A Cultural-Discourse Perspective through the Strategies of Subtitling of American Films from English into Persian A case study of subtitling friends series

• Main Authors: Amirdabbaghian, Amin, Ibrahimi, Yousef Pour
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2014
• Subjects: Communication. Mass media; PE English; PK Indo-Iranian; PN0080 Criticism; PR English literature; PS American literature
• Online Access: http://eprints.um.edu.my/20249/1/IJASHSS-2014-V2-05.pdf; http://eprints.um.edu.my/20249/; http://www.ijashss.com/upload/IJASHSS-2014-V2-05.pdf
• Institution: Universiti Malaya

The research is based on the analysis of the American television series named Friends with the focus on the CSIs (Culture Specific Items) and how these differences have been handled by Persian translators who produced the subtitles. The analysis was based on the assumption that Iranian's culture is different from the US culture so people in these two countries may have problems in understanding CSIs if they are translated literally and if the subtitle translation is not adapted to the target audience. The research looked at the way subtitle translators involved with subtitling the American television series Friends had dealt with CSIs in when translating oral discourse into Persian. The 1main objective of this study has been to analyze different translation choices which are currently used by the translators in questions, dealing with CSIs where cultural differences between Iran and the US arise. The researcher has provided some questionnaires among university students of this field, some of the students were B.A. students of translation studies and some other were M.A. Students of linguistics. The research discovered that in the translation of CSIs, Synonymy and Naturalization are the most frequent strategies which are used and performed well, succeeding to help the Iranian audience to comprehend the cultural connotations associated with the CSIs. Also, the research discovered that high efficacy is obtained in translation.