E-ging Solutions is a world-leading Shanghai translation company with specialties in screenplays translation.
It would be tempting to viewscreenplay translation as a sub-genreof literary translation. After all, manyscreenplays are based on novels, are usually designed to tell a story, and contain dialogue, descriptions, and even poetic language—all of which are commonly found in novels.
However, there are several aspects that distinguish a screenplay from a literary work and that have a bearing on its translation, both on the overall approach the translator needs to take and on specific translation choices.
In contrast to a novel, which is written to be enjoyed by the reader (the end user), a screenplay is the blueprint for a film, and its translation will, either immediately or after additional editing or rewriting, be retranslated, or to some degree interpreted,by the creative personnel involved in making the film. Thus, the translated screenplay is not only a target text,but simultaneously becomes a source text for this retranslation into the audiovisual medium. Like the screenwriter who uses the most precise language available to him or her to guide the future interpretation of the screenplay, the translator should create a precisely written source text so that it reflects as closely as possible the totality of the screenwriter’s intentions. And these intentions can only be understood by the translator through an awareness of the underlying dramatic structure of the work—character, plot and genre, audiovisual elements, and even, at times, psychology.
