PRAGMATIC-BASED DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF HARRY POTTER MOVIE

SERIES AND SUBTITLE TRANSLATION

PRESENTER: NA3C0010 劉美珍

從語用學角度分析哈利波特電影字幕翻譯

Introductions

Research question:

1. How do the dialogues in the English scripts of Harry Potter movie series make use of language to show the transformation of characters’ personalities, their social status and personal relationships, and to create the fantasy world envisioned by J.K.Rowling?

This question focused on “How” the English script to use language to recreate the world envisioned by

J.K.Rowling. (To compare English script with Novel?)

Introductions

Research question:

2. How well does the Chinese subtitle translation reproduce characters’ personal relationships, and social statuses through the use of language?

Introductions

Research question:

3. How to use pragmatic-based discourse analysis focusing on context, speaker knowledge, choice to words, presupposition, and implicature to achieve both literary analysis of movie scripts and evaluation of subtitle translation?

The author tried to analyze English movie scripts, and to evaluate Chinese subtitle translation on Pragmatic

approach. “How” seems mislead readers to think about the practical usage of Pragmatic.

1. Pragmatic perspectives on discourse analysis

1.1 ContextContext is a significant concept in pragmatics and be divided into 1.1.1 Context of situation: immediate environment in a communication event1.1.2 Context of culture: a large culture background1.1.3 Co-text

Context of situation and culture are outside of

language itself

Involved with language

itself

The comprehension of what addressees hear is determined by the context in which they are.

Literature Review

1.2 Implicature

The utterances an addresser produces cannot be understood depending on its literal meaning since they are ambiguous with possible, different meanings. One form of such utterances is referred to as implicature (Grice, 1967).

To comprehend an implicature, an addressee cannot interpret without considering context information and background knowledge shared by the addressee and the addresser.

1.3 Common ground

Knowledge can be transferred, received and shared. It is not only mental but does involve social interaction (Wodak, 2003).The knowledge based system is a cooperative action that should be proposed by both addressers and addressees.

The more common grounds that interlocutors possess, the more efficient communication will be (Stanlnaker, 1999).

1.4 Presupposition

What a speaker assumes is true or is known by the hearer (Yule, 1985).

The more common knowledge interlocutors have, the more accurate presupposition they make (Lau, Chiu and Hong, 2001)

1.5 Code switching and style variation

1.5.1 code-switching

Five functions:(1)Emphasizing the social identity of participants.(2)Moderating or emphasizing the tones of speaking.(3)Changing the social distance with other participants.(4)Showing the power relationship between participants.(5)Avoiding social taboos.

1.5 Code switching and style variation

1.5.2 style variation

Style refers to the choice of language forms associated with social meanings, which is an essential factor in an individual’s characterization.

Five style : frozen, formal, consultative, casual, intimate (Martin Joos,1972)

1.6. Translation equivalence with pragmatic perspectives

While translating dialogues, translators are first of all required to understand the social factors related to the interlocutors in ST, and then use appropriate language forms by presupposing interlocutors’ implied meaning and the condition of gained knowledge.

Methodalogy

Data collection → retrieve the subtitles of the eight episodes of Harry Potter (Subrip 1.5 & SubToSrt 3.31) → annotate the data with the help of the parser → choose out the worthy discussed examples fro the results of parse → search the Chinese subtitle translation by hand with Microsoft Word software → data analysis analyze the language use in the ST →analyze the language use in the TT → evaluate the subtitle translation → discussion and result

Reflection:

1. The author did an excellent research on Chapter Four by listing the characters’ personality, personal relationship, social status and knowledge. The author also listed the examples to support his/her opinion.

2. Due to the ambiguous of research questions, and the simplification of conclusion, his/her results seems not responded to his/her RQ.

Thank you