字幕翻譯錯誤之文本效果探究：以電影《媽的多重宇宙》為例

Abstract

2022年4月，美國科幻電影《媽的多重宇宙》在臺灣上映，其中文字幕隨即引發網路熱議，可說是電影字幕在臺灣受到最多輿論關注的一次。許多觀眾指出，該片的中文字幕無論是風格或文義都和原文大相逕庭。然而，觀眾雖然提出了有趣的見解，卻鮮少能運用翻譯研究的理論架構，對有爭議的字幕進行系統性分析。本研究從此次字幕爭議中觀眾所觀察到的現象出發，以翻譯錯誤分析的角度切入問題，檢視《媽的多重宇宙》字幕的翻譯錯誤對電影文本的意義產生了何種影響，並聚焦於主題、寓意、主要角色等三層面，細究翻譯錯誤如何影響這三大面向的呈現效果。為達此研究目標，本研究以翻譯品質評估模型的翻譯錯誤分類法為基礎，識別中文字幕的風格錯誤和四種語意錯誤，並分析這些翻譯錯誤對電影文本的影響。研究結果顯示，翻譯錯誤影響主題和寓意的呈現，模糊了該片對網路時代的資訊超載現象、人生抉擇及親子關係等議題的觀點，甚或傳達出與原作截然不同的訊息。此外，翻譯錯誤也改寫了主要角色的情緒、性格或文化背景，進而重塑他們的人物形象。其中，語意錯誤的影響遍及主題、寓意和主要角色各層面，風格錯誤的影響則集中於主要角色之上。綜合研究結果可見，翻譯錯誤的文本效果不只侷限於單一字幕，更可能擴及電影整體的意義表現。這也證明翻譯錯誤不只是降低翻譯品質的「問題」，更具有創造意義的能力，在建構電影意義的過程中扮演要角，使電影展現出新風貌。

Inspired by the controversy surrounding the traditional Chinese subtitles of the movie Everything Everywhere All at Once, this study aims to explore the effects of translation errors on the meaning of the film. When Everything Everywhere was screened in Taiwan in 2022, its theatrical version of subtitles soon sparked heated discussion across the Internet with many viewers criticizing the subtitles for the conspicuous shifts in style and meaning. However, given these viewers’ amateur background, most of them could not describe the problematic subtitles with accurate terms or analyze the subtitles using relevant conceptualization. Against this background, this study approaches the issues from the perspective of translation error analysis by examining the translation errors in the subtitles of Everything Everywhere. This research investigates how translation errors affect the representation of the film’s meaning in terms of three dimensions: themes, messages, and key characters. To achieve this objective, this study conducts content analysis by comparing the English and Chinese subtitles to identify translation errors and classify them into stylistic errors and four types of semantic errors, using the error typologies of the FAR model and the adapted model initially developed by the American Translators Association as the theoretical framework. The results show that translation errors change the meaning of the subtitles that convey the movie’s themes and messages, obscuring the original movie’s outlook on information overload in the Internet era, life decisions, and parent-child relationship, or even presenting different perspectives. Besides, translation errors in the subtitles shift the characterization of the key characters in terms of their emotions, personalities, or cultural backgrounds. This study also reveals a distinction between semantic errors and stylistic errors in their textual effects. Semantic errors impact all three dimensions of themes, messages, and key characters. On the other hand, the influence of stylistic errors is nearly limited to the characterization of the key characters. Ultimately, this study argues that translation errors in subtitle translation can affect the film’s meaning on a larger scale than local lines. This also indicates that translation errors are more than flaws that reduce translation quality; they also play an active, productive role in the meaning-making of the film as a text.