Subtitle Translation Errors in There Will Be Blood Film: A Corpus-Based Study

Abstract

Subtitles play a vital role in assisting audiences to understand foreign-language films and access their cultural content. Despite the growing interest in audiovisual translation, studies investigating translation errors in Indonesian subtitles using the updated American Translators’ Association (ATA) Framework remain under-explored. This study aims to investigate the types of translation errors in Indonesian subtitles of the There Will Be Blood film using ATA Framework version 2022. Employing a qualitative descriptive method, this corpus-based study identified and categorized errors into five types, namely faithfulness, literalness, terminology, omission, and misunderstanding. The data consisted of subtitle transcripts of the film in English and Indonesian languages. The data collection involved watching the film with subtitles, identifying errors, and categorizing subtitles according to the ATA framework. The data were analyzed through a content analysis. Findings revealed that faithfulness errors were the most prevalent. These errors often resulted from translators failing to preserve the original context and meaning significantly altering the narrative. Literalness errors, resulting from overly direct translations, ignored idiomatic expressions and cultural nuances leading to awkward and unnatural dialogue. Terminology errors occurred due to incorrect translations of industry-specific terms. Omission and misunderstanding errors, though less frequent, also impacted on the narrative's integrity. The study concludes that a deep understanding of both source and target languages and cultural contexts is essential for improving subtitle accuracy and audience's understanding of the film.