Mark Anthony Falzon’s article ‘Jien jisimni Bond, James Bond’ (The Sunday Times of Malta, August 17) makes some interesting points on the perception of the Maltese regarding the dubbing and subtitling of films – processes that are part of audiovisual translation (AVT).
Although I believe that AVT can be a relevant and worthwhile local industry, I share Falzon’s opinion about the translation of films in English.
Maltese society has been for decades accustomed to watching films in their English original, and the Maltese audience has learned to assimilate the culture that goes with the movies and documentaries in English.
I would rather direct AVT efforts towards films and documentaries in other languages (for instance, a German film subtitled or dubbed into Maltese).
Trying to follow an English film with Maltese subtitles can at times hinder comprehension. This is what actually happened to me when I watched Fight Club with Maltese subtitles in July 2013.
On several occasions, I found myself missing parts of the meaning of the movie because by the time I read the Maltese version, some of the English dialogue escaped me.
It also happened that chunks of the subtitles were expressed in a somewhat archaic Maltese that reminded me of Ġużè Muscat Azzopardi (from a hundred years ago). And this to me made the Maltese language of the subtitles incompatible with the 21st century culture of the film.
Translation (and AVT in particular) must consider the culture of the target audience. The selected versions have to be popular and easily understood by the target audience.
In Falzon’s example from the subtitles of Le Havre, the stretch ħoss ta’ bronja taċ-ċpar is not easy to understand, as Falzon explained, especially since a back-translation of bronja would normally give a ‘whelk’.
The term foghorn is quite common in Maltese (e.g. navigation, sports and rallies), so ħoss ta’ foghorn would have been more easily understood.