Education

Finnish German

Retention (complete) - 2

Substitution (situational) 4 3

Omission 1 1

Official equivalent 1 -

Table 10. Strategies in the domain Education.

The domain education featured a total of six ECRs, referring to a type of school or other concepts that are strongly connected to school and education. Situational substitution

appeared to be the most popular choice of strategy in this domain as it was used four times by the Finnish and three times by the German translator. Complete retention was used two times

in the German translation and the Finnish translator had opted for using official equivalent once. Omission was used one time by both translators.

The following example features the omission strategy in both languages. Ross is battling with his decision to cut her friendship with Rachel in order to make her wife happy and is asking for advice from his friends.

Example 38:

Phoebe: Yeah, but you've known Rachel since high school and you cannot just cut her out of your life. (Olet tuntenut Rachelin vuosia. Et voi lopettaa ystävyyttänne.) [Du kannst nicht so tun, als wäre sie nicht vorhanden.]

High school as a reference is transcultural and every audience member with some knowledge of American culture should be familiar with it. The Finnish translator has simply chosen to omit the reference to high school and has replaced it with tuntenut vuosia, which translates into “knowing her for years”. The case is not considered a situational substitution since, according to Pedersen (2011: 89), situational substitutions are used mostly in cases where the target culture does not have a similar reference which could be used instead. This is not the case here, as will be demonstrated in another example in this category where the same English reference was translated differently into Finnish. The German translator has chosen to ignore the first phrase of the sentence and has concentrated on the latter part, emphasizing the fact that Ross cannot simply ignore Rachel’s existence.

Situational substitutions were used either when the official equivalent of the reference would have seemed stiff or when the reference did not have a corresponding phenomenon in the target culture. In this example, Rachel is sure that Danny has a crush on her and has sent his friend Tom to find out more about her.

Example 39:

Rachel: Yeah, okay, at ease solider! (Selvä. Lepo, sotamies!) [Alles klar. Und nun rühren, Soldat!]

Tom: I'm sorry? (Kuinka?) [Was?]

Rachel: No, it's all right, you can just drop the act Tommy. I know what's going on here.

Your Danny's wingman right? You guys are best buds. Frat bros! (Voit lopettaa pelleilyn, tajusin juonen. Olet Dannyn puhemies. Te olette opiskelukavereita.) [Du kannst dir das Theater sparen. Ich weiss, was hier läuft. Du bist Dannys Vorbereiter, habe ich recht? Ihr

seid die besten Freunde. Ihr seid wie Brüder, oder?]

The ECR in this case, frat bros, is monocultural since the type of fraternities present in the US colleges do not exist as such in Finland or in Germany. Fraternities, or Studentenverbindung, have a long history in Germany, but its practices differ from the ones seen in, for example, American films and television produce. The Finnish translator acknowledges the fact that frat bros refers to male friends who have went to college/university together and has translated the ECR as opiskelukaverit (friends from college). Perhaps it is because of the history of

fraternities in Germany that the German translator has chosen to emphasize the brotherly quality in them, since people belonging to the same fraternity often refer to each other as

“brothers”. The skopos in this extract was to make the viewer understand that Danny and Tom are very good friends with each other and therefore Danny has been able to confide in him about his feelings for Rachel. Both translations succeed in maintaining the skopos. This is an example of how Nida’s (1989: 95) theory works in practise: the translators should always prioritize meaning in delivering the message, which has been successfully executed here.

The following example features an official equivalent and a complete retention in a way that raises some questions. Phoebe has managed to persuade Rachel to join her in a book club. For the first meeting they were supposed to read the Wuthering Heights, but Rachel comes

unprepared.

Example 40:

Rachel: So Pheebs, what is the book about? (Phoebe, mistä kirja kertoo?) [Worum geht es in dem Buch denn?]

Phoebe: I thought you said you read it in high school. (Sinähän luit sen lukiossa.) [Ich denke, du hast es auf der Highschool gelesen.]

The Finnish translation is the official equivalent of high school in the Finnish education system and, thus, a logical choice, but the German translator did not do the same. Die

Highschool is an acknowledged word in the German dictionary, but it is only used to refer to the American concept and has nothing to do with higher education in the German education system. Using it significantly foreignizes the reference and the foreign loanword appears strange in the middle of otherwise perfectly German text. The most literal translation for the type of school high school refers to in German would be gymnasiale Oberstufe, but, as

discussed in chapter 4.3.1 Constraining factors of subtitling, this does not seem to be a feasible option due to spatial constraints. The important factor here, however, is the fact that Rachel said that she has read the book and that she read it in school. It is not necessarily relevant to specify which school she was in back when she read it. This would have allowed the German translator to domesticate the text a bit more by using a situational substitution, for example.