Research of Professors
2007
Lynne Bowker
Dr. Lynne Bowker is currently directing two major projects at the School of Translation and Interpretation. The first, funded by SSHRC and the Centre canadien de recherche sur les francophonies en milieu minoritaire (CRFM), is an investigation into the viability of using machine translation to meet some of the needs of Canadians living in official languages linguistic minority communities. The two communities under investigation are the Fransaskois (Francophones living in Saskatchewan) and the West Quebecers (Anglophones living in western Quebec). By comparing the time, cost and quality of translated, machine translated and post-edited texts of different types, this project hopes to identify areas where machine translation can offer at least a partial solution for improving linguistic services in these communities.
The second project is funded by the Centre for University Teaching. Here, Dr. Bowker is leading a team of professors and students in the development of a Translation Technology Online Tutorial Library (TTOTL). The ultimate goal of this project is to provide a means of integrating translation tools more fully into the translator training program by providing a series of resources, exercises and tutorials that can help professors, teaching assistants and students to realize the potential of including technology in a wide range of translation courses.
Luise von Flotow
Dubbing: The French of Film Translation, Dr. Luise von Flotow research project
This research project focuses on a film translation - specifically, on the double-dubbing into French in Canada and in France of the same English-language feature films. It examines the motivations and justifications for this double translation, the funding and other government or institutional interventions that support the industry, and finally, and most importantly, the product. The project takes as its base the idea that any translation is a motivated, intentional act, and is fashioned to meet the expectations of the commissioner ofthe translation, whose identity, is, in this case, not completely clear. Is it the respective government? the film distributor? Hollywood? Who influences whom, and who makes the decisions about what audiences will hear? Further, it builds on recent work in translation studies that explores how the processes around the translation of cultural artefacts (selection, translation, publishing, distribution) can be, and are, controlled for ideological, political, and/or cultural reasons that have little to do with economic or business interests that might otherwise predominate. Finally, it participates in the current surge of interest in film and audiovisual translation as a socio-cultural and political operation, which, on some fronts, has been directed toward the problem of the Americanization, i.e. globalization, of other cultures through the wholesale importation and translation of audiovisual products - Hollywood film, TV serials, and other such materials.
My project is centered first on the situation in Quebec - after 1998, the date of a governmentÂsponsored assessment of the film translation industry that advocated increased government support. It examines translations of full-length English-language feature films in order to describe in detail the quality of the language, termed 'international French' used in the translations. Second, it compares the Quebec translations to those of the same films done in France, thus examining the differences between the two versions of constructed French used by the two competing industries. It further refers to government and industry documents, on import restrictions, industry norms, funding, and legislation, to understand the intentions and supports driving the industries in the two locations.
The research is concerned with three main topics: the government and industry intentions that support the two French-language dubbing industries, the funding and other solutions available to these industries which produce an expensive and culturally extremely invasive product, and the translated language of the finished versions. Since, in Quebec, the intentions behind the industry seem to be centered on keeping English off the big screens of the province, because "on veWt s'entendre", I am interested in finding out exactly what the movie-goer hears, and how it fits with what he/she sees.
This project contributes to the advancement of knowledge about translation as a socio-political phenomenon. It treats an area that has, so far, hardly been studied: the transfer of a powerful cultural medium - English language narrative film - into two forms of the same language for distribution in two competing cultures, and where various parameters impinge on the translation: those of leisure, business, education, language control, power. The paradox of two different "international Frenches" for hundreds of American films translated in both France and Quebec is my topic.
The wider social benefits of this research concern the relationship between government sponsored or otherwise controlled language industries and their outcomes.