Yeah, I do understand what you're getting at here.Proto wrote:A shame really, since your thoughts are really close to really I used to think a while ago before I started studying linguistics theory, but if you don't want to continue discussing it's ok.I'm... I'm not even going to bother arguing with you...
BTW, fighting against language inconsistencies is something that professional translators, heck, any translator has to do as part of their daily work. You cannot expect any two languages, even those who are lnguistically close, to be perfectly equivalent in all their senses, the translator must put some work forth so that the essence of the message is always translated, and that is the beauty itself of making a translation.
IMHO expecting the audience to have some previous knowledge is the easy way out for the translator, and the wrong economic model for the industry. It works for fansubs precisely because a fansub premise is being "by fans for fans", which is not the case of a profesional translation.
On a second read, I think I didn't make this other point clear. Why do I think cathering literate subs for an existing audience is a losing formula. Isn't this like accepting from the start that your market won't grow further than the already established fanbase, and that you aren't even making an effort to make it grow? Isn't it like leaving all your marketing efforts to the febble light of fansubbing? IMHO I can't see this working. Taking a look at the other side, and making more proper translations would make the title interest to other potential consumers, appease the not-literate-fansubs-pro fans, and only anger a very little group.
Don't misunderstand me though, from a very personal POV I prefer the more literal tranlations. As a translator in the training I only watch fansubs for the ocassional scene that I didn't understand because of the difficult lingo, and as such I prefer when I read word for word what did they mean since that helps me more in my study. However I have to be open enough to understand why the licensors choose otherwise
My only real issue in this is that, when series are licensed, most fansubbers stop distributing for legal reasons. This is a problem for me because I prefer to hear the original audio and have fan-made, literal translations, rather than translations created for a broader audience.