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Intira Bumrungsalee

PhD student in Translation Studies

 

I am a PhD student at the Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, currently writing a thesis on Audiovisual Translation. My topic is "Translating Culture in Films: Subtitling in Thailand", which looks into the translation of three different films: : Annie Hall (1977), Juno (2007), and The Iron Ladies (2000). To find out more about my research, please click here.

 

Before my years at Warwick, I obtained my BA and MA in English and English Literature from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand. After that, I spent six years working full-time at Srinakharinwirot University and Kasetsart University in Bangkok, where I taught courses in English language to undergraduate students, and I also worked as a freelance translator in my freetime. In 2009, I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship from Thai Ministry of Education to persue higher education in the UK.

 

I chose to do a PhD thesis in Audiovisual Translation for a number of reasons, one being that watching foreign films is my life-long passion and I remember someone once said that if you can turn what you love into your PhD project, you will never have to work a day in your life (which is, of course, a lie). One thing that is true, though, is that subtitles and dubbing provide us the only access to multimedia materials in the language that we do not understand. They are the tools that allow us to see through the eyes of filmmakers from around the world at their culture and their stories. And yet, the importance of Audiovisual Translation is often overlooked by film producing companies, by the audience, and until quite recently, by the academia. As we speak, a film, a television programme, a music video is being translated by someone somewhere in the world and their finished product will be viewed by thousands, if not millions. The invisible hands that produce these subtitles could belong to a professional translator experienced in the business, or a self-motivated fansubber who has received no formal training in the art. Faceless and sometimes nameless as they are, we tend to forget that these translators are humans just like us. They work under conditions and limitations. They possess their own worldview, preferences and bias, all of which are reflected in their work to a various degree. Especially when it comes to cultural transfer, their translation can be a mirror of how they view others and perhaps more importantly, how they see themselves.

 

These are the central ideas that I am trying to present in my research, using the examples of the case studies that I selected to illustrate the relationship between the the translation process and the product that happens within the cultural settings. If at the end my thesis can capture and show to you a glimpse of this big picture, this complex web of multi-layered systems in which translation is taking place, then I will consider that my job is done.

 

 

 

 

 

Intira Bumrungsalee

I dot Bumrungsalee at warwick dot ac dot uk

realessence@hotmail.com