Translation of Culture-Specific Terms in the English Subtitles of the French Romantic Comedy Film Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain

Translation from one language to another is as much a compromise between two lexicons as it is a negotiation between two cultures. Translating culture is no easy feat, but when this is done in the context of film, and the constraints of subtitling come into play, the difficulty of the process is exacerbated. This article analyzes the strategies which have been utilized to translate into English the French culture-specific terms in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s French romantic comedy Le Fabuleux Destin d’Amélie Poulain. In so doing, the study seeks to ascertain how foreign culture is represented in the film and whether the English-subtitled version of the original diminishes the experience or whether it adds another dimension to it. To this end, the study relies on Jan Pedersen’s taxonomy of ECR transfer strategies as well as his classification of cultural domains. It is found that the English subtitle version’s main aim was to render the movie comprehensible to the Anglophone viewer and less so to reflect French culture, a job left mainly to the cinematography and the music of the film. The translator manages nevertheless to maintain a level of cultural authenticity by using a specific translation strategy. The result is one which allows the non-French speaking viewer not only to comprehend a relatively complex dialogue and plot, but also to experience the French cultural magic intended to be conveyed.