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Discourse markers in reality TV and film dialogues : a contrastive study of you know, so, well and their French and Dutch translations in subtitles

Lefin, Benoît

(2023)

Details

Supervisors

Degand, Liesbeth

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [60] en langues et lettres modernes, orientation germaniques

Abstract

This study discusses discourse markers (DMs), which are linguistic devices that connect sentences, phrases, or words, beyond the propositional content of the communication. DMs are syntactically flexible and play a crucial role in unprepared discussions. They are present in every language, and their acquisition is crucial for native-like use and language proficiency. DMs can be removed without altering the global understanding of a sentence. However, they are essential for expressing subjectivity or interactivity during communication. This study aims to investigate the differences in the use of DMs between film dialogues and a reality TV show, the extent to which DMs are translated in subtitles, and the factors influencing the translation choices of DMs in subtitles. A secondary question investigates whether a contrastive analysis of the translations of certain DMs can reveal common patterns among different languages and shed light on translators' choices. The study hypothesises that film dialogues and reality TV shows will differ in their use of DMs due to the scripted nature of the former and the unscripted nature of the latter. The study examines the frequency and distribution of DMs in films and a reality TV show in English with French and Dutch subtitles. Two parallel subtitle corpora are used, i.e., ParTy and OPEN Subtitles. In addition to the film corpora, the study also compiled a new corpus from the reality TV show ‘Love is Blind’. The study focuses on three DMs, namely ‘you know,’ ‘so,’ and ‘well’ because they are the most frequent among other common DMs. Crible and Degand (2019) have developed a unique annotation system to analyse the values of discourse markers and is adopted for the written dialogues of films and conversations recorded in a reality TV show. The system defines fifteen different semantic functions and four pragmatic domains. In addition, the position of the discourse marker is analysed using three possibilities: first, middle or last position. It reveals that the usage of DMs differs between film dialogues and reality TV shows, and their translation in subtitles is challenging. The study also argues that a contrastive analysis of the translations of certain markers can reveal common patterns among the three languages.