Dubbing the multilingual moment: Translating English-language American television shows with French into French

Abstract

Multilingual films, such as Lost in Translation (2003), have recently become a phenomenon. Various popular television series also feature an element of multilingualism in their plots. This inclusion of the cultural "other" and its language, specifically, the dubbing into French of "French situations" in American television shows, presents an interesting challenge for audiovisual translation (AVT). In my study, I begin by discussing research on multilingualism in literature, film and television. I then discuss the relevance of translation studies concepts to AVT, and apply them in examining the dubbing into French of American television shows that include situations involving the French language. I describe and analyze how this challenge has been met, where the "other" in the original is the television viewer for whom the show is translated. My work studies the many different strategies used to deal with a very specific translation problem in the field of AVT.