Abstract:
It is generally believed that dubbing foreign movies into Sinhalese helps to bring
the audience closer to enjoy stories that are not very familiar to the Sri Lankan
background. It is considered as the most suitable method of translating foreign.
language programmes into the audience's language. When dubbing is conducted
from one language to another language, several changes may occur. For instance,
changes of character names, place names and style oflanguage may occur, while
expressions familiar to that particular community may be added to the dubbing
to make the programme more appealing to the audience. In addition, language
style may change depending on the age of the target audience. However, there
are certain individuals who do not prefer Sinhalese dubbed programs.
Meanwhile, there are some cases that several individuals prefer the Sinhalese
dubbed version of the original programme after watching it, whereas, some
individuals still prefer the original version over the Sinhalese dubbed version.
Thus, the research in particular, attempts to record the responses to dubbing from
the Sri Lankan audience, who have watched both the original version and the
Sinhalese dubbed version of the particular programmes. The original and the
Sinhalese dubbed versions of several programmes are to be studied and the
differences between the two are to be recorded. In addition, a questionnaire is to
be distributed to record their attitudes regarding dubbing programs into Sinhalese
and the differences they have noted between the original version and the
Sinhalese dubbed version. The questionnaire also records their personal
preferences along with reasons for their choice. Moreover, the questionnaire
focuses on the differences the participants saw when they watched both original
and the Sinhalese dubbed version. Several suggestions to improve the quality of
dubbing are to be made depending on the responses of the participants. This will
allow the dubbing industry to conduct more effective dubbing process to produce
Sinhalese dubbed programs which are more appealing to the target audience.
