Dubbing: Responses of the Sri Lankan Audience to Dubbing Foreign Movies! TV Series! Cartoons into Sinhalese

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.