EU-High-Level Scientific Conference Series MuTra 2006 – Audiovisual Translation Scenarios: Conference Proceedings © Copyright 2005-2007 by MuTra 1 Sara Ramos Pinto (Lisbon) Theatrical Texts vs Subtitling Linguistic variation in a polymedial context Contents 1 Some specifics of theatrical texts 2 Some Specifics of Subtitling 3 Linguistic varieties and their rhetoric purpose 4 Methodology of the study 5 Presence and meaning of the sub-standard variety in Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and Alan Jay Lerner's My Fair Lady 6 The target texts: normalization and innovation 7 Concluding remarks 8 References Abstract This article discusses the problem of translating into Portuguese a sub-standard variety of British English into Portuguese within a polymedial context. The discourse develops its structure according to the channel selected and, since the two main communication channels are written and spoken, it is possible to identify the written and oral modes as two distinct variations. Investigating the way in which the oral mode is represented in the written mode is of particular relevance in subtitling because the two modes appear simultaneously. Different media have different functions requiring different priorities. In the translation process the translator needs to set priorities with different types of discourse imposing different kinds of limitations. So that priorities must be set in different ways. This article will present a comparative study of three translations rendered for the purpose of theatrical performance and five translations rendered for the purpose of subtitling of Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and Alan Jay Lerner’s My Fair Lady. I will try to understand how the variable “medium” influences the translator’s decisions with respect to the kind of linguistic varieties in the translation, i.e. which limitations were found and which new opportunities opened up. 1 Some specifics of theatrical texts Following Bassnet's (1990) and Aaltonen's (2003) writings, I will consider theatrical texts as different from dramatical texts in terms of distribution as well as aesthetics and ideologies. We are faced with two different visions of theater translation, which generate two different kinds of translation in accordance with two distinct notions of performability: one is close to the text itself, another to a specific performance style of a given company (Espasa, 2000: 52). In a translation intended for performance the expectations of the audience have a great influence on the translator’s decisions, in a translation meant for publication, the gender conventions will certainly be much more important in the decisions taken by the translator. When translating or analyzing a translation rendered for theatrical performance, therefore, a number of aspects need to be taken into account as is described below.