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AUDIOVISUAL AND SCREEN TRANSLATION

Audiovisual products are complex semiotic system in which both verbal signs and images and sounds are involved.

Language transfer: means used in order to make understandable a film or a TV programme to target
audiences, it’s a form of translation and it can be visual (subtitling) and oral (dubbing). It affects only the verbal
part of the film and it shortens the source text, sometimes adding information to the original text.

Audiovisual translation: it refers to film, radio, television and video media whose dialogues need to be
translated.
 Screen translation: refers to the products that appears on the screen.

4 text types that require different translation strategies:

- Informative
- Expressive
- Operative
- Audio- medial (written to be spoken): e.g. academic lectures, speeches, songs, film scripts

TRANSLATION OR ADAPTATION?
The difference between translation and adaptation has caused many debates among professionals of film
translation.
 Translation: rewriting, taking into consideration both the source text and the target context, culture and the
medium of transmission.
Audiovisual translation: a complex process which requires cuts, reductions, changes, substitutions, adjustments and
for this reason it has been adopted a new term: transadaptation.
Subtitling: a form of translation or in other words, a set of strategies that include summarizing and paraphrasing.
The translation of film dialogues requires manipulations and cuttings because of the need to communicate in a
coincise way to the target audience. However, translators’ choices depend on extra- linguistic reasons (e.g. the
translation of titles of films is based on marketing reasons rather than linguistic equivalences).

TYPES OF SCREEN TRANSLATION

There are 14 types of screen translation divided into dominant (the most common and used) and the challenging
(less common and most difficult). The most important dominant types are:

Dubbing: translation which replaces the spoken dialogue of the original characters with a
spoken dialogue in the target language. It’s important to match the target text to the lip and
body movements of the original actor.

Interlingual subtitling: adds a written translation of the dialogues to the original which
remains the same.

Voice- over: consists of turning down the volume of the original language, adding the
translation spoken by the actor.

Intralingual dubbing: consists of replacing the voices of the original dialogues with other voices in
the same language but with different accents or vocabulary (e.g. Italian films which use dialects
and they’re dubbed into standard Italian).

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Challenging types:

Intralingual subtitles: captions which explain what the characters are saying (e.g. for a deaf
audience).

Audio description: consists of describing what’s going on on the screen (action, body language,
facial expressions) with no interference from sound effects for blind people.

DUBBING OR SUBTITLING
SUBTITLES transcriptions of film or TV dialogues presented simultaneously on the screen. They consist of one or
two lines and a maximum of 35 characters. It’s a written, additive (it adds verbal material to the original film),
immediate (received by the audience fast), synchronous (subtitles are simultaneous with the original film) and
polymedial (it uses more than one medium) translation.
Problems of subtitling (which impose the reduction of source text)
 Space factor: size of the screen limits the number of characters that can be written
 Time factor: reading speed of the viewer determines the amount of text on the screen and for how long it
remains.
 Reduction of the original dialogues
 They’re placed at the bottom of the screen and part of the image could be hidden
 The audience spends time reading and not watching the film

DUBBING replacement of the original speech by a voice track. It’s spoken, not additive, immediate, synchronous
and polymedial.
Problems of dubbing: matching the lip and body movements of the actors in the film.

Film and TV programme contains different semiotic channels:

1. Verbal- audio (dialogues, voices, songs)
2. Non- verbal audio (noise, sound effects)
3. Verbal visual channel (captions, written signs)
4. Non- verbal visual (images)

Dubbing Subtitles
The balance of the individual film is maintained The balance shifts from channel 1 to channel 3
Spoken mode Written mode
Substitutional mode (also reduction the original Supplementary mode
dialogues)

Differences between dubbing and subtitling:

Dubbing Subtitling
Expensive Cheaper
Pretends to be a domestic product It favours foreign languages
Voices of actors may be repetitive It’s more suitable for deaf people or immigrants
More suitable for less educated people Audience’s attention is divided
Different actors speak at the same time Space and time limits
Focus on the images Two linguistic codes may lead to confusion

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DUBBING AND SUBTITLING COUNTRIES
Europe has been divided into two groups: “dubbing” countries (France, Germany, Italy) and “subtitling” countries
(Greece, Finland, Belgium).
 In Italy the majority of people choose the dubbed version because it’s easier to follow and it requires less
concentration and effort. However, satellite televisions are in favour of subtitling because it’s cheaper than
dubbing. There is a close link between the Fascism and the birth of dubbing Mussolini passed a law in
1930 which forbid any foreign language in films. Actually Mussolini didn’t want that other languages could
contaminate Italian. In 1932dubbing was introduced in Italy.
 In Great Britain most of the cinema products are from UK or USA so they are in English and there is a little
work that need to be translated. In cinemas, foreign films are always subtitled and today UK is considered a
subtitling country.
The adoption of subtitling or dubbing depends on economic and political reasons bigger countries have opted for
dubbing, while subtitling is adopted especially in smaller countries. Moreover, preference for dubbing and subtitling
depends also on habit and custom.

Conclusion: while dubbing tries to eliminate the foreign elements of the source text, subtitling promote the spread
of other languages with an interest in the foreign culture.

DOMESTICATION VS FOREIGNIZATION
Domestication: adapting the source text to the target language and culture. The source text is “invisible”, privileging
the target culture rather than the source one.
 Film adaptations of literary texts which set the stories in contemporary times: e.g. Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo +
Juliet: the story is transposed in 1990s and sets in Mexico City but it retains the language of Shakespeare (to
be closer to its target American audience.
 Translation of film titles: if the original title is difficult to understand or it implies ambiguities, the meaning
could be changed. E.g. Intolerable cruelty was translated in Italian with Prima ti sposo poi ti rovino to
underlines the theme of the film.
 Bend it like Beckham: the original title refers to a line of the film (literal translation: “fai girare la palla come
Beckham” which is unclear). Sognando Beckham provides a better idea of the film.
Dubbing domesticating approach, through which the film is de- culturalised:
- Through dubbing film viewers believe that what they are listening to is the original dialogue
- Dubbing hides translation choices and deviations

Foreignization: leaving in the translation elements typical of the source language and culture. The source text
maintains the foreign nature.
 Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet: sets in the Renaissance Verona to recreate that specific time.
 Shark Tale, The full Monty, Notting Hill: not translating the title of the film is a foreignizing method, to make
the film more interesting and intriguing.
Subtitling foreignization approach because the film is maintained original
- Subtitling makes the translation process and strategies visible, so it’s possible to compare the source and
target language.

SPOKEN AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

Audiovisual translation poses three problems:
1. The cultural difference
2. The sound/picture synchronisation
3. Relationship between spoken and written codes:
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 Dubbing: translation of the source verbal code into a target spoken code
 Subtitling: shift of code from source spoken code into a target written code

Differences between spoken and written language

Spoken language:

- More informal, implicit, spontaneous and dynamic.

- People can disambiguate the meaning of the message by using intonation or gestures.
- The spoken language is less precise than the written language (e.g. film scripts are written to be
spoken genres as they contain features of the spoken mode).
- Presence of repetitions, hesitation, rephrasing
- Adjacency pairs utterance- response e.g. question-answer, greeting- greeting
- Words and expressions of informal register , regional dialect forms, taboo language
- Inserts: words that stand alone and with a pragmatic function discourse markers (well, right),
interjections (oh, wow), hesitators (um, erm)

Written language: more permanent, controlled, formal and explicit. Visual features of communication are
absent and written grammar is more correct and complex.

Register and genre

Dialects: varieties related to the language users (geographical, social and occupational background)
Registers: varieties of the language related to the context (textual, functional interpersonal features)

There are 3 dimensions of register variation:

1. Field of discourse: refers to “what is going on” (e.g. a political discussion)
2. Tenor of discourse: relationship between the addresser and the addressee and their role in the interaction
3. Mode of discourse: medium of language (a speech, a letter)

Text type: related to textual models (e.g. newspaper article, business letter)
Genre: general aim of the text (e.g. narrative, descriptive)

Film dialogue
Film dialogue belongs to the written to be spoken language variety and scriptwriters try to recreate the spoken
variety to give the idea it’s real and unplanned. Actually, the language of films is planned and well prepared before
so it’s not genuine at all. Finally the film dialogue is combined with non verbal elements and it contains informative,
expressive and vocative functions.

Subtitled and dubbed film dialogue

The language of dubbed and subtitled films should recreate the spontaneity of the target language.

 Subtitling:

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 gives more importance to the norms of the written discourse and it has to fit in the space and time
of the screen and scene.
 Involves a change of code (from oral to written) and a change of language (from source language to
target language)
 Tension between the spoken and the written code change of linguistic features: elements typical
of the spoken language are eliminated first (e.g. repetitions, hesitations, intonation)
 Dubbing:
 Dubbed dialogues lack in naturalness dubbed version contains features typical of the written
language and this gives the impression of a formal style
 In Italy: laws introduced by the Government established the use of a more formal Italianslang,
colloquial words and social varieties are not transposed in the target film which has a too formal and
flat style.