AMD 2

Hallo Leute!

For this AMD, I watched the pilot episode of the popular show Dexter. The show is told from the perspective of a serial killer, Dexter, who uses his obsession with killing to assassinate criminals who slip through the cracks of the justice system and walk freely. I am somewhat familiar with the show, so I already knew the basic plot of this episode.

One thing that really made me think was a scene early on in the episode, in which Dexter is hiding in the backseat of a pedophile's car. When the pedophile gets in his car, Dexter starts to strangle him and says something that means, "You're mine now so do exactly as I say." The pedophile, gasping for air, manages to spit out "Was wollen Sie", meaning 'what do you want'? This made me wonder about his choice to address Dexter, a stranger who had popped out from the backseat of his car to strangle him, with the formal 'Sie' rather than 'du'. Perhaps this could have been because Dexter was in a position of power here and the man wanted to be respectful in hopes that Dexter would have some mercy on him, or maybe it was just that it is commonplace to use 'Sie' unless talking to a friend.

Actually, after watching the scene again, Dexter refers to the man he is strangling with 'Sie' also, despite clearly being in a position of power and authority over the man's life. This suggests that using 'du' is probably more of a way of expressing familiarity between friends rather than a means of showing a higher status than the person you are talking to. Then again, there could be a number of different reasons he uses 'Sie' (maybe he's being sarcastic, but I don't think the Germans are known for using sarcasm at all). Since Dexter is an American television show, I think it would be very interesting to learn about the thought processes of the translators who are trying to keep the same tone and mood of the dialogue across languages. For example, English has no distinction between a formal and informal 'you', but when translated into German it is very important to distinguish the uses of 'du' and 'Sie' based on the context of the character speaking.


Here is the link to the first part of the episode on Youtube:

Bis morgen!

Matt