Abstract
Translated movie subtitles must be short and concise while retaining the original meaning, because they are flashed across the screen only briefly. Because of this time limitation, expressions that are not directly related to the propositional meaning of the original lines such as those expressing politeness may be omitted or changed. Complementing our previous study (Ushie and Nishio (2009)), this paper explores, based on the framework of Brown and Levinson (1987), if politeness expressions in Japanese movies are changed in the English subtitles and, if changes are made, how they are changed. We argue that the politeness expressions in the original, Japanese, tend to reflect interpersonal distance or power relations but that in the English subtitles, they tend to reflect impositions of individual utterances although in the “mid-Distance” range there are some variations in Japanese politeness expressions.
