Interlingual Subtitling of Ethno/Cultural Representation in Selected Episodes of Yahya and Kunooz Animated TV Series (2022)

Abstract

The present study examines Audiovisual Translation (AVT) strategies in selected episodes of Yahya and Kunooz animated TV Series (2022). AVT is quite a unique sub-discipline of Translation Studies (TS) due to its polysemiotic nature in which it functions on verbal, acoustic and visual levels. Within this rationale, the study conducts an interrogation of the verbal auditory or acoustic channel, the non-verbal auditory channel, the verbal visual channel, e.g. written signs on the screen and the non-verbal visual channel. As such, the aim of the study is to scrutinize the constraints and challenges that the AVT translators face during the subtitling process within the paradigm of translation strategies. The present study is carried out within the boundaries of the target-oriented approach developed by Gideon Toury and the foreignization/domestication approaches developed by Lawrence Venuti to interrogate culture-bound characteristics. Foreignization as a translation strategy seems principally appropriate for a historical and cultural text to recreate the source text in target language in such a way that the reader or the audience would feel the cultural effect of the source text. The contribution of the research is hopefully twofold. One, it is the first-ever study of Yahay and Kunooz Series in the academia; the other, this study incites further studies in the future to develop a comprehensive and sound-based theoretical frame for AVT.