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the CSI to be translated in the target culture. Other criteria to be considered include
the alignment with the utterances of the characters. The next section will look at the
implications of the various studies reviewed above for the methodological approach
chosen for the present study.
2.7 Implications for methodological approach
It will be clear that various authors investigating cultural differences and translation
approaches have used a range of methodological approaches. Hofstede (1973)
examined cultural differences guided by the four benchmarks of individualism, power
distance, uncertainty tolerance and masculinity. Nida examined the different features
of various texts and proposed that different texts warrant different translational
approaches depending on whether their function is mainly informative, expressive or
persuasive. This is relevant to the current study in that it will be interesting to see
whether the study can identify how the subtitle translators saw the function of the
textual discourse which was the basis for their subtitle translations, especially taking
into account that the soap opera which provided the data for this study may be said to
be a sitcom, rather than a serious informative documentary.
Taxonomies proposed by Aixelá (1996) and Davies (2003) offer a useful tool for
classifying the various translation approaches used by subtitle translators. As far as the
researcher is aware, to date, no studies have used a methodology which has combined
both Hofstede‟s use of the four benchmarks for discussing cultural differences with
translation taxonomies and tools for assessing and usefulness and efficacy of subtitle
translations as proposed by Loeb (2009). The researcher has chosen four criteria for
judging subtitles‟ effectiveness, namely, brevity, synchronisation, reliability and
efficacy, as articulated in theories proposed by Ivarson and Carroll (1998) and Driess
(1995). These criteria provide a reliable framework against which to measure the
audience‟s satisfaction with a subtitle.
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