Intersemiotic Analysis of Persian Dubbing of Shawshank Redemption Based on Manipulation School

Abstract

As one of the most popular types of intersemiotic translation, adaptation is as old as the cinema. Many of the world’s most successful films have been adapted from fiction, and most of them have been dubbed in Iran. Based on Manipulation School, this study aims to analyze the changes made in a Persian dubbing film entitled Shawshank Redemption (1994), written and directed by Frank Darabont, adapted from fiction, a novella by Stephen King (1982). To meet this goal, the dubbed version of the film as the target text is compared with the novella as its original source and changes made are analyzed intersemiotically based on Manipulation School strategies (deletion, substitution, addition, and softening). The result indicated that the film has been manipulated in terms of all strategies but the mostly used strategy in the dubbed version was deletion. In addition, cultural subjects (including moral issues) and religious content are among the most manipulated subjects.