Translating the Buffyverse: Examining French fan response to "Buffy contre les vampires"

Abstract

Fictional texts represent a particular challenge for translators due to their use of expressive language. The translation of audiovisual texts in particular is complicated by various institutional and technical constraints. As such, assessing the quality of translated televisual fiction is a complex undertaking that requires an approach more flexible than that prescribed by proponents of textual-linguistic models. This thesis looks at translation quality from another angle, that of audience reception. As a case study, this thesis investigates the reception of the French dubbed translation of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a popular American television show characterized by its frequent use of illocutionary elements, including wordplay, neologisms and cultural references. One interpretive community's response to the French dubbed translation is examined through the document analysis of a French chat room thread dedicated to the dubbed version of the show. In order to check the legitimacy of fans' claims, a translated episode of Buff the Vampire Slayer is assessed, with posters' comments informing the evaluation criteria. In particular, the target text is evaluated according to its treatment of illocutionary strategies. The results of the document analysis and the translation evaluation are compared to give a multidimensional perspective on the quality of the target text. The evaluation highlights the prevailing tendency of the target text to omit illocutionary elements in favour of neutral paraphrase, and the document analysis suggests that this tendency may in part account for the chat viewers' largely negative response to Buffy the Vampire Slayer's French dubbed translation.