Perlustrating Otherness in Cartoons Dubbing: Masha and the Bear as a Case Study

Abstract

Children’s cartoons and films are often dubbed for obvious reasons that children find reading subtitles a challenging process in a film. This study investigated the issue of Otherness and the strategies of its audiovisual translation in the Arabic dubbed version of Masha and the Bear, a Russian cartoon film. The study examined the orientation of three elements of Audiovisual Translation (AVT): the verbal, the para-verbal and the non-verbal. In the context of Masha and the Bear, the comparative analysis of selected dubbed episodes confirmed the three orientations and showed that the strategies most often used by the translator are paraphrase, substitution and generalization. . The results of the study suggest that the challenge mainly lies in the dilemma of meeting the audience’s expectations without altering deeply the specificity of the Source Text (ST). They also show that in most cases the translator domesticated the SL product to meet the cultural values of the audience. This study also uncovered a few challenges posed by the rendering of otherness represented in cartoons, and accordingly understood how the translator coped with this aspect in the given multiple semiotic systems interacting in the cartoons. As cartoons play a major role in children’s life and education, this study would develop increasing interests in translation of cartoons through dubbing and promote the local culture and ensure a higher degree of acceptability by the target viewer.