An-Najah National University 

Faculty of Graduate Studies 
 

 

 

 

 

 

An Investigation of the Translated Cultural 

and Ideological Components in Disney's 

Animated films in both Audiovisual 

Translation Forms: Subtitling and Dubbing. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By 

Hadeel Awni Abu Yaqoub 
 

 

 

 

 

Supervisor 

Dr. Fayez Aqel 

 
Co- Supervisor 

Dr. Ayman Nazzal 

 

 

 
This Thesis is Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the 

Requirements for the Degree of Master of Applied Linguistics 

and Translation, Faculty of Graduate Studies, An-Najah 

National University, Nablus, Palestine.  

2016 





III 
 

Dedication 

This thesis is dedicated with gratitude 

To: 

My dear parents, Awni Abd Alhadi and Khitam Abu Yaqoub, who 

supported me emotionally with their blessings and prayers.  

My husband, Belal, who was so patient, understanding and cooperative 

until this thesis was completed. 

My two little children Ali and Abd Alrahman  who were very responsible 

and supportive until I was granted the MA degree. 

Anyone who reads and appreciates this work 
 

 

 

  



IV 
 

Acknowledgment 
 

             I start first by thanking Allah for all of his blessings that made me 

achieve my dream. I would also like to offer my sincere thanks to my 

advisors Dr. Fayez Aqel and Dr. Ayman Nazzal, at An- Najah National 

University, whose collective support, guidance and expertise have made 

this thesis a reality. I greatly thank both of them for sharing knowledge and 

passion with me along this journey. 

              I also extend my gratitude to my family for their endless support, 

patience and inspiration during the long journey. They have always been 

and will continue to be my shelter and comfort during my academic period. 

I especially thank my parents for their love, support and prayers which they 

have surrounded me with. I thank my mother for her soothing words and 

endless encouragement day and night which comforted me during many 

hard moments along the way. I also thank my father who had confidence in 

me before I even believed that I was going to achieve my goal.  

                 Great love and hearty thanks to my husband and my children 

without whose patience and understanding I would not have been able to 

pass this crucial period of my life.  

My thanks go also to my brothers, Sameer, Muneer, Basheer and Abdallah 

for their love and encouragement.  





VI 
 

Table of Contents  

No Content Page 

 Dedication III 

 Acknowledgement IV 

 Declaration V 

 Table of Contents VI 

 Abstract VIII 

 Chapter One: Introduction 1 

1.1 Introduction 1 

1.2 Statement of the problem 2 

1.3 Purpose of the study 3 

1.4 Significance of the study 3 

1.5 Question of the study 4 

1.6 Hypotheses 5 

1.7 Definition of terms 5 

1.8 Introduction about the selected films 6 

1.9 Theoretical background 8 

1.10 Summary 10 

2 Chapter two: Review of related studies. 11 

2.1 Translation and culture 11 

2.2 Translation and ideology 13 

2.3 Audiovisual translation: subtitling and Dubbing 16 

2.3.1 Subtitling 17 

2.3.2 Dubbing 20 

2.4 Translation of animated films 21 

2.5 Summary 28 

 Chapter three: Methodology 30 

3.1 Introduction 30 

3.2 Population and sample of the study 30 

3.3 Data collection and instrumentation 30 

3.4 Data analysis 31 



VII 
 

No Content Page 

 Chapter four: data analysis and discussion 32 

4.1 Introduction 32 

4.2 Results related to the first question 32 

4.2.1 Culture related problem 33 

4.2.1.1 The translation of proper nouns 34 

4.2.1.2 Translation of humor 36 

4.2.1.3 Swearing and slang in translation of animated films 45 

4.2.1.4 Sexual taboos 50 

4.3 Ideological related problems 53 

4.3.1 
Ideological issues in translating animated films in 

gender portrayal 
55 

4.3.2 Religious references 59 

4.3.3 Social ideology 62 

4.4 Results related to the second question 63 

 Chapter five: Discussion of the results 74 

5.1 Introduction 74 

5.2 Discussion of the results of the first question 74 

5.3 Discussion of the results of the second question 75 

 Chapter six: conclusion and recommendation 77 

6.1 Conclusion 77 

6.2 Recommendations 78 

 References 81 

 Online resources 88 

 ب المه   

 

 



VIII 
 

An Investigation of the Translated Cultural and Ideological 

Components in Disney's Animated films, in both Audiovisual 

Translation Forms: Subtitling and Dubbing. 

By 

Hadeel Awni Abu Yaqoub 

Supervisor 

Dr. Fayez Aqel 

Co supervisor 

Dr. Ayman Nazzal 

Abstract 

 

  The study investigates translating cultural and ideological 

components in Disney's animated films, in both Audiovisual Translation 

Forms: Subtitling and Dubbing. It highlights mistranslations and possible 

failures caused by cultural and ideological dissimilarities between Arab and 

foreign cultures. Due to this, the breakdowns are classified into: a- 

ideological, and b- cultural. A descriptive and analytic approach is 

followed to examine the corpus of the study. Examples from English 

animated films and their translated versions in Arabic are collected, 

classified and analyzed according to two main categories: cultural and 

ideological. The study also examine the various strategies are used by the 

translators in dealing with these breakdowns.  Examinations show that the  

subtitlres tend to adopt literal translation as a main strategy, while dubbers 

have tried to bridge the gap that might result from this strategy by using 

various strategies  as adding, omitting changing or euphemizing the source 

text terms.  



1 
 

Chapter One 

1.1. Introduction: 

Obviously, a lot of audiovisual films are produced each year either 

by professional companies as Disney or by local companies. These 

professional companies produce many kinds of movies such as comedy, 

documentary, religious and animated ones. Moreover, these companies 

tend to produce films which reflect the values of western societies with its 

culture and its ideology. However, translating these films to societies which 

almost do not produce high quality films or even none at all such as the 

Arab society, poses a challenge to the translators as they involve technical, 

cultural and ideological issues. 

Accordingly, the issue of culture and ideology has always had an 

impact on the process of translation, particularly the audiovisual shows 

which can be watched by huge audiences. Hatim and Mason (1997: 144) 

define ideology as the tacit assumptions, beliefs and value systems which 

are shared collectively by social groups. So, almost every society has its 

own ideology and culture which differ from others. 

    Thawabteh (2012: 146) stated that "the job of audiovisual translators 

has largely become challenging and demanding due to the spread over of 

films and animated films with an increasing audience". As a result, he 

classified the challenges into three major problems: technical, linguistic 

and cultural. 



2 
 

Consequently, translating these components is always a thorny issue 

and this is more obvious in translating animated films than in translating 

books or novels, and this is due to two reasons. First, these books are 

directed to a reader who has more space of privacy than in watching films. 

Second, these films will be presented not only to the old but also to 

children and their families. 

Therefore, a comparison between audiovisual translation forms is 

presented in this thesis in order to clarify the distinctions between dubbing 

and subtitling, and to see whether they have differences in the translation 

strategies which are adopted in the process of translation. 

The present chapter introduces a number of topics: statement of the 

problem, purpose of the study, significance of the study, question of the 

study, hypotheses, data resources and finally a list of definition of related 

terms. 

1.2 Statement of the Problem: 

Since most or even all what we see on the television of translated 

animated films is imported from western societies; which of course clash 

with the Arab society, and most of these animated movies are directed to 

children and families, translators should take into considerations these 

cultural and ideological issues when attempting to translate such 

components. 



3 
 

It seems that both forms of audiovisual translation have dealt with 

translating the sentence "worshiped me" which is mentioned by Sid in Ice 

Age 2006 differently. The word "worship" which means in Arabic لعند has a 

religious implication to Muslims' culture and ideology. Worshiping can 

only be to Allah (God) and not to anything or anyone else. Thus, the 

dubbers who translate it not literally to be لحترمررونني take into their 

consideration that  لعنرد  has different implication from that of لحتررم which 

suites more the Muslims beliefs . on the other hand, the subtitlers who 

translate it as لن هرونني tried not to translate the sentence literally but at the 

same time the new translation still has some of these religious implication 

but not exactly as لعندونني . 

As a result, these cultural and ideological problems can be dealt with 

through different strategies and methods which can be adopted either in 

subtitling or dubbing, or even in both. 

1.3. Purpose of the Study: 

This paper aims at focusing on the translation of cultural and 

ideological components in animated films. Also, it focuses on studying the 

strategies which are used in both methods of audiovisual translation: 

subtitling and dubbing so as to find out which technique is preferred. 

1.4. Significance of the Study: 

This study is significant because it addresses cultural and religious 

issues. These issues constitute the corner stone in and to our culture. Such 



4 
 

translation attempts to eradicate our cultural norms and replace them by 

foreign ones.  

Most of the animated films which are presented and translated to our 

children and families are translated from English into Arabic. Without any 

doubt, these films are heavily loaded with Western culture and ideology. 

Therefore, in this proposal a deep investigation will be executed about 

translating these animated films both in subtitling and dubbing to show 

which of these methods are more sensitive to the issue of culture and 

ideology which are represented in the films, since these films are directed 

to the most crucial groups of people in the society i.e., the families and the 

children and family.  

Many researchers agree that children and family‟s stories are used 

purposefully to engrain western values in the brains of families and 

children's lives, as society regards childhood as a crucial period for 

socializing an individual into accepting its norms and values.  Therefore, 

the focus here is on revealing which forms are used to lessen this sensitivity 

in translating the cultural and ideological components in the target society. 

1.5. Questions of the Study: 

 This paper seeks answers to the following questions: 

1) How does translating the cultural and ideological components in 

Disney's animated films in subtitling and dubbing influence the 

intended target audience?  



5 
 

2) Does the subtitling form use the same strategies to deal with the 

cultural and ideological problems as dubbing does? 

1.6. Hypotheses: 

The researcher hypothesizes that translating animated films into 

Arabic fails to meet the needs of Arab children and family since they are 

not purified from the harmful cultural and ideological themes such as 

humor, swearing, religious references, social interaction, proper 

nouns…etc. Furthermore, she hypothesizes that subtitling form always 

sticks to one translation strategy which is literal translation, while dubbing  

is more flexible in using different strategies to overcome the problem of 

translating cultural and ideological components. Moreover, it seems that 

translating the cultural components is more recognizable in the process of 

translation than translating the ideological ones in the both forms. 

1.7. Definition of Terms: 

English culture: The way of life of the British and the Americans in their 

native countries. 

Palestinian culture: the way of life of the Palestinians in their native 

country. 

Intercultural understanding: the ability of having successful 

communication with people of other cultures. According to Byram (2001), 

intercultural competence involves five elements; attitudes, knowledge of 



6 
 

social groups and their products, skills of interpreting and relating, skills of 

discovery and interaction, and critical cultural awareness and political 

education. 

Cultural awareness: Recognition of the importance of culture in everyday 

life of the audience 

The place of the native culture: Presence of target audience‟s native 

culture (Palestinian culture). 

The cultural content of the animated films: Items that stimulate cultural 

discussion.  

Culture : is recognized by scholars as the main ascribe of a society; it is 

defined as the compilation of beliefs, customs, arts of a certain society, in a 

sense it echoes society‟s ways of life, way of thinking, and behaving. 

(Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, 2014). 

Ideology: is “a systematic organization or coordinated body of ideas or 

perceptions, especially about a person's life and culture, a manner or the 

content of thinking distinctively of an individual, group or culture.” 

(Webster‟s Third New International Dictionary, 1993). 

1.8. Introduction about the selected films in this thesis: 

     In this thesis the researcher attempted to select many examples from 

two well known animated films, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and ice 



7 
 

Age series, which contain as many cultural and ideological components as 

possible that of course conflict with the Arab audience. 

    To start with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs film which was first 

released in December, 1937 by Disney studios. The events are about a 

beautiful and kindhearted princess whose name is Snow White who charms 

every creature in the kingdom not only by her beauty but also by her 

kindness except one, her jealous stepmother, the Queen. When the Magic 

Mirror proclaims Snow White the fairest one of all, the queen becomes 

very angry so she decided to kill her.  Snow White does not have any 

choice except fleeing to the forest, where she befriends the lovable seven 

dwarfs, Doc, Sneezy, Grumpy, Happy, Bashful, Sleepy and Dopey. But 

when the Queen tricks Snow White with an enchanted apple, only the 

magic of true love's kiss can save her. 

    Ice age series are the second choice where several examples from 

them are selected in this thesis. There are four parts of this film, the events 

take place on Earth 20000 years ago where the ice covered almost all over 

the world. Accidently, three different animals were met to form later a herd 

which had a solid and strong relationship between them. The leader for this 

herd is a giant mammoth whose name is Manny, who at first thinks that he 

is the only mammoth in the earth. But later he discovered that he was 

wrong when he met Ellie. Sid and Diago are the other main characters 

which their presence is vital in continuing the adventure in the five films. 

“Sid “for Sidney which is a ground sloth appears in all four films who is 



8 
 

clumsy, annoying, slow moving, fast-talking, naive, loyal and funny 

member with a good heart, and is voiced with a lateral lisp. Little is known 

from Sid's life other than that Sid once lived in a tree with other sloths that 

always wanted to leave Sid behind when the migration occurred, using 

several different ways to leave him behind. What is clear is that Sid's 

mother always told him that "bad news is just good news in disguise" prior 

to abandoning him for good. Another remarkable character in these films  

is a saber-toothed cat found in all five of the films. He has a somewhat 

sarcastic personality, although it is not intended as malicious. He was sent 

by his pack to retrieve the human baby called Roshan; When he found 

Roshan in Manny and Sid's care, he pretended to lead them to the humans, 

but instead planned to lead them into an ambush by the pack. However, 

when Manny saved his life, Diego had a change of heart, telling him about 

the pack and helping to counterattack. He was seemingly killed by the 

pack's leader, Soto, but survived and joined Manny and Sid on their travels.      

1.9. Theoretical background: 

    The history of translation is related to the history of the often 

invisible cross cultural interactions of the world. At the beginning it started 

as a need for traders who had to communicate with others who spoke 

different languages. But later this term was developed to refer to both 

interpreting and translating. The difference between them is that the 

interpreter translates orally while the translator translates written texts. 



9 
 

     Although the practice of translating is long established, the study of 

the field developed into an academic discipline only in the second half of 

the twentieth century. Before that, translation had normally been merely an 

element of language learning in modern language courses. Therefore, many 

theorists tackled with this new academic discipline by presenting various 

theories concerned with translation as a new field which deserved to be 

studied. Skopos theory which was presented by Hans J. Vermeer is one of 

those theories which was considered as the core of the functionalist 

translation theory that developed in Germany in the 1970s. This is a new 

perspective of looking at translation, which is no longer limited by 

conventional source-text oriented views. Vermeer finds that, according to 

action theory, every action has a purpose, and, since translation is an 

action, it must have a purpose too. Vermeer (1978: 100) postulates that as a 

general rule it must be the intended purpose of the target text that 

determines translation methods and strategies. As a result, it is not the 

source text or the author that determines the translation process, but the 

prospective function or skopos of the target text. Consequently, the skopos 

is largely constrained by the target text users (readers/listeners) and their 

situation and cultural background. According to him translation is not only 

a linguistic transfer but it also a cultural one. 

  



10 
 

1.4. Summary: 

In this chapter the researcher presented the following sub topics :the 

statement of the problem, purpose, significance of the  study, the questions 

of the study, hypotheses, and data resources. She also supplied a list of 

definition of terms related to the subject. Moreover, in this chapter, the 

researcher provided a relevant introduction to translating cultural and 

ideological components in Disney's animated films, in both audiovisual 

translation forms: subtitling and dubbing. Finally, she introduced the 

theoretical background of the study. 

 

  



11 
 

Chapter Two 

Review of Related Studies 

2.1. Translation and Culture: 

Culture may mean distinct things to different people; it is defined 

generally as the way of people‟s life. Culture with capital (C) indicates the 

great deeds of the target society in arts, music, drama, scientific 

discoveries, sports, etc, while the other meaning of culture, with the small 

(c), focuses on the way of life of a certain country, and it refers to the 

behavior pattern of this particular country's life style, Omaggio-Hadley, 

(2000). 

The link between language and culture has also been stressed from a 

sociolinguistic perspective. This has led to expanded research into how 

cultural differences and related concepts are integrated into translation and 

how knowing about the culture of a language also affects the output of the 

translated works.Risager, (2006). 

Regrettably, despite its importance, Culture is often ill-treated in 

Arabic translation of English animated films; it is often presented as a 

supplement factor which does not have any influence to the life of audience 

Fenner (2001).  

In other words, fruitful translation of animated films obliges 

translators to know the culture that underlies language either the source 



12 
 

language or the target one Coultas (2003). This may be correct if we take 

into consideration our own culture. So, there are abundant restrictions to be 

learnt about translating animated films effectively in many different 

contexts, not only by using language appropriately within a particular 

context but also by being true  and faithful to ourselves and to our culture . 

The translation of culture is a contemplated process to be an essential 

part of current foreign language translation since one major aim of 

language translation is to enlarge the tolerance between cultures Corbett 

(2003). Therefore, whenever we talk about translation of animated films, it 

is demanding to figure out the relation among language and culture. A 

language cannot exist in vacuum. When we do make use of language, the 

production that is  made is generally about what we know or what we have 

actually practiced in our own culture , because what the one  knows and 

tests in her/ his life, mostly restricts with what the native setting presents to 

her/ him. Thus, it is difficult to separate the local context from the use of 

language.  

Diverse scholars have voiced their opinions regarding the role of 

culture in language translation of animated films. The first view expressed 

by Byram & Feng (2005) affirm that the target language culture should be 

highlighted in order to help the audience to be familiar with the culture of 

English countries.  

The second view claims that there is no need for translating target 

culture, especially in the contexts of animated films where different 



13 
 

institutionalized varieties of English are in practice. Similarly, the third 

view by Kramsch and Sullivan (1996) states obviously that „local culture‟ 

in translation should be taken into consideration.  

The fourth view says that since English is a lingua franca, it should 

be translated in animated films as a culture-free context. Phyak (2001) 

gives a fifth opinion concerning the role of culture in English language 

translated animated films by assimilating the highlights of the above 

opinions where he instructs the translators to use both target and native 

cultures with main concern to local culture. 

2.2. Translation and ideology: 

Ideology is undeniably an intangible concept. Exactly as the term of 

equivalence, it is an usual concept recognizable to most groups.  When 

asking them about the definition of ideology, they will mostly deliver 

various responses. Some may connect it to their political standpoint; others 

may use it to outline their value-systems and worldviews; a few others may 

find it excitedly tied up with their spiritual beliefs. Since this term is 

combined with beliefs, assumptions, and morals, this makes it, indeed, 

highly debated López & Ramos (2014). 

There is a very universal definition of ideology that views it as 

almost indistinguishable with culture. Ideology is thus “a systematic 

organization or coordinated body of ideas or perceptions, especially about a 

person's life and culture, a manner or the content of thinking distinctively 



14 
 

of an individual, group or culture.” (Webster‟s Third New International 

Dictionary, 1993).  

Apart from these contentious undertones linked with ideology, it is 

still controversial for many academics to overcome the problem of defining 

the extent of the term. In translation, this setback becomes even more 

elaborating due to the complexity of the task and the assortment of factors 

and participants involved. According to Petrescu (2009) there is a way to 

solve the difficulty of dealing with the definition of ideology by stipulating 

a working definition purposely coined for the aims of each research project. 

By doing this, .i.e. the scholars advancing their own terminology, they can 

border the notion of ideology in a more particular way, picking the 

phenomena involved and rejecting unwanted inferences.  

Ali (2007) states that the appearance of ideology in the method of 

translation has become an progressively central issue in translation studies.  

For doing this he argues several explanations of ideology as related to 

language and gives a concise overview of the translation theories dealing 

with it; finally, he intends to illustrate how ideology can affect the 

“rewriting” of the source text and how it dictates translation choices and 

translation strategies.  

Hatim & Mason (1997: 144) define Ideology as “the tacit 

assumptions, beliefs and value systems which are shared collectively by 

social groups”, but what differentiate these beliefs that what is "good" or " 

virtue" to one nation may differ partially or completely from other nation to 



15 
 

be "bad" or "unacceptable". According to this point of view, it is the 

responsibility of the translators to take into consideration these differences 

while rendering them.   

Deficit is a significant characteristic of our means of resistance to the 

western cultural subjugation which aims to overturns the moral values in 

the minds of our children and family in order to control them and make 

them more submissive. The growing numbers of western oriented animated 

films which are represented to our children and family provide a number of 

models met in these pictures. Such models enhance in the minds of our 

children liberalism and corruption which are alien themes to our Islam as a 

dominant ideology and Arab culture both in form and content (Hassan, 

2013). 

    In this regard, it is important to emphasize that the impact of 

animated films is significant. Therefore, the Arab countries have to be 

ready for replacing the films which are contemplated being western culture 

oriented with ones which represent the ideology of Islam and its value 

system to be presented to the Arab children who already have a previous 

set of beliefs and moral system which are constructed and are still 

reconstructed in their mind. This would add to defending our cultural 

values against deformation and raising our children with the right moral 

values convicted in the teaching of our Islamic faith (Hassan, 2013). 

Translating animated films demands having the importance to be a 

special domain in translation. It can be maintained that when translating 



16 
 

films, mainly those for children and family, the use of the target language 

could be studied, and an accurate degree of re-writing of the language in 

the dialogue could be right and proper; as a result, the translated version 

sounds natural, educational and entertaining to the target language 

audience.  

Cui (2012) examines some outlooks of this special field of 

translation, meeting mainly on issues of ideology, domestic culture 

awareness and the translators' dynamic choice of resourceful language in 

their translation, to suggest that tactics such as domestication, or “excessive 

domestication”, and cultural adaptation stipulate ways in which translators 

implement their creativity when translating animated films. The argument 

is exemplified by excerpts from animated films translation from English 

into Mandarin Chinese. 

2.3 Audiovisual translation: Subtitling and Dubbing: 

    With the rapid spread of technology, a vast number of information is 

being presented every moment to people. There are many ways to 

distribute such information to the audience such as the audiovisual (AV) 

means which include TV, cinema, and the internet. In translating these AV 

shows or films, there are many forms which are used for the purpose of 

translating AV shows but the most prominent among these forms are two 

basic approaches: "dubbing" or revoicing which means the replacement of 

the original dialogue by a new soundtrack, and subtitling which generally 

means transferring the dialogue to a written text.  



17 
 

2.3.1. Subtitling: 

    Vöge (1977: 120) defines subtitling as a written translation of the 

film discourse which is outlined simultaneously near the bottom of the 

screen. In addition it is defined as a translation practice that consists of 

presenting a written text, generally on the lower part of the screen, that 

endeavours to recount the original dialogue of the speakers, as well as 

discursive elements that appear in the image, and the information that is 

contained on the soundtrack (Diaz-Cintas and Remael, 2007:8). 

Turkan and Celik (2007) uphold that it is imperative that subtitling 

implicates the target language culture in addition to the fact that they 

should be appropriate for audience needs, level, and cultural background. 

Yet, what seems to be obvious in this subtitling is that animated films 

native culture receives most of the focus. They assert, several aspects of the 

target culture, such as oral and written history, literature, music, drama, 

dance, visual arts, celebrations, and the lifestyle of native speakers are not 

always represented in these resources, nor are the intercultural phenomena.  

Bodric (2008) believes that the translation of animated films should 

suit the target audience's interests according to their age. Therefore, one can 

infer that simple cultural themes which do not clash with the target culture 

and ideology can be introduced through translation of animated films 

through subtitling and dubbing to target audiences. 



18 
 

Byram (2001) also mentions the concept of critical cultural 

awareness, which the target audiences should acquire. Critical cultural 

awareness means, according to (Byram,2001:47), “an ability to evaluate, 

critically and on the basis of explicit criteria, perspectives, practices and 

products in one‟s own and other cultures and countries.” 

As Bredella (2003) points out, being intercultural means basically in 

its simplest form target audience‟s ability to encounter something new and 

exciting. People grow up in one culture, often in a belief that our own 

cultural system is natural and normal and perhaps even superior to others. 

An intercultural approach makes us realize that aspects that seem irrational 

for us are actually rational from other people‟s perspective and vice versa. 

The criteria, which were created based on the criteria by Byram and 

Feng (2005) that is related to translation of animated films discuses Social 

identity and social groups; this includes social class, regional identity, and 

professional identity. Another criterion includes Social interaction which 

discusses conventions of verbal and non-verbal behavior in social 

interaction: situations of interaction, interaction and the subjectivity of 

characters: feelings, attitudes, values and perceived problems. Also, the 

criteria include Socio-political institutions and Institutions of socialization, 

e.g. families, schools, employment offices and military service.   

The case of Arabic translation of animated films is similar in many 

other Arab countries in that there is scarcity of research on how culture 

should be presented in animated films Arabic translation (Jum'a, 2008). In 



19 
 

addition, translators are likely to marginalize culture treatment in their 

animated films translation because the manuals they use do not offer a clear 

idea about how culture should be translated.  

Different studies have been conducted to study and explore the 

cultural component in animated films translation; these studies are based on 

the recent changes in language methodology which give culture an 

important role in animated films translation.  

For example, Thawabteh & Ahmad's study (2011) sheds the light on 

the intricacies of English- Arabic subtitling. The data comprises a video 

clip of an interview with Mr. Galloway conducted by the Sky News TV 

station. The sample of the study consists of twenty MA translation target 

audience's enrolled in the second semester of the academic year 2008/2009 

at Al-Quds University. The paper shows that subtitling target audiences are 

challenged with several linguistic, cultural and technical complications 

which may expose communication and are thought to be crucial for target 

audience. The study concludes with some pedagogical implications that 

help subtitling target audience's deal with the problems in question. In this 

thesis the researcher agrees with Thawabth's study that there are 

cultural and ideological problems, which may be not translated 

properly as a result of the technical problem. These problems may not 

only face the subtitlers in subtitling form of audiovisual translation but 

also the dubbers in the dubbing version.   



20 
 

Another study conducted by Zainab, H. (2010) which investigates 

the translation of culture, in general, and the translations of Defoe's 

Robinson Crusoe, in particular It highlights mistranslations and likely 

breakdowns caused by cultural and ideological differences among Arab and 

foreign cultures. Owing to this, the breakdowns are categorized into: a- 

ideological, and b- cultural. The study also examines many strategies which 

are adopted by the translators in dealing with these hindrances. Analyses 

show that the translators have attempted to bridge the gap that might result 

from literal translation. The findings reveal that translators have obtained 

various translation strategies including modifications, omissions, and, 

sometimes, additions, to avoid cultural and ideological misunderstandings.  

The study also found that the translators' attempts to convey certain 

ideologies in the text were not always successful. They, intentionally, or 

unintentionally, ignored the fact that many of the ideologies presented in 

the ST are not suitable or acceptable for the Arab target audience. 

Therefore, children and family as target audience were not always taken 

into consideration. 

2.3.2 Dubbing: 

Maluf (2005) argues, that when there was a need to dub children and 

family programs into Arabic, the technique is still not as popular as 

subtitling for reasons such as the financial and aesthetic ones. Although the 

vast majority of people all over the world would prefer watching subtitling 

films rather than dubbing ones since they enjoy listening to the original 



21 
 

language and may want to make use of i.e. acquiring new words, English in 

his case, there are social groups that prefer dubbing rather than subtitling 

since they want to keep their national identity. Moreover, Alkadi (2010) 

claims that dubbing puts translators in a dilemma when they want to 

maintain the same plot as the native version and maintain lip 

synchronization. Furthermore, it is noticeable that the bulk of films 

dubbed into Arabic have been dubbed into standard Arabic with the 

exception of a few films dubbed to Egyptian. But obviously using 

sometimes the standard Arabic may affect rendering the intended 

message negatively specially humor, since the effect which the source 

message hold may can't be rendered, consequently an inevitable loss of 

meaning is occurred.  

2.4 Translation of animated films: 

Nowadays, animated films are believed to be the main type of 

children literature as novels and short stories. But rendering these 

literatures specially the animated films into another language and to 

another culture requires high awareness of the differences between the two 

cultures. O'Sullivan (2006: 98) believes that the adaptation of animated 

films is basically based on what is socio-culturally appropriate for the 

audience. So, it is the job of the translators to interfere and adapt the 

appropriate strategies for translating these differences.  

    What characterizes translating the animated films from translating 

books as novels and short stories is that translators have more freedom to 



22 
 

change the cultural and ideological words or expressions in written text 

than the words in films. This is due to the fact that these words are 

synchronized with visual images and scenes. Take for example a short 

story called Snow White (2005), one of Ladybird's publishing, into Arabic 

when a girl, was called "sun" or "عمس" in the Arabic version instead of 

arabicizing the name as سنو والت , gets sick and faints, the prince kisses her. 

Afterwards she wakes up and gets better. Translating the sentence "kisses 

her" is rendered as "لمسك نلدىا". Kissing is a taboo which is not an 

appropriate word which can be presented to the Arab children. Therefore, 

replacing the word with another one is an easy and effective way to deal 

with such cultural and ideological components. The same story was made 

to be an animated film which is called Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; 

this scene of "kissing" was animated in the original film, and both forms of 

the AVT kept the scene without any purification or deletion.     

Many research papers were conducted in the field of translating 

cultural and ideological issues in films or (the audiovisual shows), but few 

of them were confronted with the subject of making comparison between 

subtitling and dubbing as the two main forms in audiovisual translating, or 

made serious recommendations to favor one of them over the other. 

     Szarkowska (2005) as cited in Rishah (2013: 12) states that "films 

and animated films can be tremendously influential and an extremely 

powerful method for transferring values, ideas and information." Rishah 

also added, "Different cultures are presented not only verbally but also 



23 
 

visually and aurally." She considers "films and TV programs as a poly 

semiotic medium that transfers meaning through several channels, such as a 

picture, dialog and music." In addition, she assumes that "items which used 

to be culture-specific tend to spread upon other cultures and thought that 

the choice of film translation mode largely contributes to the reception of a 

source language film in a target culture."  

    Zitawi (2003) states that, translation is not a mere linguistic exercise, 

but rather an act of intercultural communication motivated by the rewards 

of making comprehensible a new foreign culture. Lefevere (1992) as cited 

in Munday (2001) was a forerunner to this point of view, that translation is 

no longer considered as a linguistic exercise, but it is a combination of 

several factors which one of them may be dominant over the others," On 

every level of the translation process, it can be shown that, if linguistic 

considerations enter into conflict with considerations of an ideological 

and/or petrological nature, the latter tend to win out". (Lefevere 1992a:39)  

Therefore, animated films are considered as a mean of educating and 

instructing target audience but this should occur in a way that does not 

clash with the target audience culture and ideology. 

 Moreover, Mdallel (2003) claims that culture plays a great role in 

translating for children and family, since translation is not solitary a 

practice of transferring lexical items but also it is a process of cultural 

transference. So he endorsed some "protective measures" while translators 

were struggling to translate animated films. Therefore, picking an 



24 
 

acceptable text for translation, then refining it are the main procedures 

which translators have to adapt when they want to translate specially for 

children and family. Purifying the text can be done by obtaining different 

translation strategies. Chesterman (1997:219) (Chesterman, Andrew 1997: Memes 

of Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.) defines translation strategy as: “a plan 

that is implemented in a given context". Consequently, special Strategies 

are progressed and executed in the process of translation to suit distinctive 

types of struggles, for instance, adaptations, additions, condensations, 

modifications and deletions, are examples of these strategies which are 

used by translators while they attempt to translate.  

Ya'qoub (2013) undertakes the issue of translating humor in TV 

shows. The study pinpoints the translation strategies assumed in translating 

humor in the animated films. The analysis demonstrated that using the 

formal translation strategies does not constantly give the intended culture 

and ideologies influence and sometimes causes loss in the intended culture 

and ideology. The findings show that translators tend to add, omit, change, 

or euphemize the source text terms and references to get the intended 

culture and ideologies effect in the target audience in relation to their ages, 

cognition and culture. 

López and Ramos (2014) present an experiment designed to measure 

the influence that a translator‟s political stance may exert on the time 

needed to find a translation solution when working with ideologically 

loaded concepts. To this idea , a reaction time experiment (with positive 



25 
 

and negative prompting conditions) was designed to evaluate whether 

words and expressions that are contrary to the translator‟s ideology may 

slow down the translation process, making translators take longer to find an 

adequate translation.  

Petrescu (2009) focuses on two translation situations, conference 

interpreting and ad-hoc interpreting as practiced in Romania of “behind the 

Iron Curtain”, meant to illustrate how ideology can affect the “rewriting” of 

the source text. 

Ali's (2007) study aims at exploring ''managing'' and ''emotiveness 

with special reference to the production and translation of sensitive news 

texts. It shows how Israeli media use various cunning strategies in coverage 

of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip in 2006. The study concludes that 

Israeli media discourse addresses one ideology that aims at defending the 

Israelis while condemning the Palestinians .This is done through 

manipulative lexical and syntactic choices. The study surveys the used 

methods of translation that include neutral equivalence, mediation, 

evaluative expressions, culture-specific terms, deletion and transformation 

of passive into active. In response to these factors, and when commission is 

defined, translators of sensitive texts do, more often than not, assume a 

high degree of dynamism in rendering the source text materials to target 

texts. 

Alkadi (2010) investigates the problems that translators may face in 

the subtitling and dubbing of English-language films and television 



26 
 

programmers into Arabic and suggests solutions for these problems. In the 

light of an examination of the generic features of audiovisual translation 

and of the particular cultural constraints inherent in translation for Arabic-

speaking audiences, it is proposed that certain elements of translation 

theory can be useful in overcoming the technical and cultural barriers 

identified. This proposition was tested through analysis of the translation of 

three feature films, one television sitcom and an animation series that have 

been subtitled and dubbed into Arabic, with a particular focus on the 

translation of dialects, swear words, and humor. Technical, linguistic and 

cultural issues constitute a challenge to Arabic translators who need to deal 

with: 1) the limitations on screen such as space, time, lip and character 

synchronizations; 2) the issue of rendering English dialects into Modern 

Standard Arabic and 3) the problem of culture which restricts them when 

they want to translate taboo expressions. This results in a loss (partial or 

complete) of the source film‟s message.  

Bagheri & Nemati's (2014) study focus on Dubbing, also known as 

voice-overs, which is the most common way of presenting the audience 

with the materials in a movie. As this process requires time, budget, and a 

team of translators, voice-overs, voice recorders, etc., producers sometimes 

tend to release the movies in other languages through subtitling. This is a 

rather easier procedure, presenting the audience with the written translated 

text of the material being spoken and happening in a movie. Several movies 

are then being processed through these common procedures in different 



27 
 

countries. However, the question still remains as to "what strategies make 

up the most important issues in movie translation?". Exploitation vs. 

implication, domestication vs. foreignization, etc., are just some of these 

strategies. In this regard, many models have been presented by translation 

theorists. 

Rishah (2013) depicts the issue of translating children and family 

and family animated films from English into Arabic in relation to cultural 

and audience factors. she points out the translation methods used in this 

process by examining a number of animated films. she also focuses on the 

barriers and problems that face Arab translators when translating such 

shows. Samples from animated films and their translated versions in Arabic 

are collected, categorized and analyzed depending on factors like 

institutional policy, cultural factor and audience age. In some cases, more 

suitable translations are advocated. The analysis shows that literal 

translation, for instance, is the main translation strategy which is employed 

while dubbing Disney animated films, whereas adaptation is mainly 

adopted by Venus (Al-Zuhra).  

Furthermore, translators tend to utilize two compensation strategies 

in translating family animated films: adaptation and substitution to bridge 

the gap between the source text (ST) and the target audience. The 

conclusions show that translators always paraphrase, add or even omit 

specific source text terms and references from the original family animated 



28 
 

films to achieve the intended meaning in a way that does not hurt the 

cultural and religious background of the target audience and their feelings. 

Ferklová (2014) offers an assessment of approaches to the translation 

of swear words and colloquial speech in subtitles and in dubbing. In this 

study, the researcher implies what the differences between these two 

methods might be based on academic research in the field of audiovisual 

translation and of swear words and slang.  

López & Ramos (2014) discuss the authority that a translator‟s 

political standpoint may exert on the time needed to find a translation 

explanation when working with ideologically overloaded concepts. 

Differences in reaction times between two groups of translators with 

different ideological viewpoints would provide empirical support for the 

claim that translators may be influenced by their ideological views. The 

results will contribute to increase translators‟ awareness of the impact that 

issues such as ideology and power may have on their work (López & 

Ramos, 2014). 

2.5  Summary: 

In conclusion, the strategies of subtitling and dubbing allow for 

flexibility and practical learning that translates in to improved cultural and 

ideological translation of animated films. Because translating animated 

films using dubbing or subtitling has an impression on target ideology and 

culture, it is easy for the target audience to realize their accomplishments. 



29 
 

Application of dubbing strategy involves time and effort on the part 

of the translator. In dubbing translators are able to spotlight on the cultural 

and ideological preferences as well as separate translation to meet needs. It 

is right and proper for all translators of unalike ability levels. Finally, 

translating of animated films concentrates on the translators‟ learning and 

engagement in ideology and culture of both target and local audience, 

which is the current goal of the translation theory.  

  



30 
 

Chapter Three 

Methodology 

3.1. Introduction: 

This chapter briefly presents the steps and procedures used   to carry 

out the research undertaken. The first step is a brief discussion of the 

population and the sample of the study. Secondly, the data collection 

procedure or the sources of the data and the instruments used in collecting 

data are mentioned. After that the data collected is analyzed using the 

pertinent procedure(s). 

3.2. Population & Sample of the Study: 

The study is applied on the animated films which are produced by 

Walt Disney as the Ice Age films.  There are four parts of this film Ice Age 

2002, The Meltdown, Continental Drift and also Down to Dinosaurs. 

The study sample consists of four animated films of Ice Age, and the 

film of Snow-White and The Seven Dwarfs.  The study sample includes the 

analysis of the original screen play and is compared to the translated 

subtitling and dubbed version of the film.  

3.3. Data collection and Instrumentation: 

    As mentioned in chapter one, the researcher collect the examples from 

films which are produced by Disney for they contain as many cultural and 



31 
 

ideological specificities as possible. Therefore, Ice Age films series and 

Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs in both forms, subtitling and dubbing, 

are selected. These films are chosen because they all had dubbed and 

subtitled versions which are easily to accessed through the internet.   

3.4. Data Analysis: 

In analyzing the data, the qualitative method is used and it is the most 

appropriate way to confirm or reject the questions of this study. 

 

  



32 
 

Chapter Four 

Data Analysis and Discussion. 

4.1. Introduction: 

This chapter shows the results of the study which are divided into 

two major parts. The first part is concerned with the results related to the 

first question of the study. The second part consists of the results related to 

the second question of the study.  

4.2. Results Related to the first Question: 

How does translating cultural and ideological components in Disney's 

animated films in subtitling and dubbing influence the intended target 

audience?  

This question implies determining how important is the audience 

type when we translate Disney‟s animated films from English into Arabic, 

and it also implies determining the choice of audiovisual translation mode 

depending on the intended target audience. 

Most animated movies produced by Disney are directed to children 

and families, but when these movies are translated into Arabic, they are 

presented to a variety of audience who have different cultural environment 

and different ideology. The innovative translations either the subtitled 

version or the dubbed one has to handle such cultural and ideological 

differences between the source society and the target one -the Arab 



33 
 

audience, in this case- in a way that polishes these constituents in order to 

suit the new audience‟s cultural and ideological  beliefs and values. 

Although most of the plots of translated animated films are worldwide, 

they still represent ideas that may oppose Islam and Arabic culture, such as 

racism, violence, sexual taboos, social relationships, and radical social 

liberalism. The answer of this question is divided into two sections: the first 

is dealing with culturally related issues while the second is discussing the 

ideological aspects.  

4.2.1. First: Culture-Related Problems: 

Most translation complications are due to cultural inequalities 

between languages rather than to linguistic differences. The Cultural gap 

always causes the most misunderstandings among the source language 

audience and the target one. For instance, Arabic and English have cultural 

differences, and the problems seem to be noticeable. Translating culture-

loaded idiomatic abstractions can be problematic. 

Holmes (1988) terms this area of study as socio-translation studies, 

currently called cultural studies- oriented translation - ; it was less explored 

but currently is more prevalent in current studies on translation. 

  Mdallel (2003) believes that the translated animated films are 

burdened with moral, religious and ideological concerns. One of the 

prominent aspects in the Arabic family is Islam which represents Muslims' 

way of life. 



34 
 

4.2.1.1. The Translation of Proper Nouns: 

Proper nouns are nouns that have an exclusive character reference. 

They include names of certain people, places, countries, months, days and 

holidays. In terms of translation, they hold significant cultural connections 

and transliterated into the target culture. However, some proper nouns are 

translated if they have meaning. For Newmark (1981: 70-1), he underlines 

that proper nouns have no meaning or implications; therefore, they are not 

to be translated. If the name has a traditional translation, it still should not 

be transliterated into the target culture because the change of the name 

would suggest a change in nationality.  

Most of the names in animated films are transliterated as a 

commitment to the rule of "foreignization" by which the translators support 

the external components in a dialogue to allow the characteristics of the 

source language affect the language of the target audience (Bernofsky, 

1997: 175). 

Alternatively, domestication is a process of transporting the 

translation closer to the target-language audience by switching the native 

elements in a text with more familiar ones Mazi-Leskovar (2003).  

Eexamples of the translation of proper nouns from Ice Age series, 

which are related to western culture and not related to the Arabic cultures, 

were translated by applying foreignization strategy and not domesticating 

them. Sidney or Sydney is an English surname. It is possibly derivative 



35 
 

from an Anglo-Saxon locational name, and from the French place name 

Saint-Denis. Sidney became widely used as a given name in English 

speaking countries during the 19th century, with much of its use in the 

United States after the American Revolution being due to admiration for 

Algernon Sidney as a martyr to royal tyranny.  

Another example of the translation of proper nouns is related to 

another main character in Ice Age series, which is presented by the proper 

noun Manfred (the mammoth) which is derived from the Germanic 

elements magan strength and frid peace whose etymology is derived from 

the Frankish mare horse and servant. It is most frequently found as a 

surname, but may also be used as a given name.  

  What is interesting in this film is that in both versions of the 

audiovisual translation both the subtitlers and the dubbers transliterate all 

the names without any changes. Moreover, the dubbed version can "create" 

an Arabic translation near to these in English. For example, "Manny" may 

rendered as " . "ما رد  and " Sid" is translated as " ر د  ل  س  " especially that the 

Egyptian audience may interact with this name positively since they 

frequently use " دس رل   "   in their culture as a proper name. It is obvious that 

these suggested Arabic translated names care about the lip's movements of 

the characters. Meanwhile, one dubbed version in translating Snow White 

films, has dealt with translating the names of the dwarfs differently from 

the subtitled one. 



36 
 

For instance, the name "Doc" and "Dopey" is translated to be  فيمان و
 In translating the name "Doc" which is an abbreviation for the word .نسرلط

doctor, the translator gives a meaning for this name in order to make it 

familiar to the Arab audience specially children who prefer watching 

dubbed films rather than subtitled ones. This may be due to the factor of the 

age of the audience. 

Another name for another dwarf is" Dopey", which means stupid. In 

subtitling the name is transliterated to be "دونري ", while in the dubbing it is 

euphemized to be " نسرلط" but not "غنري" . the cause of using the euphemized 

equivalent rather than the linguistic one, that Islam as a religion and of 

course as an ideology prohibits insulting others. In addition, animated films 

and cartoons are not only produced to entertain children but also to educate 

them.  So euphemizing the equivalent in the dubbed version is more 

successful and natural strategy to Arab audience than using foreinization or 

transliteration. 

4.2.1.2. Translation of humor: 

Before we go into detail about the subtitling and dubbing of humor 

in animated films, it is worth discussing the degree of translatability of this 

cultural category. First, the issue of untranslatability befalls when it is 

impossible to build functionally related structures of the setting into the 

background meaning of the [target language] language.  



37 
 

There should be a contrast between linguistic and cultural 

untranslatability. The latter, occurs when a situation, functionally 

appropriate for the source-language of the animated film, is fully elusive 

from the culture of which the target language is a part. Humor in general is 

a universal phenomenon; therefore, this may make it translatable to some 

extent.  

Newmark (2003) challenges this issue by stating that humor is 

worldwide, and can be, more or less, translated, provided that the source 

and target language audience or the listeners are educationally at the same 

level. In this regard, he opposes Hatim (1997) who stated that Arab 

audience will not comprehend the irony in translation, and argued that the 

audience education is related to translation and irony understanding 

(Alkadi, 2010).  

An example of humor translation found in Ice Age 2 is when Diago 

and Manny began looking for Ellie, the mammoth; she disappeared on their 

way up the foothill. They asked about a mammoth: "Have you seen a 

mammoth?" When the other animals replied "no," Diago asked one of the 

animals about Ellie saying, "Possum? About 11-foot tall?" He ironically 

asked about Ellie because she used to think that she was a possum. 

Children, cannot value this irony while those who are beyond the age of 7 

understand it better because they have more urbanized intellect and know 

what is meant by the spoken words.  



38 
 

When this scene was translated as" قردم 11 نارتفراع نوسروما أورألرتم , it was 

subtitled literally since literal translation shows the projected irony. The 

subtitler does not need to modify it in the TL to achieve the ironic effect, 

as it is obvious through the literal translation.  

On the other hand, translating this humorous sentence was little 

different in the dubbed version. It was translated as) انوسروم نيرنا الح رم (In this 

scene the translator attempted to omit parts of this sentence and modify it 

depending on the hand movements of Diago, omitting" about 11-foot tall?" 

may be due to the awareness of the translator that s/he translates for an 

audience i.e. children whose cognitive ability was not mature enough to 

digest this piece of information.       

Alkadi (2010:114. 140) summarizes irony and humor in translation 

as: pun, innuendo/double intenders, malapropism, spoonerism, mixed 

metaphor, joke, extended or running gag, shaggy-dog, story parody, satire, 

irony, understatement, overstatement, statement of the obvious, exclusive 

culture and ideology and absurdity. In Animated films that are presented 

for this age group of audience, nonverbal incongruous situations work side 

by side with the verbal uses of language to evoke laughter in children and 

family.  

Another example, from Ice Age 2, The Meltdown, is when Sid starts 

talking about "fear" in general as a normal habit for everyone, since he 

noticed that Diago is terrified from water. The verbal and the nonverbal 



39 
 

elements of culture and ideology worked side by side to achieve the goal of 

the irony. 

Boy, Manny sure took a big leap with 

Ellie today. 

 مانى أ طى  طوة  نلرة اللوم مع إلهى 

Sure did.  فعال 

He stood on the shore of uncertainty  إنو  ان  هى العاطئ 

and dove right in. Splash.  ول نو غا  نالموضوع 

Kind of brave, huh?  من الع ا ة إنو نوع 

The way he faced his fear.   وا و فليا م اوفو التيتهك الطرلقة 

I wouldn't know.   أن أ رف؟ ليو لف 

Sabres don't feel fear.  تععر نال وف فالنمور ال 

Come on, all animals feel fear.  ف ل الحلوانات تععر نال وف ىلا 

It's what separates us from, say, 

rocks. 

 لفرق نلننا ونلن الص ور ىنا ما 

Rocks have no fear.  فالص ور للس لدليا م اوف 

- And they sink.   نيا تغو  وا 

- What are you getting at, Sid?  سلد؟ إلى ما ترمى لا 

It may surprise you to know   أننيرنما ليمك أن تعهم 

that I, too, have experienced fear.  ألضا مررت نت رنة ال وف 

No. You?  أنت ؟  ال 



40 
 

 When Diego said "no, you?" to his friend Sid, this answer is 

humorous one. What motivates Diago to make fun of him is that he is a 

weak sloth who is afraid of other animals.   

Such ironic terms are easily realized for the reason that the target 

audience knows this way of mocking and sporadically used it while 

interacting with their peers.  

 By translating this irony as ت؟!أنر  ال , the subtitler of the subtitled 

form who adopted literal translation succeeded to transfer this irony exactly 

as the source text does.  

This translation was very effective because sayingال  انرت؟ in Arabic 

shows irony especially in spoken texts on animated films screens where the 

voice inflections are accessible. When the text was subtitled on TV screens, 

the subtitler used ،؟أنتت ال  because the tone of the original character was 

heard by the target audience which shows the intended irony.  

    In this example, the dubbed version dealt with it slightly different 

from the way the subtitled version did. Instead of translating it to   ال  انرت؟  

this ironic sentence was dubbed to be !ال  معقررول؟. The dubber has 

transformed "you" in the SL into معقرول!!  . Both versions used different 

strategies to achieve the same effect of the irony in this scene. And both of 

them were successful since each one depends on technical elements in its 

forms which in this case enable both the subtitlres and the dubbers to 

convey the message without losing the original meaning.  



41 
 

The literal translation approach in general is a very effective 

strategy specially in subtitling as noticed from examining the selected 

examples but sometimes this approach does not make sense in certain 

contexts it was applied. Take for example the following expressions: 

So you think she's the girl for me?  إنن ىل تعتقد أنيا الفتاة المناسنة لى؟ 

Yeah. She's tons of fun  أ ل فإنيا طرلفة  دا 

and you're no fun at all.  وأنت للس لدلك طرافة مطهقا 

She completes you.  إنيا ت مهك 

The irony in this act in that Sid describes Elli as “she is tons of fun”. 

The Arabic subtitling form was “انيرا طرلفرة  ردا” and the dubbed was "  ىري"
 The translators missed the fact that this cultural idiom is a . رردامرحررة 

reference to a comedy team called A Ton of Fun which was a comedy team 

appeared in a series of slapstick silent short films for FBO from 1925 to 

1927 and popular in western culture. This idiom is culturally related and 

untranslatable. Therefore, the main two forms of AVT used the functional 

equivalent as a compensation way to convey the intended meaning but not 

the intended humor.   

In another scene of Ice Age 2, the tiny sloths have determined to 

ransom Sid the “Lord of Fire” to stop the flood. The way they hailed him, 

the way they sang around him and the way they sacrificed him was very 

funny and it imitates the African culture and civilizations. Knowing this 



42 
 

piece of information may help children and family laugh. What evoked 

laughter was the way Sid behaved. The texts were translated literally, and 

this is very normal, since there is nothing to do with such scenes in this 

case. Moreover, culture and ideology in this scene depended on the moves 

and pictures more than on the words, so either a literal translation is 

adopted or the whole scene can be dropped totally. 

 Dubbing, as a form which is considered for families and children as 

a superior way in translating audiovisual films, gains its superiority from 

the flexibility of using various strategies in the translation process. One of 

these strategies is deletion of either words or scenes. For instance, in Ice 

Age 2 when it was represented in MBC 3 channel, a scene when Manny 

fluttering with Elli's butt was deleted from the dubbed version. 

Moreover, using the dubbed form is a good translation mode for 

children at certain ages, especially that children cannot read or write.  So it 

is easy for the translators to manipulate the components which may harm 

the target audience' values. Deleting the whole dialogue is one big benefit 

which can facilitate the job of the translators to get rid of any harmful 

components, and replacing them with a modified and considerable ones. 

   Another example of the superiority of dubbing over subtitling in 

translating animated films culture from humor perspectives is when one of 

the young animals gave another technical name for the burro in Ice Age 2. 



43 
 

A small deer: Burro is a demeaning name. Technically, it's called a wild 

ass. 

Manny: Fine. The wild ass boy came home to his wild ass mother. See, 

that's why I called it a burro. 

 الوحعي   الحمارت نل لا ىنا تعني الحمار :الصغير الغزال

 حمارا أسملتو الوحعلة( لينا الحمارة لوالدتو)  اد الصغلر  الوحعي الحمار ,ناحس :ماني

In the scene, Manny was sharing with   a group of animals a short 

story about a "wild ass." While telling the story, he called the "wild ass" as 

a "burro." One of the animals, who was attending to the story, disturbed 

Manny and told him that a burro is technically called "wild ass."When 

Manny said, "Fine. The wild ass youngster came home to his wild ass 

mother"; all the young animals laughed. Then, Manny got angry and told 

them that he had planned to call him a "burro" in order to avoid laughter. 

The targeted Arabic audience composed of children and family. 

Consequently, by watching this scene, they get many advantages; they get a 

new piece of information that a "burro" is also called "wild ass." When 

translating the scene into Arabic, there was a sentence, which was omitted 

"Burro is a humiliating name." It is omitted because there is a limited space 

on animated films screen and overlooking this sentence makes it easier for 

the subtitler to keep up with the time allowable for the dialog to appear on 

the screen. The intended culture and ideology in the ST depends on 

distinguishing between "wild ass" and "burro" and translating them as 



44 
 

الوحعري الحمرار orالحمرار  has influenced the intended culture and ideology and 

caused a loss in translation. Both words in Arabic have the same denotation 

and they are not loaded with any cultural or ideological meaning. On the 

other hand, subtitling is not all positive. It has its own problems and 

regulations as argued by Thawabteh (2011). 

Through subtitling, the text faces a certain degree of decline in 

comparison to the original text, because it has only a small space reserved 

on the screen and a short time in which it can appear in. The main problem 

in subtitling audiovisual texts is caused by the difference between the speed 

of the spoken language and the speed in reading. A complete transcription 

of the film dialogue is not possible. Both the physical limitation of space on 

the screen and the pace of the spoken word require a lessening of the text. 

People generally speak much faster than they read; subtitling 

inevitably involves technical limitations of shortage of screen space and 

lack of time Baker (2003). Subtitling becomes a difficult task in animated 

films if the target audience is not familiar with the source culture, or visual 

conventions. These complications include aspects of nonverbal 

communication which cross between language and culture, such as gesture 

and idioms, and have come to be characterized as border line qualities. 

 In Ice Age 2, for example, the two small possums have done a body 

sign that is culture specific. Children and family of other cultures cannot 

value its meaning. This was after Manny talked to Ellie about preserving 

their species referring to the notion that he wants to have sex with her. 



45 
 

They did a body gesture that is called 'flicking the Vs' which is made 

mainly by men with the palm of the hand inward in order to threaten and 

offend the viewer. Such signals cannot be translated into Arabic and as a 

result they cause unavoidable loss in translation. 

4.2.1.3. Swearing and slang in translation of animated films: 

Arab culture is sensitive on euphemizing swearwords and taboos. 

Baker (2003) observes the subtitling of swear words in animated films. 

Omission and euphemism are two of the main techniques used in subtitling 

and dubbing to hide the true meanings of swear words.  

An example of swearing words that appears in many animated films 

are for example, ‗Mother-f***er „is not interpreted as ‗F***, but it is 

translated as ‗Freak „. One of the clarifications for restriction in a country 

has little to do with religion, but rather it has to do with culture. Film 

suppliers cannot sell their product if the censors spot any kind of obscenity 

in the subtitle.  

An extra thought is the fact that the written word has better impact 

on the audience than the spoken one. Baker asserts that corresponding item 

should be used to subtitle American English swear words in order to 

convey the original spirit in a more effective way and thus stir up greater 

responsiveness on the part of the audience. What Baker recommends is 

indeed important in the sense that matching down swear words is more 



46 
 

actual than omitting them all together or finding equivalents for them in the 

target culture.  

In dubbing, the substitute of the native dialogue means a loss of 

accuracy and this is a large disadvantage for many viewers. While they can 

choose not to read subtitles, with dubbing such an alternative is not 

accessible and an important part of the original film‟s narrative as well as 

the acting performance is lost. Even if the merit of the new version is very 

high, it seldom beats that of the original and more possible, it will be lower. 

In case there are mistakes in the translation, the viewer is much more 

limited in determining them than with subtitles and the meaning of the 

film‟s dialogue may be shifted or difficult to decipher Ferklová (2014). 

In disapproval to literal use, offensive language can be used 

metaphorically in many separate modes . Curses, swearing are called 

epithets. In these situations , the implication of the used word is more 

important than its meaning and that is also the aspect that the translator 

should try to maintain. For instance, if a character swears wickedly , it is 

not required to replace the religious swear words with those which connote 

sexual subtlety and vice versa. If they employ sexist insults, replacing them 

with racist ones will change the character significantly Ferklová )2014). 

Beaver Dad: [after seeing the ice in the dam crack] Dam[n]! 

 السد سلنيار

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47 
 

The original meaning of the situation is to swear in an indirect way 

to increase the humor of the scene, but in fact it is a swearing (dam 

expressing anger or frustration. The Arabic translation adopted a literal 

translation of the word as ( د سلنيارالس ).  

In Western cultures, swearing is generally rated as inappropriate for 

children and family films. It is a religious taboo in Islam; therefore, 

translators tend to delete any reference to such swearing words in their 

version since parents would not like their children and family to read about 

heroes swearing and acting stupidly.  

Swear words and slang are technical features which assist to add 

expressivity to film discourse and to define characters. While swear words 

express feelings rather than carry basic knowledge essential to 

understanding, slang usually caries denotative meaning as well as 

connotative and emotional charge. In heavily guarded audiovisual 

translation, these expressions can often be largely reduced or replaced; the 

translator will rely on other channels of the audiovisual material to provide 

the necessary expressivity to the viewer. Nevertheless, linguistic choices 

are never arbitrary in film so the translator has to be careful not to 

overwhelm them too much as they may affect character representation 

[and] ultimately the message of the film. The two different methods of 

AVT may allow and require different methods to this task.  Another 

example, from ice age 1, where Sid and many are debating on changing the 

child‟s dibbers; they say: 



48 
 

Manfred: Okay, you. Check for poop.  

Sid: Hey, why am I the poop-checker?  

Manfred: Because returning the runt was your idea, because you're small 

and insignificant, and because I'll pummel you if you don't.  

Sid: ...Why else?  

Manfred: NOW, Sid!  

 حسنا  تحقق من األمر

 لمانا أنا ؟

 وألنك صغلر وتافو وألني ساضرنك إن لم تفعل

 عي  آ ر ؟

 اآلن سلد

The use of the “poop” and “poop checker” these words are a 

somewhat childish word for feces. Poop is a very commonly used slang 

word that means feces and is far more acceptable than “crap” and “shit”. 

The only downside is that talking about pooping or poop sounds kind of 

silly. There are some harmful effects of certain cultural values on children 

and family and how the translation strategy might affect the children and 

family's understanding of the plot. It also aims at testing the 

appropriateness of some of the values presented in the original text to Arab 

children and family of different age groups from the children and family's 

points of view.  The Arabic translation in the subtitle relied on omitting of 

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the original dialogue and keeping it to the understanding of the audience. 

While the dubbed versions translate it as: 

Manfred: okay, you. Check for poop.                              .ىي انت ! افح  ردا ه 

Sid: Hey, why? Am I a poop-checker?                                .لست فاح  فضالت 

  As mentioned before, each AVT form has its own strategies which is 

adopted in the process of translation, and somehow the technical issues 

affect choosing these strategies. The lip movements are one important 

technical element which poses constructions in translation and choosing the 

length of the sentences, while the subtitled form prefers reducing the 

translated words as possible in order to enable the viewers to read and at 

the same time watch the films.     

Another example is the use of words such as (crap), which all hold a 

swearing and slang meanings. We can see such language in Ice Age1  

Dung Beetle Dad: [Pushing ball of dung] “Do we have to bring this crap? 

“I'm sure there's crap where we're going!". The Arabic translation adopted 

a literary translation approach without regarding the cultural perspectives 

of the translational process. The word crap was subtitled into Arabic as 

 .(الروث)

 ىل ل ب أن نحضر معنا ىنا الروث؟

 ألنما نىننا أنا متا د أنو سل ون ىناك رو اً 

 إن ىنه  انت ىدلة من والدتى

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The same word crap was euphemized in the dubbing form to be as 

"العفرن ". The audience of subtitling  is usually elder than the audience of the 

dubbed one; therefore, picking the level of the linguistic meanings of the 

word crap in the Arabic language differs from the two AVT forms since it 

depends on the age and the cognitive ability of the audience.       

4.2.1.4. Sexual taboos: 

Before analyzing the translation of animated films from cultural 

perspectives concerning sexual taboos, we need to know what a taboo is. 

Taboo words refer to words and phrases that are generally considered 

inappropriate in certain contexts and they have to be avoided entirely, or at 

least avoided in mixed company or polite company. Typical examples 

involve common swear words such as Damn! or Shit!  Moreover, one 

common taboos are those sexual ones, which refer to words related to sex 

as: fuck, fornicate, masturbation, prick, cunt, the devil, crap and piss. There 

are a number of sexual terms that are considered taboo if translated literally 

or conveyed implicitly into the Arabic language. An example from Ice 

Age2: 

Eddie: What if we're the last creatures left alive? We'll have to repopulate the earth.  

Crash: How? Everyone is either a dude or our sister.  

 الند أن نعلد إ مار األرض  الناقلة أحلا اً   مانا لو  نا الم هوقات الوحلدة

 ف ل واحد منا ر ل وأ تنا  لف؟

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The type of conversation that took place in this scene may be 

considered as a sexual taboo because it refers to incest and homosexuality 

which are considered to be prohibited in Islamic culture and certainly does 

not suit children and family.  

Another example of homosexual reference in the ice age series is 

when the female Mini Sloth says:  

Female Mini Sloth: Fire King avert flood. Join us, O great and noble 

flaming one.  

Diego: Whoa, not so fast there! Okay? You make a quality offer, but Fire 

King has a prior commitment. His herd needs him. He is the gooey, 

sticky... stuff that holds us together. He made this herd, and we'd be 

nothing without him.  

Sid: You mean it? Ohh!  

[Hugs Diego]  

Diego: Sid! Sid! I'm... That doesn't mean "want to touch."  

 الننلررل المهررك أليررا إللنررا الفلضرران  إنضررم قيررر النررار   مهررك- أىررال  أىررال  أىررال  النررار لمهررك التحلررة-
 المعتعل

  عرلرتو مسرنقة  إن ارتناطرات لدلرو النرار مهرك رائعرا  ل رنا عرضرل قردمتم السر ة  لقرد نينه للس ال-
 ىررنا صررنع الررني ىررو الررنعض  لنعضررنا ترنطنررا الهم ررة  التررى المررادة تهررك  ل الصررم ا ىررن تحتا ررو  إن

 .عي  ال سنصنح القطلع  وندونو

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 ىنا؟ أتعنى-

 لمسي لم نك انو لعنى ال ىنا-

The situation where Diego describes Sid as “the gooey, sticky... stuff 

“translated literally in the both forms to be as (  ننعضنا ترنطنا الهم ة  التى المادة
 and he makes a statement that this complement does not mean that (النعض

Sid can touch him “a Diego: Sid! Sid! I'm... That doesn't mean "want to 

touch.") 

While, Mdallel (2003) affirms that translation is a cross-cultural 

communication, the translation of such displays has to consider the disputes 

between the cultures in a way that does not harm the target audiences 

beliefs. 

Disney‟s animated films are full of dreamy acts and this is a normal 

result since it reproduces the culture of the western society, but such acts 

must be filtered or even euphemized to be accepted to the Arabs. For 

instance, translating the word "hot" in ice age 4 while Peach (Manny's 

daughter) portrays her boyfriend Ethan. In the subtitled version it is 

translated as م لر, while it dubbed into Arabic to be  وسلم. In this case, literal 

translation is used in subtitling, while euphemizing the same word is used 

in dubbing. 

  



53 
 

4.3. Second: Ideologically related problems: 

 When the filmmakers do their films specially those for children they 

intend to load them with definite educational significances and this is 

related to what is "good" or "ideologically acceptable" for their culture. On 

the contrary, some or even all of their own "good" and "acceptable" cancel 

out with the target audience beliefs and values when these films are 

translated to new people , the Arab population in this case. Due to the 

conclusion that animated films shows a significant role in shaping the 

minds and thoughts of children and family, it is advisable to behold at the 

translations of animated films into Arabic in order to see whether they 

contribute to, or distort, the children and family's values and thoughts. In 

this part , I will investigate some of the ideological misunderstandings that 

might be caused by discounting the fact that the Arab and the English 

cultures change in their values and beliefs and how some of the values 

accessible in animated films may mislead Arab children and family's values 

and clash with what they already have. 

In reviewing the meaning of Ideology as it is  defined by Merriam's 

Webster Online Dictionary (2008) as “A systematic body of concepts 

especially about human life, culture or manner, or the content of thinking 

characteristic of an individual, group, or culture, or the integrated 

assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical 

program.”(Available athttp://clerisy.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/merriam-

websteronlinedictionary). It is obvious that ideology overlaps with all 

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54 
 

aspects of human life in a particular community, and affect their attitude 

and behavior towards certain situations. An example of referring to 

ideology in animated films includes the idea of consumerism as a social 

and economic order and ideology encourages the acquisition of goods and 

services in ever-increasing amounts.  The scene is a critic to consumer 

culture of the west and its (junk food). Again, it seems that the translator 

has missed the meaning of the words from a cultural and ideological 

perspective and translated junk food into (الفضالت).  

Sid: For a second there, I actually thought you were gonna eat me.  

Diego: I don't eat junk food.  

  هنيلهحظة ظننت أنك ستا

 ال آ ل الفضالت

Meanwhile, ideology as Hollindale (1998: 19-27) describes it as "a 

systematic scheme of ideas relating to politics or society or to a conduct of 

a class or group, and regarded as justifying actions". He proclaims that all 

novels embody a set of ideological values (whether intended or not) which 

differ from one culture to another and influence the audience who in turn 

differ in their tastes, needs, social and ethnic origin. For him, ideology can 

appear implicitly in which the ideas are transferred covertly abiding by the 

didactic guidelines in order to achieve a moral effect. In this sense, it has a 

significant role in 'socializing children and family' to accept and absorb a 

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specific ideology since children and family tend to be less sophisticated 

audience than adults and tend to believe what they read easily. 

4.3.1. Ideological issues in translating animated films in gender 

portrayal 

 

"Racism" is one of those ideological themes which can be noticed 

profusely in Disney's animated films. Ice Age series is seen by many as the 

worst children and family‟s films in terms of "gender racism". Ice Age is a 

classic all-male adventure in which a varied group of different animals 

stated a long adventure to bring a (male) baby back to his human tribe. The 

human tribe is strangely consisted of males except for the mother of the 

baby, who loses her life at the beginning of the movie in order to set up 

their great adventure.  

The lack of female main characters is pretty standard fare; therefore, 

it‟s the scene of the mother when she scarified herself which places this 

film in a class of its own. As she pulled herself along, she walked on the 

floor of the river, she slipped in the river. But she had the strength to push 

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56 
 

her baby up onto a rock at that moment; she helplessly looked at" Manny" 

to hold her baby with his trunk  in order to prevent him not to slide back 

into the river. Once she made sure that her baby is saved by the mammoth,  

at last she goes down of the river, and the only reaction to her death was the 

sloth sadly saying “she‟s gone”,     

This scene in Ice Age 1 demonstrates that the filmmaker didn‟t give a 

second thought to this mother as a human being: they saw her as an 

unnoticeable character.  

 ?Manny  ماني ؟

 .Look at that  أنظر  

 .He's okay  إنو ن لر

 .She's gone  لقد ا تفت

Another example of ideological values and connotation is in Ice Age: 

Continental Drift which follows the same plot as the previous Ice Age 

movies.  In this movie the emphasis go around three main male characters, 

Manny, Sid, and Diego but not a female character as a main one .  Manny 

is having trouble controlling his teenage daughter, who in turn is having 

trouble fitting in with the other mammoths. The men face scuffle with the 

male leader of a pirate ship. When the men sink his ship, the pirate leader, 

Gutt, promises to take revenge, and ends up holding their family‟s hostage. 

The female roles come from Manny‟s wife, Ellie, their grandmother, and 



57 
 

their daughter, Peaches. From the first-mate of the pirate ship, Shira, who 

grows to be the love interest of Diego. The women are all in very 

unimportant roles as loving escorts. One difference we do see, however, is 

Shira betraying her friends to protect Diego and his friend‟s families. Shira 

saves Manny‟s wife, therefore earning the love and respect of the group of 

friends. Granny plays a large part in protecting the family when her pet 

whale stops the fighting between the pirates and the friends. In this film, 

there are also Sirens, creatures that portray what each of the male 

characters find desirable, which creates an environment where the female 

characters are being objectified.  

Gender affects the children and family's understanding of the 

subtitles or dubbing of the animated film. The challenge of whether girls 

and boys watch certain animated films is critical because they have 

different preferences and interest‟s; girls like love stories while boys like 

real events and give truthful descriptions of them. Not only that, boys are 

attracted in heroes and their journeys. While girls interested more about 

love and tragic stories. 

 Ideological characterization is outside any doubt an over 

popularization of most people‟s social principles and moral views. Our 

daily understanding provides us with numerous examples of individuals 

who hold to some of these ideologies but not to others. There may be, for 

instance, liberals who defend equal rights for homosexuals and 

conservatives who oppose certain issues for religious reasons. Most 



58 
 

society‟s ideological position is far more complex than simple dichotomous 

view and it does not usually fit in civil typecasts and social typecasting. It 

is, therefore, important to assume in mind that the above classifications 

were used only as operational sets of parameters:  

While cultural constituents are graphic and somehow obvious in 

these animated movies, ideological ones are embedded. Therefore, 

translators should be more conscious to such components in their 

translation. An example which is from Ice Age: continental drift, a scene 

while there is a conversation between Manny and his daughter Peaches 

while they are speaking about her relationship with her boyfriend Ethan. In 

this scene the daughter talked to her father angrily. 

Manny: you deliberately went  

Where you weren't supposed to! 

 Peach: You can't control my life! 

Manny: I'm trying to protect you  

That's what fathers do. 

Peach: (angrily)  well … I wish you weren’t my father. 

  Visual pictures in animated films usually function as a support in 

order to understand the dialogue. As a result, dialogues go hand in hand 

with the visual images and this sometimes causes constriction in the 



59 
 

process of translation.  And what occurs in this scene is that both varieties 

translate it literally since the visual descriptions shows how furiously Peach 

yelled to her dad. However, they don‟t pay consideration to the western 

ideology which diverges entirely from that of Muslims. It is not acceptable 

in Islam to talk with the parents in such a way. Allah says: 

 سورة األنعام "." وال تقل ليما أف و ال تنيرىما و صاحنيما في الدنلا معروفا". 

These two translations are not effective at all, particularly the dubbed 

one. In dubbing the speech is entirely covered and new dialogue can be 

used instead. Therefore, the translators have chance to rework the whole 

dialogue in the act in a way doesn‟t destroy the audience believes mainly 

the moral culture of the children who may dare in the future to act like this. 

Also skipping some words or scenes is a strategy which can be followed in 

translation to bridge the gap between the cultures.   

4.3.2. Religious references: 

When translating culture and ideology, the translator may encounter 

religious references that s/he should overcome successfully to achieve 

acceptance by the target audience. Examples on such religious differences 

from ice age 1 and  2 are listed in : 

Fire King? Well, you know, it's about time 

someone recognized my true potential. 

 مهك النار؟ 

إنررررو  ررررا  الوقررررت أن لالحررررظ أحرررردىم 
 موىنتى الحقلقلة



60 
 

Let there be fire.   اناً لت ون ىناك نلر 

If only the guys could see me now.  لاللت العناب لروننى اآلن 

This is either really good  إن ىنا قد ل ون  لدا  دا 

or really bad.  أو سلئا  دا 

No, no, no.  ال ال ال 

Me Fire King. Why kill Fire King?  أنا مهك النار 

A thousand years' bad juju  هل م ألف  ام من الهعنة سل لئ  

for killing Fire King.  إنا قتهتم مهك النار 

Super-heated rock from Earth's core  إنيا حمم نر انلة تنلب الح ارة 

is surging to the crust,  مقنوفة من ناطن اآلرض 

melting ice built up   تسنب نونان ال هلد 

over thousands of years.  لنى دام ألف  اما 

Sid unintentionally starts a fire in the first film and learns how to do 

it properly towards the end; he also shows this skill in the second film, 

where he is worshiped by a tribe of "mini-sloths" who call him "Fire King" 

and try to ransom him. The issue of Sid entitling himself the “king of fire” 

holds religious connotations, who appoint himself as a religious deity. And 

even the character threatening his audience with a punishment and curse.  



61 
 

This religious concept in translation is critical in Islam and Arabic culture 

since it has a religious connotation.  

The translation of (A thousand years' bad juju) is translated into 

( الهعنررة مررن  رامف ألرر  هررل م سرل ي  ). The use of the word (Juju or ju-ju) is a 

spiritual belief system incorporating objects, such as amulets, and spells 

used in religious practice, as part of witchcraft in West Africa. The term 

has been applied to traditional West African religions. This would include 

middle eastern communities and it is offensive in nature and made to 

ridicule these cultures and religions cultures. 

      Landers (2001) comments on the translation of children's literature, 

specifically on the ideological considerations that should be taken into 

account; therefore, he argues that translators should have greater "liberties" 

in modifying the foreign cultural elements and traditions that the target 

children may not be interested in. He believes that such issues as magic, 

racism, ethnicity, gender bias, family strife, divorce, death and taboos 

should not be included in children's literature and the translator should be 

aware of the breakdowns caused by such aspects. 

Another example which shows the clashing between the western 

culture and the Arabs, is using the phrase " worshiping me” in Ice Age 2 by 

Sid when he told his friends that mini sloths   was called him to be the fire 

king and they worshiped him. 



62 
 

In Arabic this word means " دعن ررل   " and this word in the Islamic 

ideology cannot be used to anyone except to "Allah".  In the dubbed 

version the replacement strategy was used to avoid this ideological 

breakdown, so it was translated to be as "لحترمررونني" and this was very 

successful. Meanwhile, this word was subtitled to be "  Although ." هروننين  ل  

this equivalent still has a religious meaning but not the same as using 

" ين  عنردون  ل   ". Using such an equivalent in Arabic needs an audience who has 

this linguistic competence which enables it to comprehend the meaning of 

it. So euphemizing this term also was a successful choice since we deal 

with an elder audience who can read the subtitled dialogue.      

4.3.3. Social ideology:  

An amount of the scenes in the selected animated films contain terms 

or orientations that are cultural and ideological but socially not suitable to 

be presented to the Arab audience. Some of them were totally lost in the TT 

while the other cultural and ideological effects were saved in different ways 

according to the given situation.  

The cultural taboos sometimes form translation dilemmas that 

require the translator to be very aware of the term's connotations, its 

acceptability or unacceptability in the target culture, the level of formality 

and the degree of culture and ideology, etc. Among the translation 

strategies that work are euphemism or literal translation despite the degree 

of the loss they all cause. An example of such social taboos that represent a 



63 
 

problem for translators is in ice age 2 were Manfred is talking about fast 

tony. Manfred says: 

Manfred: Come on. Don't listen to him. Fast Tony would sell his own 

mother for a grape.  

Fast Tony: Are you making an offer? I mean... No, I would not!  

 تنصتوا إليو ىيا ال

 السريع ىذا يتون

 قد يبيع والدتو من أجل عنبو

 ىل تقدم لى عرضا؟

 أعنى ال أنا لن أفعل

To discuss the social interaction in a very low level that reaches into 

slag and colloquialism is considered to be a problematic issue in translating 

animated films, were Manfred says that “Fast Tony would sell his own 

mother for a grape” translated into Arabic as(  قد لنلع والدتو من أ ل  ننو   ) . The 

original English version refers to fast tony as a symbol of Capitalism which 

is an economic system based on private ownership of the means of 

production and their operation for profit. 

4.4. Results Related to the second Question: 

Does subtitling method use the same strategies to deal with the cultural 

and ideological problems as dubbing does? 

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This question implies determining how important the strategies 

which are used in both subtitling and dubbing as solutions to such problems 

and how subtitling method uses the same strategies to deal with the cultural 

and ideological problems as dubbing does. The question also implies the 

efforts to figure out if subtitling or dubbing, because it is co-present with 

the original language, necessarily implying foreignization, while dubbing 

would be necessarily domestication. 

Translating culture and ideology in animated films for the whole 

family often entails using various translation strategies. When translating 

such shows, the translator needs to change the ST into the TT that is 

suitable for the target audience's linguistic, cognitive and cultural 

considerations. Translating for an audience of varied age groups with 

varying cognitive abilities may result in a number of difficulties for the 

translator.  So, conveying the cultural and ideological content of the ST 

into the TT is a complicated process.  

Translating culture and ideology, is a challenging matter, partly 

because being able to value culture and ideology does not mean that one is 

able to refashion that same effect in the TT. On the other hand, the 

linguistic features, as well as the cultural concepts bound with culture and 

ideology, make culture and ideology translation a big encounter for culture 

and ideology translators. Acclimating the culturally specific terms, idioms, 

proverbs and jokes into the TL to meet the audience's opportunities and to 

induce their laughter constitute a big defiance in translation. 



65 
 

Many of these movies have linguistic descriptions or cultural specific 

scenes that are untranslatable; this breakdown causes inevitable loss in 

translation. This kind of loss in translation has been defined by Dickins, 

Hervey, and Higgins (2002) as an unfinished replication of the ST into the 

TT – that is, the inevitable loss of textually and culturally relevant 

features." The translator has to pay more efforts to minimize such losses. 

Faced with these occurrences, the translator will feel an obligation to 

maintain the effect by using the appropriate compensation mechanism. 

Therefore, compensation is vital in translating culture and ideology since 

there is an inevitable loss in some phrases and meanings in a ST that cannot 

be translated into the target language. 

     An example of using compensation as a strategy is when Manny in Ice 

Age 2 mocks Ellie's answer when she says that she is a possum but not a 

mammoth. So he presents himself to be "newt" instead of being a 

mammoth and Diago to be "badger" but not a tiger. In subtitling, the 

subtitler sticks to the literal translation to translate these two words" newt"  

to be  سمندل الما  and "badger" to be  حلوان الغرلر. On the contrary, the dubbed 

version compensates this unfamiliarity, since may they sound unfamiliar to 

children, to translate newt as سرحهلة and badger to be الفرار. This translation 

compensates the "the unfamiliarity" of these kinds of animal names and 

substituted them with familiars ones especially for children who may never 

hear of such animals.   



66 
 

In terms of the problems involved in subtitling into Arabic, Gamal 

(2008: 5-6) conducts a study to perceive the viewers‟ perception of 

subtitling. He determines that: (1) television language is too stiff; (2) 

deletion appears to be a noticeable strategy; (3) swear words are too 

clichéd; (4) cultural images are mistranslated; (5) translation of film titles is 

too liberal; (6) the language of subtitling is becoming a genre; (7) mistakes 

are always to be expected; (8) the font used in subtitles is too small and 

subtitles are too fast to read; (9) spotting is a major source of irritation; and 

(10) white color of subtitles is unhelpful. Insofar as subtitling from Arabic 

into English is uneasy, for example, the effort of the translator to translate 

an act with reference to flirting:  

1. Ellie: What about me is attractive?  ني ل ننك ما ا  ر ما  :أيمي 

Manny: I don't know.  ا رف ال :ماني 

Well, there's your butt.  ... قوامك ... ألو ...ألو ...حسن ... ألو 

Ellie: What about it?  نو؟ مانا : أيمي  

Manny: It's big.  نلر انو :ماني  

Ellie: You're just saying that.  مهنيت ا أنت آه :أيمي 

Manny: No, no, no, I mean it.  ال ال  :ماني 

It's huge. Biggest darn butt I've  واقع ىو نل 

ever seen.  حلاتي في رالتيا أن ىأض م  ااني 

Ellie: That is really sweet.  ) لطلف أنت  م آه :أيمي  



67 
 

This example is a discourse between Ellie and Manny that is ta