A critical analysis of the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's discourse of fastness and BBC Persian’s dubbing strategies

Abstract

Translation Studies scholars have recently indicated the emergence of a political ecology of translation. Viewing this new trend, the present study aimed to explore discoursal features of Jamie Oliver's talk in Jamie’s Thirty Minute Meals cookery show and the way they were rendered in the dubbed version broadcast by BBC Persian. To this end, the comparative model of research and the notion of tertium comparationis was used. To analyze the discoursal features of Jamie Oliver, the principles of the grounded theory were applied. The findings indicate that the predominant stylistic features of fastness in Jamie Oliver’s talk are repetition of title, using time phrases indicating fastness, and using words implying easiness and briskness. Analysis of the dubbed version revealed that all the identified expressions of fastness were translated literally into Persian, though they do not sound natural. In other words, in Toury’s (1980) term adequate or source-oriented strategies were used to dub the show into Persian. The findings can shed some light on the realization of food colonization in translation.