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Dubbing
Elvis Presley (Not)
Voices
are lately raised to call attention to the sagging status of
English as a language well-known and well-spoken in
Mauritius. As first language, or 'langue maternelle' as it
is called, most Mauritians have Creol, though for many
others it is Bhojpuri. Many people learn both of these early
in life. The second language is usually French, though quite
often it can be an Oriental language such as Hindustani,
Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Telegu or others. For most Mauritians,
English only comes in as a third language. It is, of course,
the official language of the government, and has many
everyday uses. Everyone learns at least a little of it in
school. The problem is that there is little real mastery of
English, to speak it comfortably and idiomatically. As a
third language in a country of many, many languages, it
finds itself these days much neglected.
The
British Council expresses itself not interested in promoting
any kind of cultural imperialism. It is good to see the
British officially recognize that they have seen enough of
empire, and no longer have it at the top of their programme.
Thus it is that they offer a school and a library to all the
public who wish to use them, but do not advertise
themselves.
But
Hollywood feels no such compunction or reluctance at all
about its empire! English language studies should
seek the help of the movies in these battles among
the languages for a place in Mauritiain culture. The hero
Albion is made to defend his place fighting with one arm
tied behind his back, in that his best contemporary efforts,
English-language films, are consistently taken away from him
and given to another, by which I mean they are 'dubbed' into
French. This happens in every format, whether on broadcast
television, in the cinema houses or on CD cassettes bought
or rented here.
Sometimes
-- very rarely -- a film slips by the 'censors' and is
telecast in the original English. Mostly this happens with
musicals, and just lately one could watch two old American
musicals, one starring Prince, the other Elvis Presley,
broadcast in English. Doubtless the project of finding
someone to dub Elvis's or Prince's songs into French was
just too scary! Thus Mauritius occasionally hears Prince and
'the King' in their own tongue and in their own voices, but
not many others. It is an injustice, and an imposture as
well, to deprive students of English of this, the strongest
element in contemporary English-language culture.
Dubbing
the movies is an intrusive artistic falsification. A
substitution is made for the voice of every actor in a
drama, and likewise for every word they utter or sing.
Artistically speaking, there is little of the original film
left after it has been dubbed.
How
would it go down if language students were to demand to see
more movies in the original language? Translations into
French or other languages could easily be provided in the
form of subtitles printed along the bottom of the screen.
In
time, an up-to-date digital cinema projection or video
screen could even offer a menu of Mauritian language from
which to choose the language of the subtitles: they wouldn't
have to be French.
English
is much better known in India than in Mauritius. In India
English is in the position of a second language, rather than
a third as here. For all I know, in India they may dub
French films into English, in which case India is surely not
a good place to learn French... But Mauritius, quite
differently, professes to want to be 'bilingual', to know
both English and French.
For
those who wish to learn English, there is a great richness
of culture available in the movies, a constantly
self-refreshing school of the English spoken today. 'I
predict that when American, British, Irish, Australian,
Canadian and other films are screened here in English, with
Creol, Bhojpuri and/or French subtitles, English language
comprehension will see a new day, especially among young
people, who are precisely the target audience if English is
to catch on here.
Will
the dubbers of Francophonia be willing to step back enough
to let Johnny Depp, for instance, speak in his own voice?
Art would certainly be better served, as would English
studies.
Karl
Morris
momoris@yahoo.com
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