(Global Times) Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 is scheduled to hit Chinese cinemas on Friday. The highly anticipated film is the sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy, which earned 594 million yuan ($86.1 million) at the Chinese mainland box office back in 2014.
While the first film was warmly received in China, one name associated with the film had come under fire: Jia Xiuyan, the Chinese translator of the film's subtitles. After the film released in theaters in the mainland, many Chinese moviegoers criticized her for "incorrect" or "inappropriate" translation of the English film into Chinese.
A veteran who has worked on translating subtitles for many films, including Men in Black 3, Pacific Rim and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, this is not the first time Jia has come under fire.
For someone whose job is to work behind the scenes, Jia has actually entered the spotlight on numerous occasions due to her daring translations.
In a recent interview with the Global Times, Jia revealed the inner-workings of how these subtitles get made and points out how some of the criticism aimed at her and other translators stems mainly from some misunderstandings.
Facing criticism
Only four studios in the mainland are authorized to translate foreign films shown in cinemas, the Shanghai Film Dubbing Studio, Changchun Film Studio, August First Film Studio and China Film Co Ltd.
The 30-something Jia studied Chinese in university. Later she landed a job at the August First Film Studio affiliated to the People's Liberation Army, where she has worked for more than 10 years.
While her first five years at the studio were relatively quiet, she found herself the center of controversy for the first time after she worked on the subtitles for Men in Black 3 in 2012.
For the subtitles of the film, Jia used a great deal of buzzwords that were very popular at the time in the mainland. For instance, for one scene in which the character K buys food from a street vendor, Jia used the term "gutter oil" - illicit cooking oil recycled from waste oil that was making headlines at the time - to describe that the stall was dirty.
This led to many moviegoers debating whether such adventurous translation was appropriate.
Although Jia became the target of many moviegoers' criticism, she explained that the translation on any film is actually a decision-making process involving several people, including the head of the translation team, as well as the film's original production.
According to Jia, the work flow for translating subtitles usually involves the original production company, translators, a subtitle typist and then the Chinese distributors of the film.
"The reason I could take chances with my translations was because the film's producers hope that young people could come up with a translation that was more dynamic," Jia told the Global Times, pointing out that figuring out when to stick closer to the original English and when to take chances with more "localized" translations is a challenge that all translators are confronted with.
Fortunately, her translations actually won her the approval of Chinese distributors.
Even though she was criticized by some moviegoers for the risks she took, Jia said that this approval was one of the main things that has driven her to keep taking risks.
Hurdles to translation
When it comes to films such as Guardians of the Galaxy, which are rife with sci-fi and made-up terms, many Chinese netizens criticized Jia saying a lack of knowledge led to "incorrect" translations. In Guardians, for instance, characters refer to the planet Earth as "Terra," which Jia translated to the similar sounding "telan" rather than the Chinese word for Earth, "diqiu." This led to many netizens saying that Jia must not have known that "Terra" is another word for Earth.
It's not just moviegoers who have criticized Jia.
Popular TV and film translator Gudabaihua also criticized Jia's translation of Guardians. In a blog post on Sina Weibo, he pointed out numerous places he felt Jia's translation was wrong, saying that she "surprisingly lost all the comedy from the punch lines."
"Actually it's almost impossible for us to translate something incorrectly," Jia said. This is because in addition to receiving the script to the film, the translation team also receives additional information about the background of the film's story and instructions from the director.
Returning to the Terra versus Earth debate, Jia explained that the production company gave her team clear instructions to not translate Terra as "Earth" in Chinese, since Terra is the name the aliens in the film specifically use, translating it as "Earth" would make it seem less alien.
Jia also said that sometimes production companies themselves encourage translator freedom by marking places in the script with "translator notes" that specifically point out that translators should replace a certain item in the film with something from their own culture.
Although cooperation between the production companies, distributors and translators is meant to make everyone's job easier, there are still plenty of hurdles that translators have to deal with besides the challenge different languages present.
One hurdle involves the copy of the film that the production company sends to translators. In order to prevent piracy, sometimes translators have to work with a version of the film that is in all black and white, or a copy in which everything but the character's mouths have been covered up by a black box.
With more and more audiences in China being able to understand English to a certain degree, moviegoers are becoming increasingly judgmental when it comes to translations, even if they only understand a little of the source language.
However, translation is a more difficult job than some may realize. Translators have to consider much more besides the meaning behind each line; they must also think about the length of each translated line so that it can fit on the screen, whether the words they choose will fit the movements of characters' lips, and whether some of the words are appropriate for a film that is surely to be screened in theaters where kids will be present.
"There are actually no mistakes, just different approaches when it comes to translation," Jia said.
Source: By Li Jingjing | Global Times