Audiovisual Translation

Audiovisual Translation
 Definitions:
 A field that encapsulates different translation practices used in the audiovisual media – cinema,
television, VHS (Video Home System, which is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on
tape cassettes); in this practice, there is a transfer of a message from a source to a target language, which
involves some form of interaction with sounds and images.
 There is the consideration of audiovisual translation as the process which transforms one audiovisual
text into another.
 Audiovisual translation is generally a translation of verbal component of the video. Its main specific
feature is the synchronization of verbal and nonverbal components (Matkivska, 2014).
 Its main characteristic is synchronization of verbal and nonverbal components which makes translators
work not only with texts but other aspects of the media art (body language, for instance).
 Peculiar to this type of translation is that: meaning constructed from the conjunction of images and
words (sounds).
 From an interlinguistic perspective, audiovisual translation entails an operation on linguistic features -
lines and dialogues - of an audiovisual product, to facilitate its distribution in a wider market (Fois, 2012).
 Historical Glimpses of AVT
The translation of cinematographical products is called audiovisual translation, though one
can find many synonymous names as film translation, TV translation, screen translation and
many others.
 From the very early years of cinema (late 1890s, early 1900s), there were people (benshis,
bonimenteurs and other film explainers) whose task was to explain and comment on what
was happening on the screen.
 In the pre-sound era, films were silent, but not speechless: mouths could be seen speaking
on the screen and title cards conveyed narration and the gist of dialogues actually or
seemingly spoken by the actors.
The term "silent film" is something of a misnomer, as these films were almost always
accompanied by live sounds. The silent era started from the mid-1890s to the late
1920s.

 Nornes (2007) has identified one typical workflow as involving the shipping of a list of
titles from Hollywood to the various distributors, who would translate the titles and
send these ‘flash titles’ back to the studio. This negatively affected the quality of the
titling, e.g. when technicians without language expertise were reshooting those titles.

 A number of countries devised other ways of bringing sound to silent films. The early
cinema of Brazil, for example, featured fitas cantatas (singing films), filmed operettas
with singers performing behind the screen. In Japan, on the other hand, films had not
only live music but also the benshi, a live narrator who provided commentary and
character voices. The benshi became a central element in Japanese film, as well as
providing translation for foreign (mostly American) movies.
AVT as an Academic Discipline:

 In the twenty-first century, the media is omnipresent and its functions are to inform
(arguably sometimes to misinform), to sell, to entertain and to educate. A quick reading of the
traditional television programs or cinema guides will testify to the growth and importance of the
media and the need for AVT in most countries.
 Despite being a professional practice that can be traced back to the very origins of cinema,
AVT has been a relatively unknown field of research until very recently. Off to a sluggish and
shaky start in the late 1950s and early 1960s, research in this field only experienced a
remarkable boom at the close of the 20th century. However, over the last 30 or so years, the
audiovisual industry has provided a fertile ground for a increasing activity in academic studies
with translation at their core. Apart from growing as a professional activity, thanks primarily to
the digital revolution, AVT has now become a resolute and prominent area of academic
research.
 Much of the information generated by organizations nowadays is in multimedia format, be
it in audio, video, animated or online format. In order to successfully communicate with as wide
an audience as possible, such content must be audiovisually translated and/or localized (like
Reasons Why We Need AVT
Diaz Cintas & Anderman (2009:1) cite a number of reason illustrating why there is a
growing need for AVT:

 A larger number of television channels at all levels, international, national,

regional and local, means a sharp increase in the quantity and range of programs
required to meet the needs of broadcasting schedules; the fact that those programs
need to reach viewers of different languages would unarguably require them to be
audiovisually translated.

 The film industry seems to have emerged from the lean years when the video
appeared to pose a serious threat to its continued existence, and now the number of
cinema-goers again seems healthy. The flourishing celebration of film festivals, with
hundreds of them taking place in any given year in all corners of the globe also
testifies to this positive outlook. Add to this the advent of the DVD and the fact that
 There is also the theatre, the opera and other live events where translation may be
required in the form of surtitles; and the rapid developments we are witnessing in the
field of accessibility to the media for people with sensory impairments. Traditionally
ignored in academic exchanges, subtitling for the deaf and hard-of-hearing and audio
description for the blind and the partially sighted are becoming part of our daily
audiovisual landscape and attracting the interest of many scholars and practitioners.

 With the social phenomenon of globalization, translators face the urgent need to
translate films in short periods of time but in a high-quality way.
 Language policy.
 The right of linguistic and/or ethnic minorities to have access to audio-visual
programs in their own language (dialect).
 The right of the hard-of-hearing and the deaf to have access to audio-visual
programs.
 The role of screen translation in language acquisition or foreign language
teaching.
Types (Modes) of Audiovisual Translation
 Dubbing: involves replacing the original soundtrack containing the actors’
dialogue with a target language recording that reproduces the original
message, ensuring that the target language sounds and the actors’ lip
movements are synchronized, in such a way that target viewers are led to
believe that the actors on screen are actually speaking their language.
 Subtitling: refers to presenting a written text, usually along the bottom of the
screen, which gives an account of the original dialogue exchanges of the
speakers as well as other linguistic elements which form part of the visual
image (inserts, letters, graffiti, banners and the like) or of the soundtrack
(songs, voices off).
• Voiceover: is defined as reducing the volume of the original soundtrack to a
minimal auditory level, in order to ensure that the translation, which is orally
overlapped on to the original soundtrack, can be heard by the target audience.
It is common practice to allow viewers to hear a few seconds of the original
foreign speech before reducing the volume and superimposing the translation.
Types of AVT

 Inter-lingual AVT
 Subtitling
 Dubbing
 Voice over

 Intra-lingual subtitling for the hard-of-hearing and the deaf

 Audio description for the blind
 Live subtitling
 Subtitling for the opera and theater
For the Translator:
While dealing with an audiovisual product translators do not work only with text
but also with other aspects of media art which are of polyphonic nature. Thus,
they work with dialogues/ comments, sound effects, image and atmosphere of
the video.
Gotlieb (1998) distinguishes four main channels of information which are taken
into consideration while translating:
1) verbal audio channel: dialogues, off-screen voices, songs;
2) nonverbal audio channel: music, sound effects, off-screen sounds;
3) verbal and visual channel: subtitles, signs, notes, inscriptions that appear on
the screen;
4) nonverbal visual channel: picture on the screen.
Software for the Audiovisual Translators:
There are a great number of programs audiovisual translators use to carry out
their job:
 Subtitle Edit 3.6.4
https://github.com/SubtitleEdit/subtitleedit/releases

 Subtitle Dawn 2.0

https://subtitle-dawn.software.informer.com/download/

 AHD Subtitles Maker Professional

https://ahd-subtitles-maker-professional.software.informer.com/download/

The above AVT software can be freely downloaded.

Thank You
&
Good Luck