Translating AV Health Communication The Three Amigos and beyond

Translating AV Health Communication

The Three Amigos

and beyond

AV Translation

• 1. Film translation : from talkies (1930s) onward• - dubbing/synchronization (Chaume/Spain; Gambier/Finland)• - subtitling (Diaz-Cintas/UK)• - oral translation/ Japan (1940s/50s: Nornes/USA) and Soviet

Union/East Bloc

• 2. Documentaries , TV, Interviews, Cartoons:• - voice-over (York/Canada)

• 3. Accessibility: Blind and Hard-of-hearing• - audiodescription (Benecke/Germany)• - close captioning

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Work pending…

• - Company videos: International firms such as McDonald’s, IBM, Siemens

• - Promotional Videos:

• - Music Videos:

• - Fansubbing:

• - Health Communications:


Studying ‘international’ PSAs

• Public Service Announcements:• - on health issues – cancer risks, SARS, West Nile virus• - behavioural issues – smoking, drinking and driving,

compulsive gambling, unprotected sex • - issued by governments, or• - NGOs and other private sector interests• History:• - first used as war propaganda in WWII• - also by certain religious groups over 20th C USA• Purpose:• - to raise public awareness • - change people`s attitudes and behaviour


PSAs in the media

• Close ties to the media – often radio and television – but also public information noticeboards, screens at bus stops, tram stops, in public transport stations;

• - the media disseminates (not without risk),

• - thereby also fulfilling requirements for “broadcasting in the public interest”, i.e. Canadian Broadcasting Act: Para 3. states:

• the programming provided by the Canadian broadcasting system should […]

• (iii) include educational and community programs […]


PSAs as Health and Risk Communication

• PSAs are part of larger ”Health and Risk Communication”

• Communications approaches:• - identifying the issues• - planning how to deal with them• - taking action• - monitoring results• - managing external (often media) relations.

• Most important: defining the audience and communicating WITH rather than AT them. (Bennett et al., 1999)


Challenges/Solutions

• - often a paternalistic tone where those who ‘know’ disseminate the right message for the masses;

• - masses regarded as ‘ apathetic or ignorant, resistant to change, “hard to reach” (Camacho, et al. 2005).

• - Such attitudes/perceptions reproduce and reinforce social inequities…

• - Can be mitigated through ‘communities direct involvement in mutual exchange of information” (Camacho et al. 2005) – i.e. local focus (localization?), collaborative community efforts, etc.


Communicating WITH people and not AT them

• reach people on an emotional level as well as a rational level

• relate to people’s social or ‘life’ contexts

• tailor communications for effective, specific messages rather than generic messages (Diane Berry, 2004, 74)


The Three Amigos as Health Communication

• - the issue: promote condom use worldwide to curtail the spread of HIV AIDS; i.e. raise awareness, change attitudes and behaviours in an area that “has been plagued by silence … and is a huge communication problem” (Kharas 2007)

• - the plan: create and disseminate a series of 15, 30 or 60 second spots, using animation and humour – for broadcast on TV, in schools, public transport, hospitals, barracks, etc.

• - the action: joint project between an international team: South African designer, a Canadian producer and Indian animators; and hundreds of amateur translators and voice-over speakers in Ottawa. Massive distribution from December 1, 2003.


The Three Amigos

• - the audience: 15-24 year-olds (worldwide), some of the most endangered in regard to HIV Aids infection;

• - communication strategy : to communicate WITH young people on very touchy, culturally complicated, and deadly topic:

• Animation • Humour • Repetition• Translation (for worldwide distribution) • See CD


Humour in Three Amigos

• - sexual allusions and innuendo

• - wordplay that references local slang and implies complicity

• - situational humour: involves wordplay and innuendo

• - self-deprecation: carried by language, comments, remarks, etc.

• - gender????


Theoretical Bases

• Recap: to help the world’s disenfranchized, to address a major health crisis:

• - use children’s animation• - thereby escape real-life images• - and real censorship• - cartoons are more universal• - these messages can travel

• Use abstractions to address the ‘universal,’ the ‘non-national,’ and simply adapt linguistically to specific locales.


Questions:

• Are standardized images as strong as the details of language???

• Check the translations: • 1. Three Amigos: German/other

• 2. Buzz and Bite: English – and others? (cf. 15 dialects from Mozambique)

• 3. No Excuses: English – and others? • http://www.noexcusescampaign.org/• 4. Other ‘public health’ text: Our Bodies, Ourselves


http://www.noexcusescampaign.org/



Three Amigos: Translating Humour and Wordplay

• Anyone can get burnt. • Jeder kann sich verbrennen; Tout le monde peut se faire brûler.

• Better keep on trucking. Don`t get too friendly with the locals. • Lass uns weiterfahren. Il vaut mieux continuer la route.

• No condom. No blast off. Untranslated in German and French.

• You just can`t score without a condom. • Kein Kondom, kein Treffer; Sans capote vous ne pouvez pas

marquer le but.


Humour 2

• Dynamite comes in small packages. Don`t play with fire. • Je kleiner desto gemeiner; Le bon vin vient dans les petites

bouteilles

• It`s a jungle out there. • Da draussen ist es wie im Dschungel. C’est la jungle.

• Get lucky. Watch me blow. Don`t blow it. Untranslated in German and French.

• Aren`t we supposed to rise to the occasion? I can`t get it up! Untranslated in German and French.


Translation Problems: Three Amigos

• - often wan, un-energetic text• - humourless, dry language• - very little wordplay retained.• - 3/8 not-translated at all.

• WHY?• - lack of funding (promoting abstinence over technical

prevention) – no one source text/culture promotion;• - translators are amateurs and volunteers;• - sexual terms, topics, innuendo;• - wordplay!


No Excuses: to prevent domestic violence• Another type of discourse:

• Black humour;

• Focus on situations, not linguistic finesse;

• Different, but clearly trans-national, audience?

• Again: universal, trans-national communication where the source text is tailored (?) for translation, with translation in mind.


Translating AV Health Communication The Three Amigos and beyond

Documents

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