Subtitling/Dubbing Bibliography

Subtitling/Dubbing Bibliography

8/3/12

Antonini, R.

(2005). The perception of subtitled humor in Italy. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 18(2), 209-225. doi:10.1515/humr.2005.18.2.209

Despite the central place occupied by language transfer of audiovisual products, particularly in the European cinema and television sector, audience perception of both dubbing and subtitling is a largely neglected field of study and research. When, however, we start looking into the available research on the perception of translated humor and, more specifically, of the perception of humor as rendered into another language by subtitles, we realize that this is an even more neglected and unexplored field of study. This paper will attempt to address the effectiveness of subtitles in the appreciation and perception of humor, and, more specifically, will present an overview of the scant literature and research published on this subject.

Borras, I., & Lafayette, R. C.

(1994). Effects of multimedia coursework subtitling on the speaking performance of college students of French. The Modern Language Journal, 78(1), 61.

Investigates the effects of subtitling during transactional task practice with multimedia courseware on the oral communicative performance of college students of French. Related research; Methodology; Main and additional findings.

Caffery, C.

(2008). Viewer perception of visual nonverbal cues in subtitled TV Anime. European Journal of English Studies, 12(2), 163-178. doi:10.1080/13825570802151439

The article discusses the results of a questionnaire into viewer perception of subtitled culturally marked visual nonverbal cues in TV anime using the series [image omitted] (Doki-doki School Hours). Two groups of students were used for the study, one Japanese learner group, and one non-Japanese speaker group. A smaller study was also carried out using an eye-tracking monitor to gain insights into non-Japanese speakers' visual attention to visual nonverbal cues. The anime genre is one of the few forms of animation that is as often, if not more often, subtitled as dubbed. Online surveys have shown a preference among anime fans for subtitling over dubbing (Igarashi, 2007). The abundance of on-screen information adds to this genre's suitability for study into viewer perception of nonverbal cues and the effectiveness of the translation strategies used to tackle them.

Caron, C.

(2003). Translating trek: Rewriting an American icon in a Francophone context. Journal of American Culture, 26(3), 329-355. doi:10.1111/1542-734X.00095

The article focuses on problems faced while translating the television program 'Star Trek,' created by Gene Roddenberry. The largely visual Trek universe, with its own vocabularies and traditions, is a special challenge for translators. This is especially true when translating 'Star Trek: The Original Series,' into French. In 1971-1972, all seventy-nine episodes were dubbed in Montreal, and the series was renamed 'Patrouille du Cosmos.' Television translators and dubbers also face practical constraints. The dubbing of audiovisual media is almost always done with a minimal budget and under strict time constraints. It is therefore difficult to produce quality dialogue. In a few 'Patrouille du Cosmos' episodes, the same actor dubbed two characters, changing his voice and accent in the process.

Carra, N. J.

(2009). The presence of Spanish in American movies and television shows. Dubbing and subtitling strategies. Vigo International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 6, 51-71.

The existence of a large Latin American community living and working in the United States has been the main cause for the Spanish language to have gradually found its way into the North-American society. Those belonging to this community use both Spanish and English on a daily basis, although not usually to the same degree: Spanish is normally spoken in colloquial situations, whereas English is the language used in work or academic contexts. The code-switching between the two languages emerges as a tool of identification with both cultures. Over the past few years, the cultural reality of all those people who are able to alternate English and Spanish in the same conversation has emerged in the United States as a new theme for movies and television shows. In this paper, I shall analyze the presence of code-switching in several American audiovisual products. I will also examine the translation, dubbing and subtitling strategies used by the American screenwriters and the Spanish translators when this bilingual situation occurs in a script.

Chuang, Y.

(2006). Studying subtitle translation from a multi-modal approach. Babel, 52(4), 372-383.

Dastjerdi, H. V., & Jazini, A.

(2011). Killing two birds with one stone: Translation of the unseen and off-camera speech and sounds in English movies subtitled into Persian. Journal of International Social Research, 4(19), 60-77.

In this study, attempts have been made to elucidate how unseen and off-camera utterances and sound effects have been treated in Persian subtitles of three English movies to reach all sorts of viewers including the hearing impaired. In order to compare the above-mentioned elements with their Persian equivalents, a set of guidelines suggested by CMP (Captioned Media Program, 2004) was modified to suit the purpose of the study since they cover both translational and technical properties of subtitling. Altogether, 45 cases of unseen and off-camera speech and sounds where identified, comprising 17 instances of off-camera sounds and 28 cases of off-camera speech. After analyzing the data, it was revealed that the unseen and off-camera sounds have been totally ignored and the cases of unseen and off-camera speech were translated the same as any ordinary part of the films, i.e. on-screen parts. Finally, having applied the guidelines to the ignored and mistranslated elements, the researchers tried to specify the guidelines which should have been used by subtitlers, and proposed some appropriate alternatives which would satisfy both the hearers and the hearing impaired.

Diaz-Cintas, J.

(1999). Dubbing or subtitling: The eternal dilemma. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology, 7(1), 31-40.

Despite the quantitative importance of translation in audiovisual mass communication, very few scholars have turned their efforts to its analysis. It is my intention to offer an account of the two major translation techniques used in the cinema, dubbing and subtitling. I will elicit some of the limitations that act upon these modes of translating and make them so different. Imposed on the translator by the medium, these constraints are responsible for the coinage of the concept ‘constrained translation’, a term that intends to encapsulate these empirical phenomena as translation, as opposed to adaptation.

After exploring the reasons why one of these techniques may be favoured I will finish with an evaluation of the pros and cons of both linguistic transfer methods that will enable me to propose the idea that we should do away with the aprioristic negativism surrounding synchronisation and accept that both approaches should have their place in the world of translation.

d’Ydewalle, G., & De Bruycker, W.

(2007). Eye movements of children and adults while reading television subtitles. European Psychologist, 12(3), 196-205.

Eye movements of children (Grade 5–6) and adults were monitored while they were watching a foreign language movie with either standard (foreign language soundtrack and native language subtitling) or reversed (foreign language subtitles and native language soundtrack) subtitling. With standard subtitling, reading behavior in the subtitle was observed, but there was a difference between one and two-line subtitles. As two lines of text contain verbal information that cannot easily be inferred from the pictures on the screen, more regular reading occurred; a single text line is often redundant to the information in the picture, and accordingly less reading of one-line text was apparent. Reversed subtitling showed even more irregular reading patterns (e.g., more subtitles skipped, fewer fixations, longer latencies). No substantial age differences emerged, except that children took longer to shift attention to the subtitle at its onset, and showed longer fixations and shorter saccades in the text. On the whole, the results demonstrated the flexibility of the attentional system and its tuning to the several information sources available (image, soundtrack, and subtitles).

D’Ydewalle, G., Praet, C., Verfaillie, K., & VanRensbergen, J.

(1991). Watching subtitled television: Automatic reading behavior. Communication Research, 18(5), 650-666.

When foreign movies are subtitled in the local language, reading subtitles is more or less obligatory. Our previous studies have shown that knowledge of the foreign language or switching off the sound track does not affect the total time spent in the subtitles area. Long-standing familiarity with subtitled movies and processing efficiency have been suggested as explanations. Their effects were tested by comparing American and Dutch-speaking subjects who watched an American movie with English subtitles. Despite their lack of familiarity with subtitles, they spent considerable time in the subtitled area. Accordingly, subtitle reading cannot be due to habit formation from long-term experience. In Experiment 2, a movie in Dutch with Dutch subtitles was shown to Dutch-speaking subjects. They also looked extensively at the subtitles, suggesting that reading subtitles is preferred because of efficiency in following and understanding the movie. However, the same findings can also be explained be the more dominant processing of the visual modality. The proportion of time spent reading subtitles is consistently larger with two-line subtitles than with one-line subtitles. Two explanations are provided for the differences in watching one- and two-line subtitles: (a) the length expectation effect on switching attention between picture and text and (b) the presence of lateral interference within two lines of text.

Etemadi, A.

(2012). Effects of bimodal subtitling of English movies on content comprehension and vocabulary recognition. International Journal of English Linguistics, 2(1), 239-248.

This thesis is an attempt to study the impact of bimodal subtitling on content comprehension of English movies and vocabulary recognition. Forty four senior undergraduate students studying at Shiraz Islamic Azad University were selected from two intact classes of Tapes and Films Translation course. Two BBC documentary movies (Dangerous knowledge and Where's my robot?), one with English subtitles and the other without subtitles were selected based on the content and level of difficulty of the language. First, both classes watched the same movies, but class 1 first watched 'Dangerous knowledge' with English subtitling and then 'Where's my robot?' without subtitling. To counteract the order effect class 2 first watched 'where's my robot?' and then 'Dangerous knowledge'. After viewing the movies, the participants answered the relevant multiple choice vocabulary and content comprehension questions. The data gathered were subjected to the statistical procedure of paired samples t-test. The results clearly indicated that bimodal subtitling had a positive impact on content comprehension of English movies. It can be said that the participants comprehend the subtitled movie better than the one without subtitle. However, for some reasons bimodal subtitling did not have an effect on participants' vocabulary recognition.

González-Iglesias, J. D., & Toda, F.

(2011). Dubbing or subtitling interculturalism: Choices and constraints. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 27, 2.

The creation of audiovisual products is currently one the most visible manifestations of multiculturalism in the world. From documentaries to TV series, or even from videogames to software, the interaction of cultures has an unparalleled window from which it can be shown, understood and spread through audiovisual material. It is obvious that translation and translators play a crucial role in the transmission of such material, and in view of this situation, the choice of translation modes is far from neutral or innocent. This paper aims to prove that, contrary to popular belief, dubbing can be more effective than subtitling in the manifestation of cultural differences or conflict, and that, in any case, dubbing and subtitling are subjected to specific constraints by themselves and with regard to intercultural communication (ICC) that must be taken into account in any critical review or analysis.

Hayati, A. M., & Mohmedi, F.

(2010). The effect of films with and without subtitles on listening comprehension of EFL intermediate students. International Journal of Instructional Media, 37(3), 301-313.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of using films with and/or without subtitles on intermediate EFL students' listening comprehension. A total of 90 intermediate Junior and Senior students who passed their listening and speaking 4 with the grade of at least 12, already were picked out of 200 ones based on a proficiency test in this study. The material consisted of six episodes (34 mm.) of a DVD entitled as 'Wild Weather". The students viewed only one of the three treatment conditions: English subtitles, Persian subtitles, or no subtitles. After each viewing sessions, six sets of multiple-choice tests were administered to examine listening comprehension rates. The results revealed that the English subtitles group performed at a considerably higher level than the Persian subtitles group, which in turn performed at a substantially higher level than the no subtitle group on the listening test.

Howell, P.

(2006). Character voice in Anime subtitles. Perspectives: Studies In Translatology, 14(4), 292-305.

One of the main functions of dialogue in film narrative is the construction of character voice, which is partly realized through the skillful use of the sociolinguistic and pragmatic resources of language. In the English subtitling of Japanese nimation, there are however two barriers to recreating this function. The first barrier is the major pragmatic and sociolinguistic difference between Japanese and English, and the second consists of the technical constraints of subtitlingas a mode of translation. The article describes from a textual point of view how subtitlers have addressed the stylistic problem of character voice, focusing on the work of Neil Nadelman in the film Grave of the Fireflies (“Hotaru no Haka”) and in single episodes from two TV series, Revolutionary Girl Utena (“Shōjo Kakumei Utena”) and Slayers Try (“Sureiyāzu Torai”), and on the work of David Fleming in the film Akira (“Akira”). For all four works, another commercially available subtitled version, either in English or French, is considered for purposes of comparison. Comparison suggests that strategies vary with regard to character voice, but that the decimation of stylistic function is not inevitable in subtitling as a mode of translation.

Kilborn, R.

(1993). ‘Speak my language’: Current attitudes to television subtitling and dubbing. Media, Culture and Society, 15, 641-660.

Koolstra, C. M., Peeters, A. L., & Spinhof, H.

(2002). The pros and cons of dubbing and subtitling. European Journal of Communication, 17(3), 325-354.

Dubbing and subtitling are the most prevalent methods used to make foreign-language television programmes available to a domestic market. Each adaptation method has its advantages and disadvantages. This article provides an inventory of the pros and cons of both methods on the basis of three questions: Through which method can information best be transferred? What are the aesthetic advantages and disadvantages of each method? Which skills do viewers acquire 'incidentally' by using one of the two adaptation methods? The answers given to these questions are based as much as possible on the results of empirical research on dubbing and subtitling. The conclusion is that there is no empirical evidence for some frequently claimed advantages and disadvantages. With regard to other pros and cons, it depends on the viewer, the type of television programme and the way in which a programme is subtitled or dubbed as to whether the argument should be taken seriously.