chinese films in spain: an overview through audiovisual ... · original films: genre 7 26% 25% 25%...

Transmedia Catalonia Research Group Departament de Traducció i Intepretació

i Estudis de l’Àsia Oriental Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Chinese films in Spain: an overview through

audiovisual translation

Helena Casas-Tost & Sara Rovira-Esteva

2017 Sino-Foreign Audiovisual Translation & Dubbing Cooperation Workshop, Shanghai, June 2017

2

§  Aprox. 500 films §  Data about:

§  Original film in Chinese §  Translation into Spanish / Catalan §  Paratexts (title, images, synopsis, etc.)

§  Difficulties obtaining reliable and complete data

Database

Original Films: geographical area

3

53% 25%

22%

Hong Kong

China

Taiwan

Original Films: language

4

0

50

100

150

200

250

Original Films: film production

5

36%

64%

Most prolific directors

Rest of directors

Original Films: Directors

6

21

13 13 12

11 11 11 10

8 7 7 7 7 7

6 6 5 5 5

Original Films: Genre

7

26%

25% 25%

10%

5% 5%

4%

Drama Martials Arts Action Comedy Other Thriller Terror

Original Films: Genre & geographical area

8

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Hong Kong China Taiwan

Action

Martials Arts

Comedy

Drama

Terror

Thriller

Other

Year of release of the original film

9

Year of release of the translated film

10

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Years between original and translation

11

0

5

10

15

20

25 19

71

1986

19

87

1992

19

93

1994

19

95

1996

19

97

1998

20

00

2000

20

01

2002

20

02

2002

20

04

2004

20

04

2005

20

05

2005

20

06

2007

20

09

2010

20

11

2013

Translations

•  Only 15% of films have been traslated directly from Chinese

•  Source language: Chinese dialects

•  English transaltion provided

•  Does it affect translation quality?

12

Translation modality

13

0

50

100

150

200

250

dubbed subtitled both Unkown

Concluding remarks

14

1.  Predominance of HK films. 2.  Source language: Mandarin, followed by

Cantonese. 3.  1/3 of films correspond only to 20 directors. 4.  Predominance of dubbing over subtitling. 5.  Predominance of mediated translations. 6.  Tendency to reduce time span between

original release of films in China and Spain.

Future lines of research

15

1.  To update and complete the database 2.  Role of film festivals and awards 3.  Channels of distribution 4.  Audience profiles interested in Chinese films

Helena.Casas@uab.cat http://gent.uab.cat/helena_casas_tost/es

Sara.Rovira@uab.cat

http://www.fti.uab.es/srovira/personal

@TransmediaCat 16

谢谢！