The Linguist

@Linguist_CIOL APRIL/MAY The Linguist 11 FEATURES arounds. In a recent episode, a contributor recounted his conversation with a far-right Hungarian activist to the hosts, rather than playing the original audio. This was done in order to avoid giving a direct platform to an extremist, as much as for linguistic reasons. Alternatives to dubbing "There have been many moments when we've thought, 'Why do we make audio? This is so hard.' If this was TV, we could subtitle it and it would be so much easier," Katy said. "I think using a combination [of dubbing, scratch narration and interviews in English] is the liveliest way of doing it, and the way of doing it that is least likely to tire out the listener." She cited the popular Rough Translation, produced by NPR in the US, which brings together global stories, as an example of a podcast that does this especially well. I messaged its presenter, Gregory Warner, who has a background in foreign reporting for radio – where the sorts of issues now facing podcast producers have been discussed for decades. "Fundamentally what you're trying to do is trick the listener's brain into not doing what their brain instinctively does, which is to tune out voices in a language they don't understand," he said. "We all do this, when talking to a foreign speaker – we stop listening and just wait for the interpretation. So what you want to do is to try to make the audience pay attention. Every technique is a variation on this." Gregory agreed that a combination of approaches was the best solution, but said that there were more options available than just dubbing and scratch. If the interviewer speaks the language fluently, they can translate "in scene", i.e. when the interview is being recorded rather than during the edit. If they don't speak the language, they can ask the interpreter to translate short phrases in scene for the same effect. Alternatively, a podcast producer can ask an interviewee who speaks only the most basic English to say one phrase (or even just a word) in the language, just to set up a direct connection with the listener, before going back to dubbing. "(The medium) can be a limitation, but I think we have opportunities in audio that are not there in text," he said, pointing to the way podcasts and radio can work with emotional expressions – like sighs, sobbing and laughter – "that don't need interpretation". An imperfect solution In the end, I couldn't find two fluent English speakers for the discussion segment of my podcast on state homophobia, but one interviewee in the reported section was able to speak English, and for others I used scratch narration. I recorded the debate in Russian, which was then voiced-over by two English- speaking volunteers. It wasn't an ideal solution, but the edit allowed moments of emotion to come through before dubbing or my narration kicked in; listeners didn't have to understand Russian to hear that we had reached a point of conflict or reconciliation. "A lot of the time it can't be perfect and you have to be ok with that," admitted Fariba Nawa, the Afghan-American producer of On Spec. "Yes, there are nuances that you can't always get across, but you can try… I think it's crucial for us to relay information in different languages." These are issues that producers, both professional and amateur, will continue to face when it comes to translation in podcasts. I will be interested to continue exploring different work-arounds. If you'd like to hear how the episode turned out, it's called 'Russia's Rainbow Divide' and is available on most podcast platforms, as are The Europeans and Rough Translation. SOUND RECORDING Preparing an episode of the On Spec podcast © ÖZGE SEBZECI

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