Entry 2 : What is Multilingualism to film?

In previous entry I have already chosen a topic, Which is:

"Examine and discuss how communications technology or multilingualism was used in the narrative of a highly acclaimed movie."

I am going to write about multilingualism and how they are shown in films. Below are the basic analysis for this topic:

What is Multilingualism to film?

Multilingualism is someone who can speak more than two languages. In this 21st century, we are exposed to other languages due to having an internet and television. Other than our native language, we can easily pick up a some other languages through it. Though it will never be fluent if we did not used it often.

But when it comes to films, multilingualism can be about real language that we used to hear or speak, accents, plays on words, invented languages and international co-productions. To me, having different individual from different country speaking in their own native language adds a layer of realism in it. That said, a lot of old war movies uses the same treatment for a sense of realism in language as there are different countries of soldiers.

Invented language often used in fantasy genre of a movie. This is where the Elves, Ogre and Goblin speak in their own language that we have never heard of, example for movies like The Lord of The Rings, Star Trek and Star Wars. These invented language was created to make the fantasy world much more realized and rich with lore created by the writer.

Multilingualism can also be funny in movies. This is a scene from The Pink Panther that depicted the humorous side of the multilingual film:

Speaking of languages, 'no pun intended' have you notices that most of the aliens and creatures in the American movies tends to speak English and understand it as well? This is where the story is trying to speak the same language with the film audience as it conveniently used the audience's native language. This might break the immersion of the character that was supposed to be out of space or not among us.

These are the basic research that I did for my topic. More will be explained in my next post.

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References & Resources:

Lise, T. (2012) The translation and reception of multilingualism in films [online] Available at: http://www.lisecapitan.com/2012/06/the-translation-and-reception-of-multilingualism-in-films/ [Accessed 28 May 2016]

Provided the basic analysis of Multilingual film study. 

Wikipedia (2016) Multilingualism [online] Available at:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingualism [Accessed 28 May 2016]

It provide a deeper understanding of Multilingualism.

Bleichenbacher, L. (2008). Multilingualism in the movies. Tübingen: Francke.

Read the first few pages for the insight of the Multilingual film.

Entry 1 : Choosing A Topic

This week in Media Culture class, we were given six topics to choose from by our lecturer. This assignment is also the first time I will be writing a blog. At first, I was deciding on whether to write for Question 2 or Question 3. These are the Topics for it:

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"2. Who are some Malaysian cultural icons that have found success at an international level? Did nationality and/or local culture contribute to their achievements?"

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 "3. Examine and discuss how communications technology or multilingualism was used in the narrative of a highly acclaimed movie."

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After I have given some thought into it, I have decided to go with Question 3, as I found this topic about multilingualism is more interesting to be researching on.