Translating the Translated: An Intertextual Approach in Subtitling Ernest Hemingway’s Adaptation of To Have and Have Not to Nakhoda Khorshid

Abstract

Literary texts have been regularly adapted into the motion picture since the invention of talkies. Accordingly, the relationship between the original literature, the adapted movie and its translation for international audiences, mainly in the form of subtitling, have become an attractive and growing source of study. This intertextuality is argued to influence the perception and evaluation of the vulnerable subtitle by the viewers. Therefore, adopting an intertextual approach to the subtitling of dialogue in the Iranian film Captain Khorshid, the present study aims at discussing the extent to which the subtitle corresponds to the audiences’ expectations. For this purpose, Ernest Hemingway’s To Have and Have Not and the adapted film Captain Khorshid, directed by Naser Taghva’i, are analysed. Farahzad’s (2009) model of intertextuality and Sanatifar and Kenevisi’s (2017) reformulated model of Grice are employed as the models for analysing, establishing and assessing the relationship between the texts. After discussing the relationship between the literary text and the adapted movie within the theory of intertextuality, the English subtitle of the Persian soundtrack is discussed by comparing it with the original English quote. This intertextual relationship is maintained to be mainly the source of comparison between the literature, i.e. protext, and the adaptation film, i.e. metatext, by the audience of the film as well. In other words, when the film is subtitled back into the language of the original literary work, the protext and the metatext meet, and a reunion occurs. Therefore, it is concluded that the more the subtitle corresponds to the original literary text, the more it is evaluated by the audience to be accurate.