ISSN: 1579-9794

Hikma 22(2) (2023), 285 - 307

Prefabricated orality and the translation of Spanish and

Catalan approximators into English in a TV series

Oralidad prefabricada y la traducción al inglés de

aproximadores españoles y catalanes en una serie

televisiva

Natàlia Server Benetó

serverbeneto.1@osu.edu

The Ohio State University (USA)

Fecha de recepción: 16 de abril de 2023

Fecha de aceptación: 7 de noviembre de 2023

Abstract: Discourse markers have been studied in translation studies in the

variety known as prefabricated orality, present in audiovisual products in

which spontaneous orality is feigned through a priori script writing. These

particles are made explicit or implied when transferring from one language to

another. In the present work, I delve into the translation of four discourse

markers: como and com, from Spanish and Catalan, respectively, and their

variants como que and com que, categorized as approximators. The corpus

used is a TV series based on improvisation, so the present article challenges

the adequacy of the label of prefabricated orality considering the lack of a

script and the performative factor of language. The analysis is divided into the

classification of the textual and pragmatic values of the markers in the source

languages and their translation in the English subtitling. The results align with

past studies in which the preference seems to be for the omission of markers,

regardless of their contribution to the discourse, with the losses that this

entails. Beyond this, it has been found that other factors, such as co-

occurrence with other markers or the marker's position, seem relevant in their

translation, so a syntactic analysis of translation techniques is proposed.

Keywords: Audiovisual translation, Prefabricated orality, Subtitling,

Discourse markers, Approximator

Resumen: Los marcadores del discurso se han estudiado desde el ámbito

traductológico en la variedad llamada oralidad prefabricada, aquella presente

en producciones audiovisuales en las que se finge oralidad espontánea a

través de la escritura previa de un guion. En el proceso de trasvase de una

lengua a otra se opta por la explicitación o la implicación de estas partículas.

En el presente trabajo, se ahonda en la traducción de cuatro marcadores

discursivos: como y com, del español y del catalán, respectivamente, y sus

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variantes como que y com que, los cuales se categorizan como

aproximadores. El corpus usado es una serie basada en la improvisación, por

lo que en el artículo se cuestiona la adecuación de la etiqueta de oralidad

prefabricada teniendo en cuenta la falta de guion y el factor performativo

sobre el lenguaje. El análisis se divide en la clasificación de los valores

textuales y pragmáticos de los marcadores en el discurso original y en su

traducción en la subtitulación al inglés. Los resultados están en consonancia

con estudios pasados en los que la preferencia parece ser la omisión de los

marcadores, independientemente de su aportación al discurso, con las

pérdidas que ello acarrea. Más allá de esto, se ha encontrado que otros

factores, como coocurrencia con otros marcadores o la posición del

marcador, parecen ser relevantes en su traducción, por lo que se propone un

análisis sintáctico de las técnicas de traducción.

Palabras clave: Traducción audiovisual, Oralidad prefabricada,

Subtitulación, Marcadores del discurso, Aproximadores

NTRODUCTION

Prefabricated orality or pretended orality is described as a linguistic

variety, present in audiovisual products, that is “written to be spoken as if not

written” (Gregory and Carroll, 1978, p. 42). Television and film scripts are

crafted to sound as natural as possible when said out loud by the actors and

actresses. To achieve this goal, scriptwriters use “types of linguistic

expression very similar to those typical of speech” (Biber and Conrad, 2019,

p. 303), such as fillers, specific intonation patterns, slang, colloquial

expressions, or special sociolects. From a linguistically analytical point of

view, studying manifestations of this prefabricated orality, fingierte

Mündlichkeit (Goetsch, 1985) or oralidad fingida (Chaume, 2004) contributes

in the understanding of the techniques employed by scriptwriters in creating a

fake, informal text, and the similarity between a possible spontaneous oral

discourse, such as colloquial conversations. Numerous researchers have

accounted for this from a global point of view (Giralt Latorre, 1994; Flores

Acuña, 2014; Méndez Orense and Pérez Béjar, 2022) or applied to language

teaching (Fung and Carter, 2007; Soler Pardo, 2017), amongst others.

More remarkably, studies on prefabricated orality have been more

fruitful when approached from translation studies. Due to the awareness that

underlies the creation of colloquialized scripts, translation scholars have been

interested in analysing the transfer from one language to another to explore

possible cross-linguistic equivalences and check whether the objective of

producing “a similar effect on the target culture audience as the source text

produced on the source audience” is met (Chaume, 2004, p. 844). These

audiovisual translation analyses may focus on dubbing (Agost, 1997; Chaume

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2001; Baños Piñero, 2004; Leal Abad, 2011; Rossi, 2011) or subtitling (Chen,

1996; Mattsson, 2006). They may concentrate on a specific part of language,

such as the transference of humour and its relation to cultural constraints

(Arampatzis, 2011; Martínez Sierra, 2016) or sociolects (Igareda & Aperribay,

2012). Within these, numerous investigations address the translation of

discourse markers (DMs) in audiovisual products (Cuenca, 2006; Matamala,

2009; Mattsson, 2009). In line with that research, the present paper analyses

the transfer of the discourse markers como from Peninsular Spanish and com

from Catalan and their variants como que and com que, respectively, in a

television series to its translation into English subtitling.

The rest of the article is organized as follows: firstly, there is a

theoretical review of the study of discourse markers in audiovisual translation,

followed by a summary of the productive research on the particles como and

como que across different Spanish varieties. Since their equivalents in

Catalan, com and com que have not been studied before, it is impossible to

devote a discourse-pragmatic theory section to it. However, a short paragraph

on their grammatical description and some theorization on the possible origins

of com (que) as DMs are provided. After this, the series used for the corpus,

Autodefensa (2022), will be described, and the appropriateness of the label

“prefabricated orality” will be reconsidered given the show’s high level of

improvisation. Once all the theoretical foundations have been established, the

analysis of the English translations of these markers will be shown based on

their previously analysed pragmatic values (Server, in press). Finally, the main

conclusions of this work will be drawn, and future avenues of study will be

proposed.

1. D

ISCOURSE MARKERS AND TRANSLATION

Discourse markers are a highly debated category within linguistics as

they can be defined based on various starting points, such as pragmatics,

semantics, syntax, or discourse studies. Quite early on, Levinson described

DMs as words and phrases that “indicate the relationship between an

utterance and prior discourse” (1983, pp. 87-88). Thus, from the very

beginning, there is an interest in highlighting the operability of DMs in

discursive relations between two elements. The earliest, most detailed study

of DMs comes from Schiffrin (1987) in her publication on the theoretical status

of this category. In general terms, Schiffrin characterizes DMs as being

syntactically independent of their sentence, presenting a specific prosodic

realization, and being able to operate on different discourse levels, among

others (1987). Later on, Fischer postulates that DMs have “structuring

functions with respect to local and global content and structure of discourse”

(2000, p. 20). From an interactional point of view, DMs are used “to express

speaker stance; to guide utterance interpretation; and to structure discourse”

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(Pichler, 2013, p. 4), so attention must be paid to the specific context in which

they are employed to unpack their contribution. Moreover, DMs are extremely

language-dependent, and even if situations of linguistic transfer occur (Flores

Ferrán, 2014; Andersen, 2014; Kern, 2020), each marker must be studied in

its context and its language. It is, therefore, of interest to translation studies to

explore how meanings and functions can be carried over from one language

to another.

There is a great deal of research that addresses the translation of DMs

from one language to another. As mentioned above, it is crucial to consider

the context in which a discourse marker is inserted to know what contributes

to the discourse's procedural content. Beyond a possible semantic

equivalence, due to the discursive and interactional role played by these kinds

of words, their translation must reflect and maintain the functional equivalence

between the source and target languages. This is not an easy task since and,

as Aijmer et al. (2006) point out, one must go beyond a pre-established

equivalence and “choose a correspondence for a linguistic element in a

particular context” (p. 11). It is necessary to delve into the particularities of the

original text, understand its meaning and, from there, find an equivalence that

works in the target linguistic variety and in that specific context. As Solsona

Martínez emphasizes, one must “adopt a functional correspondence, [starting

from the] semantic equivalence, distinguishing the core meaning [and] the

pragmatic [contextual] values” of the discourse marker in question (2016, p.

111). Despite their difficulty, analyses of the translation of DMs in the

audiovisual are fruitful. They can illustrate the processes of creating pretended

orality, the pragmatics of the languages involved, translation strategies, and

possible cross-linguistic bridges.

Such research has focused on dubbing and subtitling in the languages

of interest in this article, Spanish and Catalan, into English and vice versa. In

the first group, there are numerous published works on the transfer from

English into Spanish (Romero-Fresco, 2012; Baños, 2014; Calvo Rigual,

2015) or from Spanish into English, as in the present research (Wang, 2013;

Peromingo, 2014). Research of this nature on Catalan is scarcer due to the

more limited production in the language. However, some remarkable

publications, such as Dolç and Santamaria (1998), include DMs in their

comprehensive analysis of pretended orality in dubbing Catalan into English

in several television series. Cuenca (2006), on the other hand, focuses on the

analysis of pragmatic and translation errors in the dubbing of Four weddings

and a funeral (Mike Newell, 1994). Finally, Matalama (2007) studies the

functions of the interjection oh in English comedies and its translation into

Catalan dubbing.

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In this paper, I focus on the translation of discourse markers como (que)

in Peninsular Spanish and com (que) in Catalan in their adaptation into

English subtitling. I have chosen to focus on this modality because the series

Autodefensa (2022), the corpus, is not dubbed into any language. In this way,

this publication also contributes to the bibliography on translation in these

language pairs and, by taking Catalan as the source language, I contribute

further to the scarce body of research in that language. A more detailed

account of the research so-far on these particles follows.

2. C

OMO (QUE) AND COM (QUE)

The marker como has gone through a historical process of

grammaticalization, starting its prepositional origins, its progress into a

conjunction and an adverb into its discursive and pragmatic realm (D’Arcy,

2017; Aguilar Durán, 2019), a process similar to like in English (Kern, 2017).

In this evolution, the core meaning of como and its variant como que has

become that of approximation or loose interpretation (Fuller, 2003). Speakers

employ these markers to distance themselves from the truth conditions of

what they are saying, excusing themselves from the responsibility for what is

being said. Thus, this meaning operates on a semantic, not a pragmatic, level.

Through their repeated use, como and como que have acquired new

meanings closer to pragmatics, most notably that of attenuator. When this

marker is used, the speaker seeks to take distance from what is said with the

specific goal of protecting oneself since the utterance “[could] generate conflict

or disagreement with the interlocutor” (Aguilar Durán, 2019, p. 26). Therefore,

due to the underlying approximative meaning of como, this DM takes on

different values in context regarding its contribution, which will change

depending on the communicative situation (Rivas, 2016). It is necessary to

delve into the complexities of its contextualized uses to determine its exact

function and how to transfer it into the target language.

Besides attenuation, previous authors have pointed out many other

discourse values for como and como que, which coincide across Spanish

varieties. As for como, Jørgensen (2011) points to intensification, filling, or

introducing direct discourse as their central values in young speakers from

Madrid. In Chilean Spanish, also amongst young people, Mondaca (2019)

finds that these markers fulfill functions of numerical approximation,

exemplification, direct discourse introduction, or filler. Given the

predominance of attenuation, some researchers have proposed several sub-

functions of this value in the discourse: self-protection, prevention, and image

repair (Mondaca, 2019; Repede, 2020). These meanings also have been

mentioned in the literature of the English discourse marker like, which may

also serve as an approximative or hedge, quotative, a focus particle, or an

exemplifier (Fuller, 2003; Miller, 2009). This interlinguistic equivalence will be

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relevant in the analysis section when exploring the translation between these

languages.

Regarding como que, some studies have explored its functioning as a

variant of como, with the que element “not contribut[ing] anything either

syntactically or semantically to the whole sequence” (Camacho, 2011, p. 8).

Despite this initial hypothesis, recent, more detailed studies reveal certain

differences in their uses. Mondaca (2019) finds that Chilean women employ

como que in an attenuating way more than men and, at the same time, people

of the younger demographic group use this variant more. Aguilar Durán (2020)

finds that como que can function as a casual conjunctive locution, but como

no.

The Spanish forms como (que) have a rich body of research from a

discursive-pragmatic perspective. Unfortunately, this cannot be said for the

Catalan com and its possible variant com que. The present study is the first

to look at these items pragmatically. In the Institut d’Estudis Catalans

dictionary, com is categorized as a conjunction, which may be followed by

que, and it denotes cause. Despite having the same form, com que does not

indicate approximation or attenuation but causality.

Com que estic cansada, me’n vaig a jeure

Since I am tired, I am going to lay down

Com és tan tard, ens n’anem

Since it is so late, we are leaving

This same dictionary indicates that com functions as an adverb when it

refers to how something is done or that something is done similarly. It is this

fourth meaning of com that seems most relevant here. As with Spanish, the

approximator pragmatic meaning of com in interaction seems to stem from its

contrastive, semantic meaning.

No sé com fer-ho

I don’t know how to do it

És blanca com la neu

She is as white as snow

At this stage, it is speculative to affirm where the meaning(s) of com

(que) found in this research stem from, i.e., their approximative and

attenuating values. It is hard to affirm that they come purely from their

evolutionary patterns, similar to their Spanish counterparts. Com contains an

approximative value within the syntax-semantic realm, although it does not

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include que. Speakers could have independently mirrored the syntactic

pattern of com que into the pragmatic functions of com. There is also the

possibility of com (que) discursively coming from languages in contact, which

has been observed in English-Spanish contact and DMs transmissions

elsewhere (Torres, 2002; Flores-Ferrán, 2014). Other research shows

semantic extensions from Spanish-Catalan regarding their DMs (Payrató,

1988; González, 1998; Server Benetó, 2024). Since Spanish como (que) is

very productive in informal speech, it may be that Catalan speakers have

adapted the pragmatic uses of the Spanish forms into the repertoire in the

form of com (que). Determining the exact origins of com (que) in Catalan as a

DM is beyond the scope of this paper, which focuses on its current uses in a

particular type of interaction. Further research into its evolution is encouraged

for future investigations.

3. M

ETHODOLOGY AND CORPUS

The corpus of study is the series Autodefensa (2022), which premiered

in 2022 and was created and written by Berta Prieto, Belén Barenys, who are

also part of the cast, and Miguel Ángel Blanca, who directs it. There is a total

of 10 episodes distributed in two seasons. Autodefensa features Berta and

Belén, two young Catalan women in their early twenties who live irreverently

and freely. The series shows their daily life, dominated by partying, drugs,

and, at times, quasi-philosophical reflections. However, it also discusses

social issues, such as anxiety, sexuality, and abuse within the audiovisual

industry. Each episode, of short duration, revolves around one of these

themes, and the formal approach (visuals, mise-en-scène, lighting, etc.) aims

to be as natural as possible. On most occasions, the camera seems to be just

another element of the interaction, distancing the viewer from a more

theatrical conception of what they see. Spanish and Catalan are used

throughout the show, even though there is more discourse on the former. The

spoken parts of the show and the subtitling were transcribed and later aligned

to match their equivalences. Afterward, an analysis of the original values of

the markers was carried out, followed by a quantification of their translations

as they related to their contextual meanings.

There is a compelling reason for the interest in using Autodefensa

(2022) as a corpus, which lies in the absence of a formal script in most

episodes. Instead, the cast were given a general topic as a starting point and

then they were recorded talking about it. There was a prefabricated theme and

plot, but no memorized or preestablished script. The interactions are natural

insofar as they occur spontaneously and without prior planning. Therefore,

their uses of como (que) and com (que) may be closer to what they would use

in their day-to-day life. The naturalization of their interactions and the

correlation with the presence of the markers is related to the absence of

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scripting, which is demonstrated when attention is paid to the two episodes

which are more prepared, both in season 2. In episode 6, the characters

emulate pseudo-feminist speeches of hatred towards men in which they

repeat arguments and phrases already established in public discourse.

Episode 8 tackles abuse in the industry, and we hear two planned voice-overs,

an address to the camera by the main actresses, a conversation between

them and a conversation between Berta, Belén and a director who wants to

take advantage of them. Not coincidentally, the examples of como (que) and

com (que) have been found in these conversations, not in the other more

planned discourses. The importance of the level of planning is thus seen in

the relationship between the presence or absence of these colloquial

discourse markers.

The absence of a script in most of the episodes hinders the use of the

label of prefabricated orality, since there is nothing written down prior to its

performance. However, it cannot be ignored that there is a performative factor

in what is said: the interactions that take place in Autodefensa (2022),

however naturalized and spontaneous they may be, still only exist for an

audience to hear, and thus are not completely ‘natural’. This goal may affect

in the realistic portrayal of certain speech features and could derive in an

exaggeration of the use of certain sociolectal traits, like the markers under

study. Such effect should be acknowledged and taken into consideration when

exploring audiovisual productions which are highly improvised. Despite this,

the fact that there is no pre-set script and that the series relies so much on the

improvisation of its cast means that the results of this analysis can define on

more colloquial and natural uses of the discourse markers studied.

4. R

ESULTS AND ANALYSIS

In total, 10 episodes (162 minutes) have been used as a corpus, which

rendered the analysis of the translation of 161 tokens of these DMs. Among

them, 89.5% were extracted from the first season and 10.5% from the second

one, shown in totality in Table 1. This numeric difference supports the previous

hypothesis that more preparation in the script leads to a bigger absence of

informal language markers. In the context of Autodefensa (2022), this

quantification also shows that Season 1 is not scripted, contrasting with

Season 2, which is more scripted and thus includes fewer DMs. This

preliminary quantitative approach also indicates that, for each language, the

preferred form is the simpler one: como for Spanish (86 tokens out of 108)

and com for Catalan (42 tokens out of 53). This preference for the simple form

had already been attested in previous studies looking at this phenomenon in

Spanish (Camacho, 2011). Table 1 also shows the pragmatic meaning(s) of

the corpus. All labels have been taken from previous studies mentioned above

(Jørgensen, 2011; Mondaca, 2019; Repede, 2020), except for the value of

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‘explicative’. This pragmatic function has been found elsewhere for other

informal DMs in Peninsular Spanish (Jørgensen and Martínez López, 2007),

and it provides space for the speaker to consider what they are about to say,

to formulate their speech better or to summarize what has been said. The

most prominent in the corpus is attenuation, followed by approximation, for

both languages. This result also aligns with previous studies that focused on

these items for Spanish, mentioned in section 2.

Value

Como

Como que

Com

Com que

Total

approximator

attenuator

numeric

approximator

direct speech

explicative

filler

161

Table 1. Analyzed forms in Spanish and Catalan and their meanings in

the discourse

Source. Elaborated by the author

When translating, several options exist to address the transference

from the source language to the target language (Vinay and Darbelnet, 1958;

Molina & Hurtado, 2002). Table 2 shows the options that the translators of

Autodefensa (2022) have chosen. The preferred translation technique in the

English subtitling of these DMs in Autodefensa (2022) was their omission 1

(54.4%). The second preferred technique was its literal (or quasi-literal)

translation into English via like (28%). There is one outlier for the literal

translation technique: as if (for the Catalan simple form com). In the next

section, this context is specified. However, it should be pointed out here that

the context in which the translation of as if occurs is when com is followed by

the conditional si. This makes the rendering of com (si) as as if also a literal

translation (0.8%).

Form

Literal

translation

(like)

Omission

Literal

translation (as

if)

Total

Como

Como que

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In sum, while there are 161 markers in the original corpus, there are

only 37 in its English subtitles, which goes in line with previous findings in the

translation of DMs across other language pairs in which there also was a

preference for omission (Denturck, 2012; Calvo Rigual, 2015; Solsona

Martínez, 2016; Cuenca, 2022). One of the goals of this paper is to explore

whether these choices are due to the nature of the original DMs and their

values. For this purpose, the following sections will look into the translations

of each marker (como, como que, com, and com que) depending on their

meaning in the original text, spoken Spanish and Catalan in Autodefensa

(2022).

4.1. Como

As noted above, 86 forms of como have been found in the corpus of

Autodefensa in Spanish. Of these, 21% have been literally translated as like

(n=18), whereas 79% have been omitted (n=68). Table 3 shows the

correlation between the meaning of como in context and its translation. As

expected, omission is the preferred technique in the English translation of this

marker, regardless of its value in the discourse.

Como

Literal (like)

Omission

Total

approximator

attenuator

numeric approximator

direct speech

explicative

filler

Table 3. Meanings and translations of como in the corpus

Source. Elaborated by the author

Com

Com que

125

161

Table 2. Quantification of the translation techniques depending on the

marker

Source. Elaborated by the author

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On some occasions, there has been a concatenation of two or more

como in the speakers' discourse, which has led to the omission of one and the

translation of the other. In the analysis, the first appearance of the marker has

been classified as a filler, as it expresses hesitation, and the second (or third)

as its contextual value. In the case of como, this has occurred in three

occasions, exemplified below. In two of them, (1) and (2), the marker works

as an attenuator, and in the other, as an approximator in (3). Coincidentally,

the first two examples, the attenuators, are translated as like. Thus, there is a

correlation between this type of repetition and the choice to translate the

marker.

(1) y chao o sea es como es como ir a Misa tía como que ya sabes lo

que va a pasar

and ciao it’s like going to Mass you know what’s going to happen

(2) la luna ki por ejemplo una tía muy humilde como muy como muy no

sé como muy directa impresiona bastante su discurso

luna ki for example very humble girl like very direct the way she

speakers it’s impressive

(3) como un poco de borrón y cuenta nueva como como sentir que

empezamos desde el principio otra a vez

like sort of turning over a new leaf you know? to feel we’re starting all

over again

In addition to this repetition of como, it is also relevant to highlight its

concatenation with the Spanish discourse marker o sea, which may operate

as an explanatory reformulator, an attenuator or as an expletive particle

(López Serena and Borreguero Zuloaga, 2010; Pons, 2016; Costa Otero,

2021). In the Autodefensa (2022) corpus, there are a total of 8 occasions in

which o sea directly precedes como. Among these, the marker studied here

is acting as an attenuator in 4, a filler in 1, an approximator in 1, and an

explicative in 2. In turn, both o sea and como have been omitted on 3

occasions, while in the remaining 5 either one of them has been translated as

like. In these cases, it is difficult to know which of the two is translated and

which is omitted. There seems to be no homogenous correlation between the

value of como and its absence or presence in the English subtitling as it

correlates to o sea. A closer analysis reveals that their translation varies

depending on the context, and omission or literal translation is seen in similar

contexts together with o sea.

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(4) a mí por ejemplo si fuera un concepto me encantaría como ser un

feto sabes? o sea como

[explicative]

un feto pero que no ha nacido y está

ahí

for example, if I was a concept, I’d love to be a fetus, you know? like

a fetus but it hasn’t been born it’s just there

(5) episodios de ansiedad últimamente he tenido mm bastantes o sea

como

[explicative]

para lo que soy yo que generalmente no tenía

anxiety attacks well recently I’ve had quite a few for me someone who

doesn’t usually get them

(6) ay tía de verdad o sea como

[attenuation]

entiendo que a veces la verdad

duele sabes?

I mean seriously I get it the truth hurts sometimes

(7) tía no sé después hubo un momento como que ya o sea

como

[attenuation]

cuando ya nos empezamos como a enrollar un poco y

tal

I don’t know then there was a moment when like when we started to

get into it a bit I felt like…

4.2. Como que

In the case of como que, no instance has been found in the original

corpus in which it acts as a numerical approximator or as an introducer of

direct speech. Instead, its functions are attenuation, approximation,

explanatory and filler, numerically in that order. Perhaps this is one difference

between the simpler form and the compound form for Peninsular Spanish.

Moreover, as expected, the most frequently used translation technique for this

marker was also its omission (77.3%), as opposed to its literal equivalent like

(22.7%).

Como que

Literal (like)

Omission

Total

approximator

attenuator

explicative

filler

Table 4. Meanings and translations of como que in the corpus

Source. Elaborated by the author

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In addition to its literal translation as like, it is worth paying attention to

a specific context in which the translation technique seems to vary: when

como is preceded by the verb ser (to be). In total, there are 6 contexts in which

this occurs. Among these, como que has been translated along the verb in 4

occasions, as it’s like. In the other 2, it has been omitted. The rest of the 16

occurrences of como que are not preceded by this verb. After analyzing these

cases, there seems to be no correlation between the translation of the DM as

a whole according to the value it has in the original text. Despite this

inconsistence, it could be argued that the presence of the verb ser guides the

translation, in most cases, to it’s like. It preserves the original meaning better,

as it integrates its preface. The following examples show two cases of como

que preceded by the verb to be. In (8) (9), como que functions as an attenuator

(8) (9), and in (10) (11) as explicative. In (8) and (10), the DMs has been

translated but in (9) and (11) it has not. This reinforces the idea that the literal

translation or omission, in here, does not seem motivated by the original

pragmatic function but perhaps by other issues.

(8) a lo mejor la peña tonta es como que

[attenuation]

disfruta mucho más el

sexo no?

maybe dumb people are like they enjoy sex a lot more no?

(9) o sea como un feto pero que no ha nacido y está ahí porque es como

que

[attenuation]

nadie te ha visto y nadie te conoce

like a fetus but it hasn’t been born it’s just there because no one has

seen you and no one knows you

(10) y es como que

[explicative]

o sea desde que me levanto hasta que me

acuesto

it’s like, from when I get up until I go to bed

(11) porque la fase rem y la muerte es como que

[explicative]

cuando tú estás

durmiendo

REM sleep and death when you’re sleeping

4.3. Com

The results of the translation of com show once again the preference

for the omission of the marker (74%), regardless of the function it acquires in

discourse, as was the case with its Spanish equivalent como. The second

option is to translate it literally as like (24%) and, uniquely, as if (2%), shown

in (12). In this case, the speaker is tracing an approximation between what

was said before and what follows the marker. Since it occurs next to the

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Hikma 22(2) (2023), 285 - 307

conditional si, it has been translated as if. It is still a literal translation, a

“dictionary-like correspondence” (Cuenca, 2022, p. 219).

(12) ell ha començat com a moure’m molt heavy com si el seu braç fos

la varita mágica

he started to shake me really hard as if his arm was the magic wand

Com

Literal (like)

Literal

(as if)

Omission

Total

approximator

attenuator

direct speech

explicative

filler

Table 5. Meanings and translations of com in the corpus

Source. Elaborated by the author

In a more detailed analysis of com, attention has also been paid to the

possible co-occurrences of this same marker. Only one occasion has been

detected, below in (13). As with como, in this case, the first com, classified as

a filler marker, was not translated, and the second, which functions as an

approximator, was translated as like. When there is a repetition of the marker,

it is generally preferred to translate the second one. The first DMs in these

cases does not contribute at all to the pragmatic meaning of what is said (it

does to the interaction, but not to its meaning), so it seems the translator(s)

have opted for reflecting only the value of the second form.

(13) serà com com una festa saps?

like a party you know?

When com functions as a filler, and it is by itself (not in co-occurrence),

it is generally omitted: com has only been translated into like in this function

when it was preceded by o sigui, the Catalan literal equivalence for the

previously mentioned o sea. Contrary to what happened with como, the

presence of Catalan o sigui clearly indicates the presence of like in the

subtitling, as shown in the following examples. The translation of com into like

does not seem to be influenced by the marker’s final position, as seen in the

difference between (14), (15), and (16).

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Hikma 22(2) (2023), 285 - 307

(14) era un senyor un senyor com 50 i pico anys molt majo o sigui saps

com

it was a man 50-something really nice

(15) i com tenir les experiències més heavies saps? no sé com

and have the most out-there experiences I don’t know

(16) jo en eixe moment m’he asustat molt heavy però molt heavy o sigui

com

at that moment I had a massive scare a massive one it was like

(17) i aleshores ja com m’ha agafat com dels canells m’ha posat així

and then it was like he got hold of my wrists and put me like this

Despite this similarity with como, only one occasion has been found in

which com was preceded by the verb ser in the construction és com (with the

verb to be). On those cases, the sum of the verb and the DM has been

translated as it's like, as was the case with its Spanish equivalent. The

absence of further co-occurrences of this construction makes it difficult to draw

further conclusions about preferences.

(18) perquè és com el teu last show

because it’s like your last show

4.4. Com que

Lastly, the Catalan marker com que has the most minor occurrences in

the corpus, in parallel to its Spanish counterpart, as the simple forms without

the conjunction seem to be the most productive. Com que acquires only three

values in the corpus, shown in Table 6. These are literally translated as like

18% of the time and omitted the remaining 82%. For the values of

approximation and introduction of previous discourse there are no translations

as like, which further denotes the predilection for the implicitness of the

marker. It is noteworthy that the only times like was chosen (literally

translated) was when com que had an attenuative value, consequently

maintaining the original meaning in the translation, which did not seem

relevant for the previous DMs.

Com que

Literal (like)

Omission

Total

approximator

attenuator

300 Prefabricated orality and the translation […]

Hikma 22(2) (2023), 285 - 307

direct speech

Table 6. Meanings and translations of com que in the corpus

Source. Elaborated by the author

The two occasions in which com que has been translated as like were

when it was preceded by the verb ser, in the construction és com que. A

possible predilection for this construction was suggested with como, but it was

not relevant with the other markers. In the case of com que, it has been

translated as és com que in 100% of the cases in which it is preceded by és,

both of which present an attenuating function. In both contexts, the speaker is

talking about herself in a moment of vulnerability with her friends and partner.

Therefore, it seems relevant for the interpersonal context that the translation

is included.

(19) però tinc molt clar com que no vull que m’ho tanquin saps? és com

que no has existit saps?

but one thing I know is, I don’t them to close it down. It’s like you never

existed you know?

(20) o sigui és com que de vegades perquè em venen de gust de veritat

o simplement com perquè vull ser la més loca

I mean it’s like sometimes I really want to or just because I want to be

the creaziest one

CONCLUSIONS

The aim of this research was to analyze how the approximation markers

como and com and their possible variants como que and com que. While

como and como que are in Spanish, com and com que are Catalan forms.

The article explored their translations into English in the subtitling of an

improvised TV series, Autodefensa (2022). Beyond the theory of prefabricated

orality, the corpus used is a hybrid between a scripted audiovisual production

and a spontaneous colloquial conversation: the conversations analyzed are

not planned, like an informal dialogue, but they do have an audience and a

performative factor. This particular idiosyncrasy made the corpus a great locus

for the study of markers and their translation. The results point to two relevant

aspects: firstly, there is a clear difference in the presence of DMs between

those episodes that are more scripted, in which almost none appear, and

those in which there is no script at all, with a high presence of these particles.

Secondly, the values that these DMs have in discourse are equal to those

obtained in previous research based on less mediated corpora (i.e. informal,

private conversations, sociolinguistic interviews. Therefore, Autodefensa

Natàlia Server Benetó 301

Hikma 22(2) (2023), 285 - 307

(2022) and other improvisation-based productions are valuable research

corpora, and their theorization and analysis can help understand linguistic

phenomena.

Despite the relevant theorization, however, the weight of this piece was

placed on the translation of the markers, on the techniques used by the

translator(s). In line with previous studies on DMs in audiovisual translation,

the preference was for the complete omission of the markers in 77.1% of

cases, compared to 21.7% for their literal translation as like. A residual 1.2%

was found for another option of a literal translation, as if, explained above, due

to the syntactic restraints of the source discourse. The other main objective

was to explore the possible correlation between one technique and the original

value of the marker in the Spanish and Catalan corpus, given the importance

of contextualized translation. The quantitative results show that there does not

seem to be a correlation between the translation of the DMs and the function

they had in the original text. However, more detailed studies, perhaps focusing

on each technique, are warranted to determine if these choices are solemnly

due to subtitling space, other syntactic contexts that could have been

overlooked, or other motivations.

A bit of that approach has been explored in the analysis section of this

paper. A closer look at the specific contexts of each marker reveals other

correlations between the original text and the translation, some of which are

loosely based on original values. When the markers are anteceded by the

verb ser (to be) in its present form, they are usually translated almost

unilaterally into the expression it's like, regardless of whether they are the

simple form como or the compound com que. Moreover, when the markers

como and com are in co-occurrence with one another, the former is a filler and

the latter acquires its actual source function. In their translation, this is

reflected by the omission of one of the markers and the translation as like of

the other one. In the case of como, its translation into like coincides with the

attenuating value. Finally, the anteposition of o sea in Spanish and o sigui in

Catalan on the DMs under study results, on most occasions, in the translation

of the marker como and com, respectively, although it must be recognized that

it is unlikely to really know which of the two markers is the one that is actually

translated.

In sum, the results of this research are in line with previous studies on

como and como que across varieties and contexts, as similar meanings have

been found between Autodefensa (2022) and other corpora used. Besides, it

seems that both com and com que, these unexplored forms, take on the same

uses and meanings as their Spanish counterparts. Regarding their translation,

similar conclusions have also been reached to previous studies in which DMs

seemed to be either translated literally (like, it's like, as if) or, for the most part,

302 Prefabricated orality and the translation […]

Hikma 22(2) (2023), 285 - 307

omitted. Since original values do not seem to be a predictor of translation,

future studies could delve into syntax and its textual contexts, as initiated here,

to explore their possible relevance in the translation of approximators in an

improvisation-based audiovisual production.

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