Modulation Technique in the Translation of Forrest Gump:

A Multimodal Approach of English-Indonesian Subtitles

Ichwan Suyudi

, M. R. Nababan

, Riyadi Santoso

, Djatmika

Student of Linguistics Department, Post Graduate Program, SebelasMaret University, Surakarta, Indonesia

Linguistics Department, Post Graduate Program, SebelasMaret University, Surakarta, Indonesia

Keywords: Modulation Technique, Multimodal Approach, Subtitles

Abstract: This paper investigates how the multi-modes influence the modulation technique employed by the translator

in rendering the message in the subtitle of Forrest Gump from English into Indonesian Language.

Employing modulation technique means shifting in cognitive categories. Multi-modes are inevitably found

in the audio-visual translation and they should be taken into account by the translator. The results indicate

that 131 (2.29%) out of 5.717 data are translated using modulation technique. From the analysis, this can be

concluded that multi-modes influence the translator to make a decision to make the target viewers

understand the message. Thus, the subtitle is understandable by the viewers of the target language. It can be

seen that the most expressions translated using modulation technique reach optimum translation.

1 INTRODUCTION

Discussing film subtitles has become interesting

phenomenon in the audio-visual translation in

Indonesia. This is because most of films in Indonesia

are subtitled, while some are dubbed especially films

for children. Indonesia belongs to the six largest

market of Hollywood films after China, Japan, India,

South Korea, and Taiwan, based on the data from

Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Cintas (2003) stated that subtitling has become one

of the modes in the translation that has undergone

greatest growth. In addition, subtitling is visual that

involves the super imposition of a written text onto

the screen (Baker & Malmkjær, 1998). The

captioning of dialogues or narration on-screen has a

great role in attracting a huge mass of audience, not

only for films, but also video games, documentary

films and television programs.

In the translation of audiovisual products such as

subtitle, there are multiple semiotic modes, such as

such as gesture, gaze, proximics, dress, visual and

aural art, image-text relation and page-layout,

cinematographic and sound design and production

resources that give shapes to the film text and the

subtitled film text (Chuang, 2006; O’Halloran and

Smith, 2012). Modes found in the scene should be

integrated with the verbal utterances by the

translator in order that the message between the

source and target text have wholeness of equivalent

relationships.

Translator often uses the technique to render the

messages to the target language by shifting the

cognitive categories or changing the point of view

which is called modulation technique (Molina and

Hurtado Albir, 2002; Vinay and Darbelnet, 1995).

The modulation technique will become more

challenging when used in audio-visual media,

because the images will inevitably affect the results

of the translation. Audio-visual contains non-verbal

text.

Previous research related to modulation

technique was done by Malenova (2015) and

Pamungkas (2017) who discussed modulation

techniques in subtitle film. Others have been done

by Reiss (2015) and Delzendehrooya & Karimnia

(2013) that investigated the written text. They have

almost the same conclusion that the different

expression in the target language due to the

translators' own style and perspective which lead to

the changes in semantics and points of view.

Therefore modulation technique will result in

Suyudi, I., Nababan, M., Santoso, R. and Djatmika, .

Modulation Technique in the Translation of Forrest Gump: A Multimodal Approach of English-Indonesian Subtitles.

DOI: 10.5220/0008220500002284

In Proceedings of the 1st Bandung English Language Teaching International Conference (BELTIC 2018) - Developing ELT in the 21st Century, pages 107-113

ISBN: 978-989-758-416-9

107

different linguistic representations for different

translators.

They also state that modulation produces a

translation that enables the target viewers to have

better understanding. Accordingly, the topic of

modulation technique is still worth investigating as it

needs attention from the different sides of the

researchers. More importantly, a further study on the

modulation technique and interplay the translation

need to be investigated. Hence, in this study, there

are two folds that will be taken into account; the

modulation itself and the multi-modes which

influence the decision making in the translation

process.

Forrest Gump is interesting to be analyzed for

there are intertextualities found in this film.

Therefore some non-verbal texts must be taken into

account by translator in the subtitle. The non-verbal

auditory texts include music, natural sound and

sound effects, gestures, facial expression, and body

movements that will bring effect in the translation of

the verbal texts (Chiaro, 2009; Gottlieb, 2009)

This study aims to investigate the modulation

technique employed by the translator in the

Indonesian subtitled version of Forrest Gump and

how multi-modes provide information to the

translator in rendering the message from the English

source text of Forrest Gump to the Indonesian target

text.

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

In audio-visual translation, the word subtitling is

defined as the rendering of the verbal message in

filmic media in a different language, it usually

consists of one or two lines written text and it can be

visually synchronized with the original verbal text in

the form of one or two lines of written text (Gottlieb,

2009)

According to Molina and Albir (2002), one of

the translation techniques used in rendering the

message is modulation. Modulation is a basic

technique for translation that aims at simplifying the

text for subtitles. Hoof (1989) states that modulation

is like transposition at the global level: changing

categories of thought, not grammatical categories.

It refers to presenting the situation from a

different perspective. It should be noticed that the

sentence is represented with a different perspective,

but the meaning remains the same. It is a technique

in the translation to change the point of view,

cognitive category from the source text into the

target text; it can be lexical or structural, e.g., to

translate “Don’t’ litter,” instead of, “Jagalah

kebersihan! (Keep clean!)”. In SCFA, such kind of

technique is called acceptation (Molina & Hurtado

Albir, 2002). The cognitive categories in modulation

technique include the changes from abstract message

in the source text into concrete message in the target

text. Other types cover cause for effect, means for

result, a part for the whole, negated contrary or

positive for double negative, reversal of terms,

active for passive and vice versa,

space for time, intervals and limits, change of

symbols (Vinay & Darbelnet, 1995).

Subtitle as one kind of AVT products has a close

relation with multi-modes found on the screen. The

concept of “multimodality” is important for the

multimodal communication; that is, the multiple

modes of representation hugely affects in the

meaning making process (Kress, 2005; Kress & Van

Leeuwen, 1996). Therefore, a translator needs to

have a semiotic understanding for all signs in the

images carrying meanings. Mass-produced images,

now as readily available as printed or electronic

words, present translators with a new challenge: to

rethink the relationship between word and image

(Gambier and Gottlieb, 2001).

Using multimodal approach, modes work

individually and collectively at the same time. This

means “modes produce meaning in themselves and

through their intersection or interaction with each

other” (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001). Furthermore,

the nature of audiovisual text is multi-coded in

which it contains verbal and nonverbal channel, such

as image, musicm sounds, noises which create a

coherent unity to make a viewer-friendly product.

(Malenova, 2015).

Individual texts use ‘different sign systems’, the

overall multimodal newscast is also multisemiotic,

therefore the connection and interaction between the

various semiotic texts is also called inter-semiotic

translation (Desjardins, 2008).

In addition, Chuang (2006) states that all modes

produce meanings through their interaction with

each other in the communicative context. The kinds

of modes that should be considered are two types,

namely visual modes which include scenery,

lighting, costumes, properties, gestures, facial

expressions, body movement, and audio modes

which include music, background noise, sound

effects, laughter, crying, humming, body sounds.

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3 METHOD

This study employs the qualitative method in the

analysis of the translation techniques of utterances

from English into Indonesian. The expressed content

is analyzed in terms of the translation techniques

used and how multi-modes are integrated by the

translator in rendering the message.

For the analysis, the data were collected from the

utterances of Forrest Gump movie (1994). From

these utterances, the data analyzed amounted to

5,717 in the form of words, phrases, or clauses.

After collecting the data, the techniques of

translation were identified using the translation

technique categories.

After collecting the data, the techniques of

translation were identified using the translation

technique categories from Molina and Albir (2002),

Newmark (1988), and Baker (1998). The analysis

found there are 131 (2.29%) out of 5.717 data were

translated using modulation technique. Other

techniques are not discussed in this paper.

Multimodal approach is used to analyze the

modulation technique as the main topic in this paper.

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This paper discusses only modulation technique

employed by the translator in the translation of

Forrest Gump. The data can be in the forms of

words, phrases, or clauses. From the data analysis,

the techniques found are: established equivalent

3,107 (54.35%), variation 952 (16.65%), loan 481

(8.41%), reduction 301 (5.26%), deletion 171

(2.99%), modulation 131(2.29%), amplification 114

(1.99%), implicitation 84 (1.47%), transposition 83

(1.45%), generalization 72 (1.26%), discursive

creations 71 (1.24%), Literal 70 (1.22%),

adaptation 54 (0.94%), particularization 15 (0.26%),

compensation 5 (0.09%), calque 4 (0.07%), and

linguistic compression 2 (0.03%). There is no

description technique employed by the translator in

this movie. The result of the present research

showed that the translator of Forrest Gump has

employed different techniques to render the

utterances of the source text into the target text.

The main focus of this study is on the

modulation technique. By employing this technique,

it means the translator uses a phrase or sentence that

is different in the source and target languages to

convey the same idea. Modulation gives access to

the translator to render the source text into the target

text in different points of view without changing the

meaning and the message in the target viewers and

target readers.

The investigation revealed that there are 131

(2.29%) out of 5.717 data are translated using

modulation technique. The followings are the

samples of the data which are translated using the

modulation technique under multimodal approach in

Forrest Gump. More samples cannot be presented

here due to limited space.

In this present study, the writer employs

Multimodal Transcription (MT) as suggested by

Taylor (2013) by describing verbal texts (acoustic

and visual) and non-verbal texts (acoustic and

visual) that should be taken into account in

multimodal analysis (Chiaro, 2009).

Sample 1

Figure 1: Multimodal transcription of sample 1.

The conversation takes place when Forrest Gump

telling that he is the owner of the Bubba-Gump

Shrimp Corporation to a man and woman who are

sitting at the bus stop waiting for the bus. The man

does not believe that Forrest Gump is the owner of

the Bubba-Gump Shrimp Corporation so he asks

cynically "Are you telling me you're the owner of the

Bubba-Gump Shrimp Corporation?" Even then the

man laughs and leaves them by saying "Boy, I heard

some whoppers in my time, but that tops them all."

This shows that he still does not believe in Forrest

Gump's success story and it is considered as a boast.

The focus of the discussion from this sample is on

the clause "…, but that tops them all" which is

translated into Indonesian "…, tapi yang barusan itu

paling atas (but that was just the top)."

The translator employs the modulation technique

in translating this utterance to render something

abstract into concrete, so the idiom "…, that tops

them all" is translated into “…yang barusan itu

paling atas (but that was just the top)” which is

more understandable to the target viewers. Non-

verbal text that helps translators in making decisions

in choosing the equivalent is the body movement of

the man.

The clause "…, but that tops them all" if

translated literally into Indonesian would be "

namun itu paling atas dari semuanya (but above

Modulation Technique in the Translation of Forrest Gump: A Multimodal Approach of English-Indonesian Subtitles

109

all)." This clause is certainly confusing to the target

viewers. Using modulation technique, the translator

renders the message into ""…, tapi yang barusan itu

paling atas (but that was just the top)" in which

"barusan (just)" means "the story about the success

of Forrest Gump." This message is easily understood

in the target language. Modulation refers to

presenting the situation from a different perspective.

It should be noticed that the sentence is represented

with a different perspective, but the meaning

remains the same.

Nonverbal texts or modes that shape the context

in this sample are: laughing, body movement, and

voice tone.

Sample 2

Figure 2: Multimodal transcription of sample 2.

The translator employed the modulation

technique by phrasing the word "awake" into "tak

bisa tidur (unable to sleep). "Tak bisa tidur (unable

to sleep)" is chosen because the modes that

accompanied the verbal texts showed Forrest Gump

moving toward the window while calling 911. He

also pointed that there were two persons across his

apartment lighting a flashlight towards his

apartment. The light made Forrest Gump unable to

sleep. The word "awake" has several equivalents.

The translator should choose the accurate equivalent

based on the context. Scene, sounds, and facial

expression will form the context that the translator

needs to consider. So in this context, the word

"awake" is not readable if it is translated into

"bangun (wake up)" or "terjaga (wake up)." This is

because the frame shows that Forrest Gump has not

slept yet. Employing the modulation technique, the

translator renders the word "awake" into "tidak bisa

tidur (unable to sleep)" because the accompanying

modes showed the body movement of Forrest Gump

that was annoyed by the light of the flashlight. The

point of view translator changes from positive into

negative. Also, the cognitive category changes from

abstract into concrete.

In this sample, the nonverbal texts or modes that

shape the context are body movement and lighting.

Sample 3:

Figure 3: Multimodal transcription of sample 3.

The translator applied the modulation technique

by phrasing the sentence "my unit is down hard" into

"Mereka mengalahkan kami banyak” (They bore

down all of us). "Mereka mengalahkan kami

banyak" is chosen because the modes that

accompanied the verbal texts showed several armies

burned and died at the same time by a massive

attack right in front of the Lieutenant. Besides, only

few of his people were left to fight for the war. The

sentence "my unit is down hard" has several

equivalents. The translator should choose the

accurate equivalent based on the context. Scene,

sounds, and facial expression will form the context

that the translator needs to consider. So in this

context, the sentence "my unit is down hard" is not

readable if it is translated into "pasukanku

berguguran (My troop were burn down)". This is

because the frame shows that they (the armies) were

being attacked unexpectedly at the same time, not

one by one even before they tried to use their gun to

attack the enemy. Employing the modulation

technique, the translator renders the sentence "my

unit is down hard" into "Mereka mengalahkan kami

banyak (They bore down all of us)" because the

accompanying modes showed a number of armies in

a confused situation and straightly being attacked by

enemies. The point of view translator changes from

the first speaker into the second speaker in the target

language by employing pronoun “Mereka (they)”

which means the enemies. Also, the cognitive

category changes from part to the whole.

In this sentence, the nonverbal texts or modes

that shape the context is an unexpected massive

burning.

Sample 4:

Figure 4: Multimodal transcription of sample 4.

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The translator employed the modulation

technique by phrasing the word "showed" into

"mengajak (invite)”. "Mengajak (invite)" is chosen

because the modes that accompanied the verbal texts

showed Jenny accompanied Forrest Gump head

around her new place. She was not only show

several rooms and people to Forrest, but she also ask

her friends to communicate with Forrest. The word

"showed" has several equivalents. The translator

should choose the accurate equivalent based on the

context. Scene, sounds, and facial expression will

form the context that the translator needs to

consider. So in this context, the word "showed" is

not appropriate if it is translated into "menunjukkan

(display)" or "memperlihatkan (demonstrate)." This

is because the frame shows that Forrest Gump talks

to Jenny’s friends and Jenny also interacts to

Forrest’s friends. Employing the modulation

technique, the translator renders the word "showed"

into "mengajak (invite)" because the accompanying

modes showed the interaction between the two of

them with each their friends. The point of view

translator changes from the first speaker into the

second speaker in the target language.The cognitive

category changes from abstract into concrete.

In this scene, the nonverbal texts or modes that

shape the context are interaction, body movement

and communication.

Sample 5:

Figure 5: Multimodal transcription of sample 5.

The translator applied the modulation technique

by phrasing the expression "that’s so right on," into

"Kau langsung ke inti (straight to the point). "Kau

langsung ke inti (straight to the point)” is chosen

because the modes that accompanied the verbal texts

showed that by the time Forrest Gump gave a speech

in front of the masses, an officer plugged off the

speaker so that everybody could not hear Forrest’s

speech about the war in Vietnam. On the other hand,

somebody tried to catch the culprit, hit him on the

face, and tried to fix the mess he caused. When they

fixed the mess, Forrest was finishing his words by

saying,”...and that’s all I have to say about that.”

Indiectly, the frame shows the context of war in

Vietnam is like an incident happened when Forrest

was going to give a speech, but he remained calm. It

means nothing to say about the war and it can be

straightly seen from the scene next to Forrest. The

expression "that’s so right on" has a number of

equivalents. The translator should choose the

accurate equivalent based on the context. Scene,

sounds, and facial expression will form the context

that the translator needs to consider. Hence, in this

context, the expression "that’s so right on" is not

readable if it is translated into "Kau sangat benar (so

true)" or "Kau sangat kanan (right side)." This is

because the frame shows that Forrest Gump was

going to give a speech about the war in Vietnam

where he was there and fight for it. Applying the

modulation technique, the translator renders the

expression " that’s so right on " into "Kau langsung

ke inti (straight to the point)" because the

accompanying modes showed the commotion in the

middle of his speech but he remained calm. That is

the point of “piece” where everybody yelled at and

wrote down in their big banner. The point of view

translator changes from indirect to the direct

pronoun in Indonesian by using pronoun “Kau

(you)”.The cognitive category changes from abstract

into concrete.

In this scene, the nonverbal texts or modes that

shape the context are a minor incident and calmness.

Sample 6:

Figure 6: Multimodal transcription of sample 6.

The translator employed the modulation

technique by phrasing the sentence "Where were

you hit?" into "Dimana lukamu (Where is your

wound?). "Dimana lukamu (Where is your wound)"

is chosen because the modes that accompanied the

verbal texts showed the President of America asked

Forrest to show the mark where he was hit. After

that, Forrest Gump showed his bullet’s mark in his

buttock to the President. The sentence "were you

hit?" has several equivalents. The translator should

choose the accurate equivalent based on the context.

Scene, sounds, and facial expression will form the

context that the translator needs to consider. So in

this context, the sentence "where were you hit?" is

not appropriate if it is translated into "dimana kamu

dipukul (where were you blown)"." This is because

the frame shows that Forrest Gump showed not only

to the President of his bullet’s mark in his buttock,

but also to everybody. Employing the modulation

technique, the translator renders the sentence "where

Modulation Technique in the Translation of Forrest Gump: A Multimodal Approach of English-Indonesian Subtitles

111

were you hit?" into "Dimana lukamu (where is your

wound)" because the accompanying modes showed

the wound’s mark of Forest. The point of view

translator changes from passive into active. It is also

changed from a verb “were hit” into a noun “wound

(your wound)”. Besides, the cognitive category

changes from abstract into concrete

In this scene, the nonverbal texts or modes that

shape the context are body movement and sentence,

“I’d kind like to see that.”

From data samples above, it can be seen that the

translator avoids employing literal translation to

render the message of the utterances, because the

two languages do not belong to the same family. In

such case, the use of literal translation will result in

the unnaturalness on the target language. The

importance of modulation in translation lies in the

fact that the target viewers or target readers find the

results of the translation sound natural. So they feel

that they read the original text, not the result of the

translation.

The result of the translation showed that the

source text has been rendered by integrating all

modes as seen in frames. Audio Visual Translation

involves much larger filmic units, such as scenes,

sequences, stages and even the whole text (Chen &

Wang, 2016). In the sample data “Where were you

hit? may be translated in different ways “Dimana

lukamu?” (Where is your wound?) or “Bagian mana

yang tertembak?” (Which part is wounded?).” The

visual frame shows Forrest Gump pointed out the

part of his body which is hit by bullets. These show

that the same meaning or situation can be presented

in different ways in the target language (Durjava,

2012). It is recognised that the relations between

verbal modes and visual modes are vital in clarifying

the concrete function of visual text in subtitling

process (Chen & Wang, 2016).

In the translation of “Go home” into “pulang (be

home)”, the translator integrated with reduction

technique (the word “home” is not translated) for the

visual frame shows that Jenny was asked to go back

to Alabama, her hometown. Modulation technique is

often integrated with other techniques such as

addition, or explicitation, or reduction to find the

best functional solution in terms of the equivalence

(Reiss, 2015). In the process of rendering the

message, modulation preserves the source text

message while complying with the naturalness and

linguistic rules of the target language.

5 CONCLUSIONS

To sum up, the study revealed that the translator of

the film already took into account the multi- modes

in the decision-making to find the equivalence in

the subtitles. The modes involved in the film text

that affect the modulation technique are treated

equally, such as body movements, gestures, facial

expressions, scenes, and voice tones. In other words,

the translator has considered the distribution and

integration of the meanings of multi-modes in the

modulation technique in order to create kind of

equivalent wholeness between the source and target

texts. The modulation technique was chosen because

the translator knows better about the accurate and

understandable utterance by the target viewers.

Source language which is translated in word-for-

word will result in an unacceptable translation.

Therefore the translator chooses to turn into an

acceptable and readable utterance in the target

language.

The result of this study also gives

recommendation to a translator of a film or a

subtitler to watch the film and consider all modes

involved in the film while translating the script of

the film to have such subtitles which are accurate,

acceptable and readable. Thus, a translator should

have deep comprehension about the source text and

the target text as well as the multi-modes that shape

the context and also the cultures in order to produce

a good and naturally acceptable translation.

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