Scarica Subtitling Chapter 1 Diaz Cintas e più Appunti in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! Audiovisual translation English A.A. 2022-2023 Chapter 1 Subtitling is a translation practice that consists of presenting a written text in the lower part of the screen, that is willing to recount the original dialogue. It generally depicts the discursvie elements that appear in the image (i.e. letters, inserts, graffiti, inscriptions, placards …), as well as the information that is contained on the soundtracks (songs and voice off). In some language, like Japanese, the subtitles are presented vertically, so the appear on the right-hand side of the screen. There are subtitling programmes that are made up of three main components: spoken words, the image and the subtitles themselves. These three elements interacts with one another and are mixed with the viewer’s ability to read both the images and the written text at a particular speed, and the actual size of the screen; these are the characteristics of the audiovisual medium. ! Subtitles must appear in synchrony with the image and dialogue, in order to provide a semantically adequate account of the SL dialogue + they have to remain displayed on screen long enough for the viewers to be able to read them. 1.2 Translation or adaption? AVT (Audiovisual translation) This activity can be considered both an adaptation, strictly because of the spatial and temporal imitation imposed by the medium itself, and a translation, even though the whole area has been ignored by scholars until very recently. Audiovisual programmes use two codes, image and sound, just like poetry and literature does, and the movie is just a particular reality that has been put together by a director. Anyway, subtitling, just as voice-over and dubbing, is constrained by the respect it owes to synchrony in the parameters of image and sound, but also time. This means that the subtitles must not contradict what the characters or written text are saying and the delivery of the translated message should coincide with that of the original speech. But, sometimes, some details from the oral to the written speech can be lost or omitted. A subtitle should have some 32 to 41 characters per line in a maximum of 2 lines. This shortness is the main reason why subtitling is considered an adaptation instead of a translation. For others, this concept of adaption seems to equate the process to a lesser activity and becomes enough of an excuse to carry out a linguistic transfer that is clearly inadequate but nonetheless justified since it is only a case of adaption. Jakobson and his three types of translation: intralingual (or rewording), interlingual (or translation proper) and intersemiotic (or transmutation). One of the first significant advances of conceding theoretical prestige to translated audiovisual products came from Reiss. She based her research on the three basic language functions (by the psychologist K. Buhler) and then stated that there are three different types of text= informative, expressive and operative, and they all go along to the three types of language studied by Buhler. Later, she pointed out the special attention deserved by written texts, which are actually able to co-exist with other sign systems with which they must maintain a constant link. She created an additional hyper-text type called “audio-medial text type”, described as a superstructure that takes into account the special characteristics of the spoken language and oral communication, and sits above three basic communicative situations and corresponding text types. Despite the fact tat the examples provided by Reiss (songs, comic strips, advertisements, medieval morality ballads ...) seem to overlook audiovisual translation as such, it is evident that it fully fits into her theoretical framework. Some years later Delabastita was aware of the risk of limiting the normative definition of translation only to a very few, well-selected cases, and of being unsuitable for a description of most actual fact, because it might rejects this minimal kind of definition and opts for a highly flexible notion. Delabastita is a representative of a trend and on approach that is also shared by Mayoral Asensio, who gave us a more dynamic notion: the object of study in translation studies is not the definition of a natural process that assumes an unchanging nature, but it is a the definition of a technological process that continually evolves and changes. Our role, he said, is not the one of closing the door on new realities, but to favor and encourage them. We need open definitions that can be modified both to envelop new realities (such as sign language interpretation, multimedia and text production) and to get rid of those that have ceased to be useful and necessary. The one-to-one translation approach has lost all validity in the field of audiovisual translation, and, because of this, the concept of formal equivalence must be understood from a much more flexible perspective than in other spheres of translation. + in this context, the term “adaption” has a negative connotation, some academics uses it to take away ontological value from this professional practice, which is considered as inferior to translation. Gambier stated that the mention of adaptation implies: to be under the spell of a quantitative, mathematical theory of information (called information entropy) which considers cross-linguistic communication in terms of losses or additions and sees translation as a process of mimetically copying a literary word, a duty to repeat”. Later on, he resorts to the term transadaption, which is actually not very clarified, but it is used in an attempt to justify the hybrid nature characterizing all the different audiovisual translation types. This term was better defined by Neves; she stated that she uses the term to refer to a subtitling solution that implies the translation of messages from different verbal and non- verbal acoustic codes into verbal and/or non-verbal visual codes and the adaption of such visual codes to the needs of people with hearing impairment so as to guarantee readability and thus greater accessibility. The next step is to find a generic term that can encompass all the different manifestations we find in the audiovisual world and, even though it might seem easy to do so, the termnology used is very hesitant and can be confusing. For example: during the 1980s and 1990s the adjectives “constrained” and “subordinate” very commonly used to refer to this type of translation in publications, but then they were not accepted anymore, due to a somewhat negative connotation. While, on the other hand, the term audiovisual translation (AVT) as a new word that includes all the semiotic dimensions, still used even in more recent times. Even though the new term AVT gained more and more importance and acceptance, many other scholars still preferred “fil translation” or “cinema translation”. But as the fields of study spreads to other types of programmes, like sitcoms, documentary or cartoons, these concepts become restricting. Many other umbrella terms started to be used: in English we have “screen translation”, which strives to encompass all products distributed on screen. Thanks to this term, the door for the translation of computer games, web pages and CD-ROMs were opened. More recently, the term that seems the most complete, especially if software for translation are taken into account, is multidimensional translation. that the movie was distributed in the US with English subtitles. The last category of intralingual subtitling is the one that can be seen on monitors in underground stations and other public areas where subtitles are used for advertising or broadcasting the latest news: in this case the use of written texts on screen allows the information to be transmitted without sound, not to disturb the public. 2- Interlingual (for hearers) subtitling= it implies the translation from a source to a target language. It is called by Gottlieb a diagonal subtitling since it involves a shift from one language to another along with a change of mode, from oral to written. There is also a broad distinction between interlingual (for hearers) and intralingual (for the deaf) has systematically overlooked a professional practice that has existed for several years and that is acquiring greater visibility thanks to DVD: interlingual subtitles for the deaf and the hearing impaired. It is known that in the countries in which there is a strong tradition of dubbing (like Italy, Spain, Germany and Austria, and France) deaf people could only watch programmes that were produced in this languages. Given that the translating custom of these 5 countries favours the dubbing of the vast majority of programmes imported from other countries, it has been difficult for the deaf and hard-of-hearing to access the information contained in these programmes= they had to content themselves with the few foreign ones to be broadcast with subtitles. While in other countries, which have a stronger subtitling tradition, deaf people have been served by the same interlingual subtitles as the hearing viewers (but not appropriate for their needs= no sound effects were written in the subtitles for example). Thanks to the arrival of DVD the situation has changed and is continuing to change and English, German and Italian are the most equal languages for the SDH DVDs, because they generally offer 2 tracks of subtitles instead of only one. 3- Bilingual subtitles= are produced in geographical areas where two languages are spoken. For example: Belgium in which they try to satisfy both the Walloon an the Flemish communities and because of that there are 2 subtitles, one in Flemish and the other one in French. The same thing happens in Finland, where Swedish is an official language, so in cinemas there are bilingual subtitles. Outside of Europe: Jordan and Israel, where Hebrew and Arabic co-exist and they have 2 lines available. The other setting in which bilingual subtitling is commonly used are international film festivals: they are normally made to attract a wider audience, because many of these festivals screen their foreign films (like Iranian, Spanish or Japanese) with two sets of subtitles. One set is in English for the international audience and the other one in the language of the country where the film festival takes place. 1.3.2 Time available for preparation By looking at subtitles from this perspective, the following types can be distinguished: 1- Pre-prepared subtitles (offline subtitling)= this type of subtitling is made after the shooting of the programme and before its broadcasting or release and it gives the translator all the time that he/she might need. Pre-prepared subtitles can be subdivided according to their lexical density; there can be complete sentences, within the limit imposed by the medium, and this is the most common way of subtitling. Then there is also a reduced variety that is used in some television programmes, such as the news, interviews or even documentaries, in which only the main points (the gist) of what is being said is deemed to be relevant for the audience and then translated. 2- Live or real-time subtitles (online subtitling)= this type is performed live, i.e. at the same time as the original programme is taking place or being broadcast, meaning they are simultaneous. These are a new type of subtitling normally used when there was not the time to prepare the subtitles in advance, as in the case of live interviews, political statements, sports programmes or news bulletins. They are more common in interlingual subtitling for the deaf, but they can also be done by a team of professionals involving a professional interpreter, who translates the message in a condensed way and in front of a microphone connected to the headphones of a velotypist or stenographer. = a professional who types in shorthand rather than letters on a special keyboard and can achieve the speed and accuracy required for live subtitling (difficult, have to think fast for solutions). Even though, this type of subtitling is being abandoned in favour of voice recognition, it has been stated by Den Boer (Netherlands) that subtitling involves the very close and concentrated cooperation of two subtitlers-interpreters, one velotypist and, in complicated cases, an editor. The most important feature is the synchrony between the source and target texts as subtitles can only be written after the original dialogue has been uttered, this leads to a delay and lack of synchrony between dialogues and subtitles, which can be confusing for the viewers. Intralingual real-time subtitling= normally used in countries with a tradition in SDH and has two different approaches: 1) without the need of an interpreter, there is a stenographer or stenotypist wo is in charge of writing the subtitles using the keyboards and writing theories common in court reporting; 2) the use of a speech recognition software that coverts a speech into a written text. This technology has been used since the 1990s, but it has many drawbacks: there is a relatively high number of spelling mistakes that can be made, it only work with a small number of languages. Sometimes live subtitles are made with translator machines= apparently they do not need any human input, and they are instantaneous translations. The main problem is the lack of human agents and the fact that this approach seems to be driven solely by economic forces and interests. 1.3.3 Technical parameters From a technical perspective, two types of subtitles can be identified: open and closed one. Open subtitles are burned or projected onto the image and cannot be removed or turned off= meaning that the programme and the subtitles cannot be disassociated from each other, so there is no choice for the viewers, who must watch the programme with the subtitles. While close subtitles can be added or removed by the viewers according to their own needs= in particular, they can be hid and can only be seen with an appropriate decoder or when they are activated on DVD. Until the arrival of DVD, interlingual subtitles were always open on television, in the cinemas, and distributed with the old VHS tape. On the other hand, intralingual subtitles were always closed and broadcast via teletext or line 21. Thanks to the DVD we can now find closed interlingual subtitles, whose appearance on screen is optional. (Even though, it is possible to find DVDs with open subtitles, this depends on the distribution companies). 1.3.4 Method of projecting subtitles A classification of subtitles from this perspective represents an excursus through the history of subtitling: 1- Mechanical and thermal subtitling 2- Photochemical subtitling 3- Optical subtitling 4- Laser subtitling 5- Electronic subtitling The technical process of transferring the subtitles to the actual film (or programme) has undergone a considerable evolution, which has led to an improvement in their presentation and stability on screen. The current method of impression most commonly used in cinema subtitling is laser: introduced in the 1980s, it has proved itself to be much more effective then the previous ones, it t is laser ray of great precision that burns the emulsion of the positive copy while printing the subtitle, which thanks to the time code, is exactly synchronized with the actors’ speech. Pros: The subtitles will now appearing in the lower part of the screen when needed. Since they are burned, they are always white, like the screen onto which they are projected; this method permits an excellent definition of letters, which enhanced contours that facilitate the legibility of the text. And, also, being actually printed on the copy, it eliminates any possibility of the subtitles moving or shaking during the projection of the film. Con: to laser subtitle a full-length feature film takes about ten times the film’s projection time. Electronic subtitles: this method is an alternative to laser subtitling and its greater advantage is that it allows subtitles to be superimposed on the screen instead of being engraved on the image. The subtitles are produced by a character generator and beamed by a projector onto the screen. The technology uses a time code system to ensure that the text is projected in synchrony with the film. This type of subtitling permits extremely versatile subtitling of a singe film print, making it possible to project the subtitles onto or even below the image, in any language or colour (normally they are white or yellow), without damaging the original copy. It is cheaper than the laser engraving and is mostly used during film festivals in several countries. Plus, electronic subtitles are independent of the audiovisual programme, so they can easily be revised and modified from projection to projection. In conclusion, this system seems to provide a better access to movies screened in the cinema for people with hearing loss, without imposing on the hearing population as the subtitles may be projected onto a screen near the movie screen. The are also preferred in television and DVD. 1.3.5 Distribution format This last category can be established according to the medium used for the distribution of the programme, and this may effect the way subtitles are produced, in fact subtitles can be made for: 1- Cinema 2- Television 3- Video, VHS 4- DVD 5- Internet