Inspired by our two favourite assassins, this week’s ATTF topic is languages. Specifically languages and how they’re portrayed in media
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I'm Malaysian, and I live in Hong Kong - both of these countries are non-English countries, so seeing the languages/dialects I speak called 'foreign' is definitely a little weird for me. English is not my native language, but as I grew up speaking English in school, and to some extent, at home, I'd consider English to be (somewhat) of a first language? (My family lives and breathes in a plethora of different dialects. It does get confusing when everyone changes every two seconds, but it also forces you to keep up with the conversation.) I learn basically everything in English anyways
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I'm here to help :D If you want to learn anything in Chinese (e.g: Mandarin, Hokkien, Cining, Cantonese) or Malay, I'll be here! My Malay isn't amazing but I can always double check with my Malay friends :))
A pet peeve of mine is when American shows (tv, movies, whatever) caption English dialogue when spoken by someone from Ireland, Scotland, or some other English speaking country because of the speaker's accent. Seriously? Are most Americans really that confused by accents? It kind of drives me nuts.
Yeah. But then again, they even translated the title of the first Harry Potter, for fear that North American audiences might not know what a "Philosopher" was. It's a criminal under-estimation of the sophistication of the reading/watching public.
They do that? Huh. To be fair, sometimes people in the UK can't follow other UK accents/dialects, but we don't get subtitles. I tried the first episode of The Wire not so long ago and I found that difficult to follow at times. But then I kinda liked that, because it embedded the story in a sense of place. Not-here place. (If that makes sense.)
Great topic!! Many different observations here, in no particular order, plus it's after midnight at the end of a 60 hour work week so I'll just list them:
1. I LOVE Hawkeye #19 and the visual absence of language. Absolutely brilliant.
2. Language and POV are closely linked. There's more to language than different tongues -- it's also got to do with class, and education, and frame of reference. One of my favourite things to do as a writer is to make sure that you can tell which characters speak by the way they express themselves. For me, Clint tends to use contractions, often speaks in monosyllables and staccato, and drops verbs ("You done with that?"), while Natasha speaks in longer, more sophisticated sentences. For Lucky, in a story where one subchapter is written in his POV (By the Book), I used repetitive imagery, trying to capture verbally the way David Aja had him think in pictures
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1. Aja was so. damn. good. at visual depiction of language and lack of language. When I reread I'm in awe all over again.
2. YES.
3. Ha, also yes. I think it's coded into Western media that German = bad guys, also Russian and that entire branch of the European language tree, but definitely German. Let's have a German SHIELD Agent or something, buck the trend!
4. This is one of the things that puts me off using other languages in fic, to be honest; lack of knowing what I'm really doing and not wanting to rely on unreliable translations. So I tend to use italics or formatting to signify when someone isn't speaking English, but I think I'd like to play around with other ways.
5. Really? Do you think that has anything to do with - to my limited, mainly sister-school of Star Trek knowledge - how American Star Trek is?
This is such a great topic! I only speak English and am super jealous of people who grew up learning two or more languages or were able to learn later on (I had five years of Spanish and remember how to count to forty-nine, ask for the bathroom, and tell people I don't speak Spanish). And I LOVE the empty speech bubbles in the Hawkeye comics - such a clever idea
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When you meet people from places like the Netherlands for example where they actually, after a certain point, can have their normal classes, like maths, science, whatever, in another language like English. And I know in other places. My mind boggles at that, having to juggle two lessons in one!
Yeah, I'm not a fan of doubling - having things in both languages. I mean, pick one? But then I do like knowing what's been said. Except for when the experience of the fic/protagonist is that I'm not meant to know what's being said. (I like lots of things *grins*)
Ooo, interesting point with Red October. I like that, like showing it's meant to be another but then...I guess that would also make an English speaking audience sympathise more with the characters and sink into the story more too.
What I loved about "Red October" was that the language turned with the one word that is the same in both English and Russian, and that defines the movie as such: "Armageddon". That was so, so clever.
And as to your approach to translation, that's what i do when I use another language. I only use languages I actually know, like German, French or a bit of Dutch, because I really don't want to use Google Translate for anything more than individual words -- it's too unreliable.
What I loved about "Red October" was that the language turned with the one word that is the same in both English and Russian, and that defines the movie as such: "Armageddon". That was so, so clever. OH. That is excellent!
Couple of thoughts for now - i'm sure I'll get more later ;)
- I much prefer subtitles to dubbing. It probably helps that I'm a fast reader, so it doesn't mean I miss parts of a film or show because i'm too busy trying to read the subtitles. But also I think it gives more of a sense of place. I get to hear what people's names and place names actually sound like, and I feel like I'm somewhere else, and I think...language feeds into culture and everything else, so it creates a different...I don't know, atmosphere, than it otherwise would.
- I recently started watching The Bridge - which, it's old now I guess but in case you haven't heard of it, is about a body found on the border (a bridge) between two European countries and the two different police forces have to work together. And interestingly it draws on social commentary for each country and difference between them. It's all in subtitles, which works. But I realised the characters are actually speaking two different - if in many ways similiar - languages and I think I'd
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Oh, oh, oh! Universal translators. You know how it's implicit in Star Trek that everyone speaks their own language and the UT takes care of the direct communication somehow? I always find it amusing, having spent a good chunk of my life hanging around the UN with a thingy in my ear, that this can be done through a badge instead of a brain implant. But, eh.
You don't read "Voyager", so I just have to tell you that I once wrote a story in that fandom where the Voyager crew meets a race that communicates biochemically, by pheromones, like ants do. And they manage to re-program their Universal Translator to include that language -- and then after they leave, the UT goes absolutely haywire on the crew, reading their pheromone emissions to each other (without them noticing, because that's how the UT works). And B'Elanna, the half-Klingon engineer, is pregnant ... Man, that was a lot of fun to write. It's called "Arachnia's Vial", a reference to a very funny episode where Janeway has to play the totally OTT holodeck character of
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Invasive surgery for communication though, seems...a bit not good. The Babel Fish in Hitchiker's Guide wierded me out enough.
Ha, oh I like that :D Yeah, I've read bits of Star Trek, but only what I can follow from having watched the new films - oh, I'm one of those people *grins* - but I like anything space-y and futuristic that takes human concepts of things like communication and says, no, now wait a minute, if an entirely different species doesn't work like that...and then culture clash.
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I'm Malaysian, and I live in Hong Kong - both of these countries are non-English countries, so seeing the languages/dialects I speak called 'foreign' is definitely a little weird for me. English is not my native language, but as I grew up speaking English in school, and to some extent, at home, I'd consider English to be (somewhat) of a first language? (My family lives and breathes in a plethora of different dialects. It does get confusing when everyone changes every two seconds, but it also forces you to keep up with the conversation.) I learn basically everything in English anyways ( ... )
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PS: Why aren't we friends yet ...? ;-)
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A pet peeve of mine is when American shows (tv, movies, whatever) caption English dialogue when spoken by someone from Ireland, Scotland, or some other English speaking country because of the speaker's accent. Seriously? Are most Americans really that confused by accents? It kind of drives me nuts.
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1. I LOVE Hawkeye #19 and the visual absence of language. Absolutely brilliant.
2. Language and POV are closely linked. There's more to language than different tongues -- it's also got to do with class, and education, and frame of reference. One of my favourite things to do as a writer is to make sure that you can tell which characters speak by the way they express themselves. For me, Clint tends to use contractions, often speaks in monosyllables and staccato, and drops verbs ("You done with that?"), while Natasha speaks in longer, more sophisticated sentences. For Lucky, in a story where one subchapter is written in his POV (By the Book), I used repetitive imagery, trying to capture verbally the way David Aja had him think in pictures ( ... )
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2. YES.
3. Ha, also yes. I think it's coded into Western media that German = bad guys, also Russian and that entire branch of the European language tree, but definitely German. Let's have a German SHIELD Agent or something, buck the trend!
4. This is one of the things that puts me off using other languages in fic, to be honest; lack of knowing what I'm really doing and not wanting to rely on unreliable translations. So I tend to use italics or formatting to signify when someone isn't speaking English, but I think I'd like to play around with other ways.
5. Really? Do you think that has anything to do with - to my limited, mainly sister-school of Star Trek knowledge - how American Star Trek is?
5b. Dubbing. Just no.
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Yeah, I'm not a fan of doubling - having things in both languages. I mean, pick one? But then I do like knowing what's been said. Except for when the experience of the fic/protagonist is that I'm not meant to know what's being said. (I like lots of things *grins*)
Ooo, interesting point with Red October. I like that, like showing it's meant to be another but then...I guess that would also make an English speaking audience sympathise more with the characters and sink into the story more too.
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And as to your approach to translation, that's what i do when I use another language. I only use languages I actually know, like German, French or a bit of Dutch, because I really don't want to use Google Translate for anything more than individual words -- it's too unreliable.
Reply
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- I much prefer subtitles to dubbing. It probably helps that I'm a fast reader, so it doesn't mean I miss parts of a film or show because i'm too busy trying to read the subtitles. But also I think it gives more of a sense of place. I get to hear what people's names and place names actually sound like, and I feel like I'm somewhere else, and I think...language feeds into culture and everything else, so it creates a different...I don't know, atmosphere, than it otherwise would.
- I recently started watching The Bridge - which, it's old now I guess but in case you haven't heard of it, is about a body found on the border (a bridge) between two European countries and the two different police forces have to work together. And interestingly it draws on social commentary for each country and difference between them. It's all in subtitles, which works. But I realised the characters are actually speaking two different - if in many ways similiar - languages and I think I'd ( ... )
Reply
You don't read "Voyager", so I just have to tell you that I once wrote a story in that fandom where the Voyager crew meets a race that communicates biochemically, by pheromones, like ants do. And they manage to re-program their Universal Translator to include that language -- and then after they leave, the UT goes absolutely haywire on the crew, reading their pheromone emissions to each other (without them noticing, because that's how the UT works). And B'Elanna, the half-Klingon engineer, is pregnant ... Man, that was a lot of fun to write. It's called "Arachnia's Vial", a reference to a very funny episode where Janeway has to play the totally OTT holodeck character of ( ... )
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Ha, oh I like that :D Yeah, I've read bits of Star Trek, but only what I can follow from having watched the new films - oh, I'm one of those people *grins* - but I like anything space-y and futuristic that takes human concepts of things like communication and says, no, now wait a minute, if an entirely different species doesn't work like that...and then culture clash.
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