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Article published In:
Babel
Vol. 68:1 (2022) ► pp.1–23

Going global against the tide

The translation of Chinese audiovisual productions

| University College London
| Huazhong Agricultural University

With the rapid development of digitization and the emergence of social networks and streaming platforms, audiovisual translation (AVT) has become one of the most prolific expressions of global communication in today’s society, able to overcome linguistic barriers when disseminating culture across the world. While audiovisual productions originally shot in English seem to be able to take full advantage of this situation, China’s domestic programs frequently encounter more challenges to make it overseas. Adopting a primarily translational approach, this paper borrows the concept of “cultural discount,” coined by Hoskins and Mirus (1988), to capture the notion that audiovisual productions are rooted in one culture and, therefore, may have diminished appeal among viewers from other communities. The study holds that the degree of cultural discount audiovisual productions may encounter when exported depends on numerous factors, which are explored through examples of recently localized films and TV series of Chinese origin.

Keywords: audiovisual translation, subtitling, dubbing, cultural discount, Chinese film industry
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Eyeing the global market
  • 3.Cultural discount
    • 3.1Cultural discount and audiovisual translation
  • 4.Norms
    • 4.1Preliminary norms
    • 4.2Initial norm or global translation strategy
    • 4.3Matricial norms
  • 5.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 15 February 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00255.dia
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