PECULIARITIES OF SYNCHRONIC DUBBING OF ANIMATED CARTOONS (BASED ON THE REASEARCH OF THE AMERICAN ANIMATED CARTOON “THE BAD GUYS”)

Abstract

Audiovisual translation is gaining popularity thanks to a dominant number of foreign movies in the Ukrainian market which need multi-facet translation. Audiovisual translation is mainly represented by subtitles, voiceover and dubbing. The latter one is more often used for translation of animated and feature movies. Dubbing means changing of the original audio track with dialogue lines by their recording in the language of the target audience. Dubbing presupposes that audio and video of the original movie are synchronized at phonetic, temporal and notional levels. Phonetic synchronism demands that articulation movements correspond to the sounds produced by movie characters. The initial sounds are usually the most crucial as their articulation is easily observed on characters’ faces in close-up scenes. Timewise the sound track should not fall behind the video image. Temporal synchronism is provided by isochronism, that is, an equal duration of lines and pauses in the original and dubbed versions, and dramatic synchronism, the latter reflects the influence of gestures, facial expressions, movements, actions and other extralingual information in dubbing. Semantic synchronism means providing adequate translation of the notions. Dubbing of animated cartoons is characterized by relative phonetic synchrony due to vague and unclear lip movements produced by the characters. Still isochronism is necessarily observed. The strategies used for balancing the length of character’s lines are speeded syllable pronunciation or addition of syllables, though there are cases of identical number of syllables in original and dubbed dialogue lines. At the same time semantic synchronism and high-level acting are crucial for animated cartoon dubbing as children are the most demanding audience.