A Study on Compensation Strategies of Subtitling Culture Bound Terms and the Intimate Register with Special Reference to Selected Sinhala Movies

Abstract

Subtitling is one of the most significant sub-disciplines of Translation, yet, it is one of the under-researched and less discussed topics that hardly appears in researches in Sri Lanka. The amalgamation of technology and art of translation have made this field more fascinating, and the researchers decided to select this topic due to the urge to pay a better consideration to this sub discipline of translation in the academic field of Sri Lanka. The primary purpose of the research is to investigate the compensation strategies employed by subtitle writers when they were subtitling intimate registers and culture bound terms in Sinhalese films to English language. As per the methodology the researchers have used seven Sinhalese films rich in culture and diverse registers and then noted down the strategies that the subtitle writers have used to make the culture bound contexts and intimate registers comprehensible to the target audience to meet their expectations. The strategies were categorised under the ‘six strategy method' of Diaz Cintas and Ramael (2007). The data analysis demonstrated that all six strategies have been used by the subtitle writers of the selected films. And they have used the strategy of transposition in most occasions. Furthermore, it was examined that subtitle writers of the selected films view cultural adaptations as the most popular strategy as it has been used in almost every selected film. As the conclusion, the research observes that subtitle writers use many compensation strategies when they confront difficulties in making culture bound terms and intimate registers appealing to the target audience.