Subtitling. Jorge Díaz Cintas. 1. The technical dimension. Imperial College

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1 Subtitling Jorge Díaz Cintas Imperial College In the context of today s multimedia society, audiovisual translation (AVT) is gaining great visibility and relevance as a means of fostering communication and dialogue in an increasingly multicultural and multilingual environment. AVT is the umbrella term used to refer to the translation of programmes in which the verbal dimension is only one of the many shaping the communication process. The concurrence of different semiotic layers through the visual (images, written text, gestures) and audio (music, noise, dialogue) channels makes the translator s task particularly challenging in this field. Of the several modes available to translate audiovisual programmes (Gambier 2003), subtitling is arguably the most commonly used because it is cheap and fast. Other professional practices are interpreting*, voiceover and dubbing*. By way of definition, subtitling consists in rendering in writing the translation into a TL of the original dialogue exchanges uttered by the different speakers, as well as of all other verbal information that is transmitted visually (letters, banners, inserts) or aurally (lyrics, voices off). Subtitling can be seen as a supplement to the original programme, which, unlike in dubbing, remains intact in the target culture for all to watch and to hear. All subtitled programmes are therefore made up of three main components: the original spoken/written word, the original image and the added subtitles. Subtitlers are expected to come up with solutions that create the right interaction among these components and they must take into consideration the fact that viewers have to read the written text at a given speed whilst also watching the images at the same time. The constraining nature of the audiovisual environment has always been brought to the fore when discussing this type of translation, leading scholars in the past to label it as an example of constrained translation (Titford 1982) or even a necessary evil (Marleau 1982). 1. The technical dimension Generally speaking, subtitles do not contain more than two lines, are displayed horizontally usually at the bottom of the screen though in some countries like Japan they can also be vertical and appear in synchrony with the image and dialogue. The synchronisation process is known as spotting, cueing, timing or originating and it may be carried out by the translators themselves or by technicians who know the subtitling program. The time a subtitle stays on screen depends both on the speed at which the original exchange is delivered and on the viewers assumed reading speed. Tradition had it that

2 Subtitling 345 the best practice should be based on the so-called 6 second rule (Díaz Cintas & Remael 2007: 96 99), whereby two full lines of around 35 characters each can be comfortably read in six seconds. For shorter periods of time, proportional values are automatically calculated by the subtitling software, bearing in mind that no subtitle should stay on screen for less than one second so as to guarantee that the eye of the viewer can register its presence. Although these parameters still enjoy some currency in the industry, particularly on television, the viewers increased exposure to reading text on screen and enormous technical advances in recent decades have brought considerable changes. The sacred rule of having a maximum of two lines in a subtitle so as to minimise their impact on the photography is being broken daily by the emergence of three, four and even five-liners, notably in the subtitling being done on the internet. The traditional positioning of subtitles at the bottom of the screen is also being challenged as they are beginning to be displayed on different parts of the screen. Likewise, restricting the number of characters per line to 35, 39 or even 43 is not an important factor anymore. Most professional subtitling programs work now with pixels, allowing for proportional lettering, which means that subtitlers can write as much text as possible, depending on the font size being used and the actual space available on screen. Perhaps surprisingly, viewers reading patterns and abilities have not been thoroughly investigated in subtitling, and there is apparently a general consensus in the profession that the 6-second rule dictates a rather low reading speed. With the advent of DVD and mobile technology, the mushrooming of screens around us, and the proliferation of audiovisual programmes, it seems fair to accept that today s viewers are better/faster audiovisual readers than those of previous generations. Besides the lengthening of lines, shorter exposure times and faster reading speeds are all a consequence of this belief. It is not uncommon to keep two-liners for a maximum of 5 seconds, and to apply reading speeds that hover around the 180 words per minute (wpm) or 15 to 17 characters per second (cps), as opposed to the traditional 140 wpm or 12 cps. As can be expected, all these technical changes have had a knock-on effect on the way the actual translation is carried out. 2. The linguistic dimension Whilst respecting the technical specifications discussed above, subtitles must provide a semantically adequate account of the SL dialogue. The fact that viewers do not normally have the possibility of back-tracking to retrieve information has a great impact in the way subtitles are presented on screen. Ideally, if they are to be easily understood in the short time available, each subtitle ought to be semantically self-contained and come across as a coherent, logical and syntactical unit. To boost readability, both spotting and line-breaking ought to be carried out in such a way that words intimately connected by logic, semantics or grammar should be written on the same line or subtitle whenever possible.

3 346 Jorge Díaz Cintas Unless speakers deliver their utterances really slowly, reduction is arguably the main strategy in use by subtitlers. Reductions can be partial, where condensation of the original is paramount, and total, when part of the message is deleted. In both cases, decisions have to adhere to the principle of relevance and make sure that no information of vital diegetic value is deleted. Any solutions should take the iconic information into account and avoid translating what is explicitly conveyed through the image. Although subtitles cannot translate absolutely everything that is said, they must strive to capture the essence of what is said. As aptly put by Gottlieb (1998/2001: 247): In subtitling, the speech act is always in focus; intentions and effects are more important than isolated lexical elements. The transition from oral to written poses certain challenges and raises the question of whether non-standard speech, like accents and very colloquial traits, can be effectively rendered in writing. More often than not, this type of linguistic variation is neutralised in the subtitles. Swearwords and other taboo expressions are also particularly sensitive to this media migration as there is the tacit belief that they are more offensive when starkly reproduced in text than when verbalised, which in turn tends to lead to the indiscriminate deletion of most effing and blinding in the TL subtitles. Because of the concurrent presence of the original soundtrack and the subtitles, and especially when translating from a well-known language like English or from one linguistically close to the TL, subtitling finds itself in a particularly vulnerable situation, open to the scrutiny of anyone with the slightest knowledge of the SL. One strategy used to deal with this is for subtitles to follow, as far as possible, the syntactic structure of the source text so as to reinforce the synchronisation and to preserve the same chronology of events as in the original utterances. A worrying practice in the industry is the recourse to English as a pivot language to translate from some languages (Czech or Japanese) into others (French or German) following an English translation rather than the original soundtrack. Errors or misunderstandings in the English translation will most likely be replicated in the other languages, and nuances and interpretations will also be filtered through English. The imperative of having to synchronise dialogue and subtitles, the need to stay within a maximum of two lines per subtitle, and the widespread belief that the best subtitles are the ones that are not noticed, have been frequently invoked to explain why subtitlers cannot make use of metatextual devices, such as footnotes or glosses, to justify their solutions. However, this assumption seems to be being challenged by new practices, where glosses inside the subtitles and explanatory notes on top of the screen are freely used (Díaz Cintas 2005). 3. Types of subtitling From a technical perspective subtitles can be open, when they are delivered together with the image and cannot be turned off, as in the cinema, or closed, when they are optional and can be added to the programme at the viewer s will, as on most DVDs. The process of

4 Subtitling 347 merging the subtitles with the images has evolved considerably over the years (Ivarsson & Carroll 1998: 12 19) and today s main methods are laser, whereby the subtitles are burnt onto the celluloid, and electronic, whereby the subtitles are projected onto the film. Subtitles can appear on screen as a block and off again, known as pop-on subtitles, scroll horizontally, or roll-up. According to the time available for preparation, subtitles can be pre-prepared ahead of the programme s release, or (semi/real)live if they are produced at the same time as the programme is being broadcast. From a linguistic point of view we can distinguish between intralingual subtitles, also known as captions in American English, where the language of the subtitles and the programme coincide and interlingual subtitles, where the spoken/written message of the original programme is translated into a TL. Bilingual subtitles are part of the latter category and are produced in geographical areas where two or more languages are spoken, as in Finland (Finnish and Swedish) or Jordan (Arabic and Hebrew). The best known type of intralingual subtitles is aimed at audiences with hearing impairment and is widely known as subtitling for the deaf and the hard-of-hearing (SDH). They are a step forward in guaranteeing greater democratic access to audiovisual programming and, in many countries, their output is regulated by legislation. Although they share many features with standard subtitling, they also make use of some unique attributes (de Linde & Kay 1999; Neves 2005). On television, they normally change colour depending on the person who is talking or the emphasis given to certain words within the same subtitle, whilst on DVD they resort to labels to identify speakers. It is not unusual to come across subtitles of up to three or even four lines, and accommodate more than one speaker in the same line. Crucially, not only do they reproduce the speaker s dialogue, but they also incorporate paralinguistic information that deaf people cannot access from the soundtrack, such as the revving of an engine, steps on a staircase, indications concerning music, laughter, or whispering. Their positioning is also important and they can be left or right justified so that speakers can be easily identified or to indicate where a given sound is coming from. Thanks to greater social awareness, SDH is one of the forms of audiovisual communication which has undergone spectacular growth in recent years on all media. In addition to a higher turnover, with some TV stations subtitling 100% of their output, SDH has also crossed linguistic barriers and interlingual subtitling for hearing impaired audiences is now a reality on some DVDs. 4. New trends Subtitling is so dependent on technology that any technical advances have the potential to encroach both on the subtitling process from the practitioner s perspective as well as on the perception that viewers have of subtitling as a product. In this sense, digitisation

5 348 Jorge Díaz Cintas and the availability of free subtitling software on the net have made possible the rise and consolidation of translation practices like fansubbing, which in turn are having an incidental effect on how formal conventions are applied. Subtitles have been traditionally rather humdrum in terms of positioning, font type and layout. This new way of approaching subtitles as part of a budding participatory culture is pushing the boundaries of creativity and shaking the foundations of traditional subtitling. Only time will tell whether these conventions put forward by the so-called collective intelligence (Lévy 1997) are just a mere fleeting fashion or whether they are the prototype for future subtitling. The impetus provided by 3D technology may well open the door to more interactivity and cr3atvty in subtitling. Recent developments in voice and speech recognition have made possible the appearance and booming of respeaking as a professional practice to subtitle programmes that are broadcast (semi/real)live, such as the news or sports. The wider breadth and scope of genres being distributed audiovisually corporate videos, scientific and technical documentaries with a high level of lexical repetition makes the incipient use of translation memory systems and automated translation in subtitling a very promising development. In terms of research, the didactic potential of subtitling to learn and consolidate a foreign language has been a particularly active line of enquiry in recent times (Díaz Cintas 2008). In an attempt to bolster their quantitative findings and gain an insight into the cognitive efforts presupposed by reading subtitles, some researchers are resorting to the application of new methodologies and tools, like corpus studies and eye-tracking. Since the late 1990s subtitling has been a most inspiring field in which to conduct research and more recently also for netizens to communicate in cyberspace. Far from waning, this interest is still aflame and as strong as two decades ago, if not stronger. References Díaz Cintas, Jorge Back to the future in subtitling. In MuTra 2005 Challenges of Multidimensional Translation: Conference Proceedings, Heidrun Gerzymisch-Arbogast and Sandra Nauert (eds). [Accessed 10 May 2010]. Díaz Cintas, Jorge (ed.) The Didactics of Audiovisual Translation. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Díaz Cintas, Jorge & Remael, Aline Audiovisual Translation: Subtitling. Manchester: St Jerome. Gambier, Yves Introduction: Screen transadaptation: Perception and reception. The Translator 9 (2): Gottlieb, Henrik. [1998] Subtitling. In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, Mona Baker (ed.), London & New York: Routledge. Ivarsson, Jan & Carroll, Mary Subtitling. Simrishamn: TransEdit.

6 Subtitling 349 Lévy, Pierre Collective Intelligence. Mankind s Emerging World in Cyberspace. Transl. by Robert Bononno. Jackson: Perseus Books. de Linde, Zoe & Kay, Neil The Semiotics of Subtitling. Manchester: St Jerome. Marleau, Lucien Les sous-titres... un mal nécessaire. Meta 27 (3): Neves, Josélia Audiovisual Translation: Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing. London: Roehampton University. Ph.D. Thesis. handle/10142/12580 [Accessed 10 May 2010]. Titford, Christopher Sub-titling: constrained translation. Lebende Sprachen 27 (3):

Introduction to Audiovisual Translation

Welcome to our webinar Introduction to Audiovisual Translation with Lindsay Bywood 12 March, 2014 www.ecpdwebinars.co.uk How to interact with us www.ecpdwebinars.co.uk Lindsay Bywood Studied German Social