
The nature of the rendering of cultural references in the target language poses problems, as observed by Perez-Gonzalez (2009) who makes an assumption that the transfer of culture-bound elements into the dub of the film is complicated since, despite the adaptation process of the source text and alteration of its culture-specific items by changing them into equivalents, it does not prevent that the "illusion of authenticity may backfire and damage the commercial success of the dubbed product when the foreign language and culture draw attention to themselves" (p. 18). The author further suggests that in order to avoid such an outcome the translator must take into account appropriate synchronization of the "mouth movements or the reliance on culturally idiosyncratic visuals" (Perez-Gonzalez, 2009, p. 18).
Antonini (2007) notes that in the cases of culture-specific items of the source culture, in the majority of instances, there are clear differences between what the target audience conceived and what they assumed correctly as the recipients of the translation. She further concludes that culture-specific items are not always understood correctly and factors like age, sex, acquaintance with language and culture only somewhat impact the comprehension of the rendered culture bound-elements. The scholar concludes that "the quality of screen translation is fundamental for the appreciation of the product" (Antonini, 2007, p. 165).
The practical investigation is based on a case study of a dubbed animated film because, in the case of intercultural transfer, translators have to adapt the content to the target audience while taking into consideration the fact that a certain degree of synchrony should be maintained in the localized product.
For the aim to be achieved, it was necessary to define the main types of culture-specific items; to reveal the primary types of synchrony in dubbing; to carry frequency calculations of culture-specific items found in the film; to determine the main problems which translators have to deal with when adapting culture-specific items to the target audience taking into account the rules of synchrony; and to analyse the interplay between culture-specific items and types of synchrony in the Lithuanian dub of "Shrek the Third".
A descriptive method that was exercised in this research helped to determine the theoretical aspects of culture-specific items and dubbing, while the differences in the synchrony of culture-specific items were found through comparison in the original and the Lithuanian dub.
The classification of CSIs, given by Antonini, that include Education, VIPs, Place names, Institutions, Money and measures, National sports and Holidays, was adopted in this study. However, as it was not extensive enough, additional categories of CSIs, such as Names, Politics, Art, Objects, Culture-specific onomatopoeic words, Legal terms, Culture-specific expressions and sayings, Brands, Folklore, Slang & colloquial language, Games, Actions, Medical terms, Nautical terms, Dialect and Military terms were proposed as supplementary categories. CSIs in the Lithuanian dub were classified according to the typology of translation strategies presented by Henrik Gottlieb (2009). The results were assessed and assigned accordingly to a corresponding category of CSIs. The translation strategies were identified and distinguished. In order to evaluate the most common translation strategy precisely, every instance was accounted for as an individual case and treated accordingly, despite its reoccurrence in the film. However, in the analysis, the recurrent instances are not presented in the tables or studied separately except when summarizing the overall results. Analysis of frequency calculations of the types of CSIs and the translation strategies found in the dub of the film opened the path for further steps in this investigation.
A qualitative survey research method was used to investigate how synchrony of CSIs and their simultaneity affect the target language audience. Written structured surveys were used to collect data that were processed by using content analysis, employed to describe the basic features of the data in the study. The questions of the survey were open-ended and the respondents provided the answers in a written form. The survey aimed to investigate the effect culture-specific items and their synchrony made on the viewers of the Lithuanian dub of "Shrek the Third". It involved interviewing the survey participants: 295 adolescents (from 15 to 16 years old) and 160 adults (from 30 to 48 years old), in total, 455 respondents.
Upon entering the cinema theatre, all participants who agreed to fill out the questionnaire, received written explanations about culture-specific items and examples how to identify them. In addition, different types of synchronies were explained to the respondents too. The target group needed to indicate whether they were able to recognize CSIs and how important it was to preserve synchronies in dubbing.

Methodology
One hundred and eighty (180) culture-specific items, transferred from the source language into the target language, were collected from the film. The results are displayed in Fig. 1.
As Fig. 1 shows, the most frequently traced culture-specific items in the movie fall under the category of Names (e.g., Arthur, Lancelot, Fiddlesworth): in total, 43 examples, unique to the source culture, including the names of people and the specific way a person could be addressed to, were found.

Culture-specific Items in Translation and Synchronies in the Lithuanian Dub Localization
Finally, the thematic commonality of CSIs, which were traced in the source and the translated versions, were compared in this study. The original CSIs in the movie deal with fiction, names, and cultural or historical heritage of the source culture. On the other hand, the Lithuanian dubbed version is full of new culture-specific items that are directly related to and influenced by the peculiarities of the Lithuanian language, its nature and culture, and the usage of specific dialects or language expressions. More complex terms, involving the subjects as institu-  tions, politics, military and similar, were rare. This is obviously related to the fact that children are regarded as the target audience and they may fail to understand the meaning of such complex or specific terminology.
As for the methods of rendering, the results are reflected in Fig. 2  Moreover, isochrony is essential when aiming to preserve the sense of reality in dubbing. Since the selected film was dubbed, it contains a lot of cases that clearly deal with isochrony as the speech of each character may be easily observed on the screen. The selected examples contained dubbed dialogue that was articulated, when the character was shown speaking in the visual context. The culture-specific items were extracted from the film and the types of synchrony, used to render them in the dubbed version, were identified as described below.
One of the occurrences of isochrony is the case of a culture-specific reference which falls under the category of Foods and drinks. The name Fuzzy Navel was rendered as Zosės Kokteilis (En. Zose's cocktail). This translation is an obvious use of the Substitution strategy. The part of the sentence and a Fuzzy Naval was translated into Lithuanian as ir Zosės kokteilio with the same interval of seconds in both the original and the Lithuanian dub, while the character could be observed speaking. Therefore, in this example, complete isochrony of the culture-specific reference was preserved as synchrony was achieved utilizing the strategy of Substitution. Zosė is a Lithuanian woman's name that is famous for its rather ironic nature in the Lithuanian folk, for example, songs, TV parodies or shows, which, in turn, results in a less faithful translation than other strategies.
Speaking about kinetic synchrony that should be observed, the following example illustrates the strategies employed by the translator. In the Lithuanian dub, the phrase I hate dinner theatre with a kinetic context was ren-  dered literally, adding a new element at the beginning of the sentence: the element being Fui! (En. Yuck!), which is immediately followed by Nekenčiu restoraninių teatrų (En. I hate dinner theatres). The character reacts in the same way as in the original version and this reaction of anger is expressed by his bodily and facial movements that correspond with the reaction found in the original version. Therefore, kinetic synchrony is fully maintained in the case of the latter CSI and the selections of the translator's choice allowed them to achieve a high degree of faithfulness in relation to the target text.
Furthermore, lip-sync, also known as qualitative lip synchrony, is the most evident form of synchronization, which is extremely important in order to achieve a high sense of reality. The case, presented as an example in this study in relation to lip synchrony, is a culture-specific reference that belongs to the Place names category. Far Far Away is the location usually found in fairy tales for children. The character is a human being; therefore, his lip movements and the kind of vowels or consonants he articulates can be clearly seen on the screen. In the Lithuanian dub, the sentence which includes the CSI is rendered as Aš esu tikrasis Karalystės už Jūrų Marių Karalius (En. I'm the real king of the kingdom beyond the seas). The original version was I am the rightful King of Far Far Away. In the selected example, the character can be seen pronouncing the word far (fɑːr) as he articulates the phoneme of a long a (ɑ:) in the English version, which was changed into ɑ: [ˈmɑ̈ːrʲʊ] corresponding the Lithuanian long a (ɑ̈ː) that is stressed. In both versions, the phoneme matches exactly the same position of the character's lips, and the stress on the long a is distinguished at the same place. Synchronies are important in order not to break the audience's immersion in the film. It is the job of the translator to preserve them. The effects of synchrony on the audience are investigated further in the article.
With respect to synchronies and translation strategies which aim for dub localization, some answers are displayed in Table 1.
The results suggest that half (50%) of the respondents from the adult group believe that good lip synchrony is insignificant. While the other half (50%) stressed that they were negatively affected by poor lip synchrony since inadequate employment of the latter annoys or bothers them. Furthermore, the cases of isochrony found resonance in the responses of the same adult group. It should be noted that the majority of the respondents (83.3%) from the group of 33-to 48-year olds found it important for the voice of the character to be heard during the time when the lips of the character are moving. The respondents claimed that if this principle had not been preserved, the joy of watching the film would have been lost. Thus, the experience would have been unsatisfactory. Meanwhile, 16.7% of the respondents considered isochrony a technical decision. The answers are shown in Table 2.  The results obtained lead to the conclusion that it is important for the voices of the characters to be properly matched with the duration of their lip movements.

Survey Research: Presentation and Analysis of the Data
Furthermore, half of the adult respondents (50%) thought that the body movements and facial expressions of the characters should be synchronous with what they are saying since kinetic synchrony plays an important role in how the content of the film is perceived. When there is a mismatch between body movements, facial expressions and what the character is saying, the viewer may be puzzled or feel discomfort. One-third (33.3%) of the respondents presumed that kinetic synchrony is an important factor of the film.
Half (50%) of the adult respondents noted that they preferred target culture-oriented translation strategies which prioritize adaptation since they were in favour of adapted CSIs. However, nearly 16.7% of the respondents argued that the translation must not be improvised: this group supported the idea of preserving the English names. They clearly preferred a source culture-oriented translation strategy. The remaining 28.6% of the respondents failed to identify the translation strategies employed by the translator.
The respondents from the adolescent group were asked the same questions. More than half of the adolescent respondents (57.1%) noticed culture-specific items like senjorita or Kaziukas's fair. Some respondents (14.3%) claimed that culture-specific items allowed them to watch the film in full immersion. The remaining respondents (28.6%) either were not able to remember any culture-specific item or had no opinion at all.
The results with regard to lip synchrony are displayed in Table 3.
Over half of the respondents (57.1%) in the adolescent group assumed that lip synchrony had no impact on satisfaction of watching the dubbed film. However, over fourteen percent of the respondents (14.3 %) argued that poor lip synchrony had a negative effect, claiming that they were irritated when lip-movements did not match. The remaining respondents (28.6%) expressed a neutral attitude towards the preservation of lip synchrony, believing that the lack of lip synchrony in the dubbed version bothers them to the extent that makes no effect on their satisfaction with the movie.
Furthermore, almost half (42.9%) of the adolescent respondents found it important for the voices of the characters to be heard synchronously when their lip-movements were shown on the screen; they claimed that the delay between the movements and what is said should not be noticeable since otherwise they would not watch the film. Therefore, they believed that isochrony should be preserved. The results are shown in Table 4.  Almost three-fourths (71.4%) of the adolescent respondents stated that preservation of kinetic synchrony is important in animated movies that are dubbed into the Lithuanian language. On the other hand, 14.3% of the respondents expressed negative views towards kinetic synchrony, stating that it was hard to understand what is shown in the given example. While the remaining 14.3% of the respondents had neutral attitudes towards kinetic synchrony claiming that poor kinetic synchrony was not the major flaw of the dubbed film.
Nearly one-third (28.6%) of the respondents from the adolescent group stressed that they gave preference to the source culture-oriented translation strategies because they preferred the original content to remain unchanged. Another 28.6% of the respondents believed that the target culture-oriented translation strategies helped to understand the content of the film better. Finally, 42.9% assumed that the translation should be appropriate and did not prioritize either a source culture or target culture-oriented translation strategies.
Generally, it might be assumed that in the field of audiovisual translation, when dealing with dub localization, translators and dialogue writers face many issues. These appear specifically in cases of culture-specific items, their translation, and synchronies that should be preserved in the localized animated movie. Considering the relationship between CSIs and their synchrony in dub localization, it must be observed that the main issues faced by translators, while adjusting culture-specific items in relation to synchrony, are phonetic, semantic, lexical, kinetic and visual constraints, all of which require the translators to make certain choices in order to render culture-specific items appropriately in the dubbed version of the film.
The analysis of CSIs, employed in the case study of the Lithuanian dub of "Shrek the Third", demonstrates that the most common CSIs in the dubbed animated film deal with cultural heritage, traditions of the source culture and peculiarities of the target language, its nature and culture, and the utilization of specific dialects or language expressions. The study showed that in the cases when untranslated background songs are heard adolescents are able to recognize them, as well as allusions to songs by foreign singers (e.g., titles with the English songs). Meanwhile, adult respondents claimed that allusions to the Lithuanian culture and domestication would have offered better immersion and satisfaction.
It should be noted that most of the adolescent respondents preferred foreignization; meanwhile, adults viewed the changes of the content made for the target audience as a positive phenomenon. Thus, the findings also indicate that adults prefer the film, adapted to their culture, while adolescents are more open to the source culture and do not clearly support content adaptations.
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