Carol A. Chapelle - The Concise Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics

According to Danan (1991, p. 612) “dubbing is an assertion of the supremacy of the national language” and is often linked to régimes wishing to exalt their national languages. Indeed, it is not by chance that Austria, Germany, Italy, and Spain should opt for dubbing over subtitling while France may well have chosen dubbing to perpetuate its well‐established tradition of caring for the French language and protecting it from the onslaught of anglicisms.

Traditionally, the entire process of dubbing a film was overseen by a project manager aided by an assistant who was responsible for negotiating costs, timescales, and general organizational aspects of the process. Dubbing a film began with the literal, word for word, translation of the script. Next, a “dubbing‐translator” adapted the translation so that the new target language utterances sounded natural and were in sync with the lip movements of the actors on screen. Dubbing‐translators did not need to be proficient in the source language but they did need to be talented in scriptwriting in the target language so as to render the new dialogue as natural and credible as possible. In the meantime, the dubbing assistant would divide the film into “loops” or short tracks and begin organizing studio‐recording shifts for the various actors or voice talents. Once recording began, actors watched the film and listened to the original soundtrack through headphones while reading the translated script. However, actors would be free to modify the translated script as they felt fit. The completed recording of the dub was finally mixed and balanced with the international track and musical score. This artisan approach is, however, being largely replaced by digital technology, which does away with the need to prepare reels of celluloid into short tracks and for voice talents to perform in a recording studio, as hi‐tech allows actors to record from their personal workstations while software will take care of editing different tracks together. Moreover, advances in technology are such that facial and lip movements of actors on film can now be modified to synchronize with the movements of the target language, while other software programs are able to match the voice quality of the original actor with the recording of the translation giving the impression that it is the original actor speaking (Chiaro, 2009b).

Poland and Russia have traditionally enjoyed a nonsynchronized form of dubbing in which all the different actors, regardless of gender, are dubbed by a single male voice known as a lektor , but may also consist of two voices, one male and one female, voicing over the male and female characters respectively. This style of dubbing is similar to the modality of voice‐over adopted in Europe for nonfiction screen products such as documentaries and news programs. Unlike synchronized dubbing, in voiced‐over products the original soundtrack is always discernible and not totally covered by the translated soundtrack. It is also the norm for the initial and final utterances, together with other short pieces of the original speech, known as “sound bites,” not to be voiced over. However, at the time of writing, Russia has slowly converted to synchronized dubbing.

Subtitles consist of “the rendering in a different language of verbal messages in filmic media in the shape of one or more lines of written text presented on the screen in sync with the original message” (Gottlieb, 2001b, p. 87).

Subtitles are an abbreviated written translation of what can be heard on screen and are known as “open” when they are incorporated onto the film itself and as “closed” when chosen by the viewer from a DVD or teletext menu. At film festivals subtitles are generally projected live onto the screen in real time.

Subtitles considerably reduce the actual dialogue simply because viewers need the time to read them without running the risk of missing any of the action on screen (Antonini, 2005, p. 213). Furthermore, ideally, viewers should be unaware of the fact that they are reading and be able to simultaneously watch the film, read the subtitles, and enjoy it. The subtitling process involves three basic steps: elimination, rendering, and condensation. Elimination consists in reducing elements that do not change the meaning of the source dialogue such as false starts, repetitions, and hesitations. Rendering refers to the elimination of taboo items, slang, and dialect and condensation involves the simplification of original syntax in order to render the subs more easily readable (Antonini, 2005, pp. 213–15). Traditionally a technician carries out the spotting or cueing process that involves marking the transcript of the dialogues according to where the subtitles should begin and end. Translators then gauge their work in line with these cues after which subtitles are checked for sync with changes of frames. However, technology now allows translators to work directly onto electronic files that enable them to create complete products from their personal workstations.

Conventionally, subtitles were restricted to 30 to 40 characters, including spaces, that were displayed at the center bottom of the picture, or else left aligned (Gottlieb, 2001b). Nowadays, such restrictions are disappearing as subtitling programs working with pixels allow letters to be modified according to space. Furthermore, wider screens tend to have longer lines and DVDs allow viewers to rewind and reread features they may have missed, while alignment changes according to the directionality of script in individual languages (Díaz Cintas & Remael, 2007). In addition, because of the possibility of placing the titles anywhere on the screen, the term “caption(ing)” is now becoming widespread.

Fansubbing initially stemmed from the dissatisfaction of fans with what they considered the less than optimal quality of dubbing and subtitling of their favorite TV series. A fansub consists of nonprofessional translation carried out by fans of TV series for other fans (Díaz Cintas & Sanchez, 2006). Fansubbers “digitise, translate, add subtitles to and make available online unauthorized copies of TV series and films” (Condry, 2010, p. 194). Two major differences between fansubbing and mainstream subtitling lies in features such as the presence of explanatory notes and the preservation of strong language present in the original which tends to be omitted in official subtitles. Furthermore, these unauthorized copies are available on line at the same time as the original series is broadcast in the place of origin to the advantage of fans who no longer have to wait for the series to be released by an official outlet. Fansubbing can be considered a forerunner of crowdsourced translation (O'Hagan, 2012) where volunteers translate Web products, such as Ted talks, free of charge.

Accessibility or “inclusion” refers to the provision of audiovisual products such as plays, films, and opera for all members of the public including those who are in some way sensorially challenged. Thus accessibility endorses intralingual translations in the form of subtitles, sign language interpreting for the deaf and hard of hearing, and audio descriptions for the blind and visually impaired. A sign language interpreter will translate verbal information (audio) into meaningful hand signals (visual) while subtitles for the hard of hearing, as well as conveying the verbal contents of audiovisuals, will also transmit other nonverbal acoustic information, such as music and sound effects, in writing. Subtitles for the hard of hearing for TV programs are available in Europe by means of each country's individual teletext service.

Audio descriptions consist of an additional soundtrack especially recorded for the use of blind and visually impaired people to help them enjoy audiovisual products. During breaks in the dialogues, an off‐screen voice provides an account of what is happening on screen. Audio descriptions are especially common in museums and art galleries, thus exemplifying a type of intersemiotic translation in which visual signs are transmuted into verbal signs.