Surtitling for Mandarin theatre : a user-centred approach to translating Singlish

Surtitling is a relatively new field in translation studies with little to no previous research done in Singapore. The increasing use of surtitles worldwide, coupled with declining standards of mother tongue language in Singapore, meant that its use in the local theatre scene, especially in non-Engl...

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Main Author: Lin, Hui
Other Authors: Arista Kuo
Format: Thesis-Master by Coursework
Language:English
Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/142686
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1426862020-06-26T08:21:19Z Surtitling for Mandarin theatre : a user-centred approach to translating Singlish Lin, Hui Arista Kuo School of Humanities sykuo@ntu.edu.sg Humanities::Linguistics Surtitling is a relatively new field in translation studies with little to no previous research done in Singapore. The increasing use of surtitles worldwide, coupled with declining standards of mother tongue language in Singapore, meant that its use in the local theatre scene, especially in non-English theatre performances, is gaining popularity and importance. Singlish, being quintessentially Singaporean, is being used with increasing fervour in plays that are set locally. However, it poses a challenge to surtitle translators in deciding to what strategies to employ to best conduct this transfer of language and culture. There is a constant tug-o-war between preserving the Singlish flavour in the surtitles and risking alienating members of audience who might not be attuned to the specific culture, or neutralizing the Singlishness in the surtitles and providing a culturally neutral version of the show. This paper seeks to take a user-centred approach to understanding the preferences of the audience through conducting a survey, in hope that it can serve as a guide for Singlish surtitle translation. Data collected from an online survey did not point to any clear consensus on whether Singlish or standard English is preferred in translating local Mandarin plays that contain Singlish. However, surtitles in standard English scored better in overall usability, especially in the areas of readability and comprehensibility, and hence is the recommended approach. Master of Arts (Translation and Interpretation) 2020-06-26T08:21:19Z 2020-06-26T08:21:19Z 2018 Thesis-Master by Coursework https://hdl.handle.net/10356/142686 en application/pdf Nanyang Technological University
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
country Singapore
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Humanities::Linguistics
spellingShingle Humanities::Linguistics
Lin, Hui
Surtitling for Mandarin theatre : a user-centred approach to translating Singlish
description Surtitling is a relatively new field in translation studies with little to no previous research done in Singapore. The increasing use of surtitles worldwide, coupled with declining standards of mother tongue language in Singapore, meant that its use in the local theatre scene, especially in non-English theatre performances, is gaining popularity and importance. Singlish, being quintessentially Singaporean, is being used with increasing fervour in plays that are set locally. However, it poses a challenge to surtitle translators in deciding to what strategies to employ to best conduct this transfer of language and culture. There is a constant tug-o-war between preserving the Singlish flavour in the surtitles and risking alienating members of audience who might not be attuned to the specific culture, or neutralizing the Singlishness in the surtitles and providing a culturally neutral version of the show. This paper seeks to take a user-centred approach to understanding the preferences of the audience through conducting a survey, in hope that it can serve as a guide for Singlish surtitle translation. Data collected from an online survey did not point to any clear consensus on whether Singlish or standard English is preferred in translating local Mandarin plays that contain Singlish. However, surtitles in standard English scored better in overall usability, especially in the areas of readability and comprehensibility, and hence is the recommended approach.
author2 Arista Kuo
author_facet Arista Kuo
Lin, Hui
format Thesis-Master by Coursework
author Lin, Hui
author_sort Lin, Hui
title Surtitling for Mandarin theatre : a user-centred approach to translating Singlish
title_short Surtitling for Mandarin theatre : a user-centred approach to translating Singlish
title_full Surtitling for Mandarin theatre : a user-centred approach to translating Singlish
title_fullStr Surtitling for Mandarin theatre : a user-centred approach to translating Singlish
title_full_unstemmed Surtitling for Mandarin theatre : a user-centred approach to translating Singlish
title_sort surtitling for mandarin theatre : a user-centred approach to translating singlish
publisher Nanyang Technological University
publishDate 2020
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/142686
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