Universitat de València Departament Filologia Anglesa i Alemanya

 

 


Dubbing and subtitling: notes

Definitions

Audiovisual translation: the translation of the verbal text in an audiovisual medium. Other terms: screen translation, media translation, multimedia translation.

Two major modes: dubbing, and subtitling. Other modes: revoicing as intralingual post-synchronization; voice-over (a type of revoicing used in documentaries and interviews with original and translation overlapping, the former being heard a few seconds before the latter); surtitling or supertitling; intertitles; etc.

DUBBING = the replacement of the dialogues in the original track of an audiovisual text (typically a film, or a series episode) with "another track on which translated dialogues have been recorded in the target language" (Chaume 2012: 1).

Revoicing: sometimes used as a generic term for all methods of oral language transfer, including lip-sync dubbing

Costs: dubbing is 15 times more expensive than subtitling

Traditional dubbing countries in Europe: Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Wallonia in Belgium, Bulgaria for TV series, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, Turkey, Czech Republic, Slovakia (Chaume 2012: 1, 6). Other countries: Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, althout mostly on TV; China, Japan, Korea, and some North African countries.

Traditional subtitling countries in Europe: UK, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Flanders in Belgium, Bulgaria for films (Chaume 2012: 6)

Other countries, such as "Portugal, Denmark and Norway are beginning to dub some teen TV series and films" (Chaume 2012: 2)

Voice-over is used in Poland (for TV), Russia, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania (Chaume 2012: 6)

Ideological issues:

DUBBING | SUBTITLING |

DUBBING

= the replacement of the dialogues in the original track of an audiovisual text with "another track on which translated dialogues have been recorded in the target language" (Chaume 2012: 2), and are in synchrony with the audiovisual codes in terms of timing and length (isochrony), gestures (kinesic sync) and lip movements (lip sync)


Three types of synchronization:


Camera work: types of shot


Dubbing script (guió de doblatge)

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"COOL HAND LUKE."

"LA LLEGENDA DEL INDOMABLE".

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1 / 02.00

ORIGINAL (COMENÇAMENT PEL-LÍCULA: MÚSICA + CRÈDITS)

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2 / 2.11

TITOL1 "Infracció" Fins 2.13

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3 / 03.33

POLI1 SB) Què fa ací, amic?

LUKE 38)(BORRATXO) DE) Estava tallant... estos pals...

POLI1 SB) Ens haurà d'acompanyar.

LUKE R)

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4 / 03.48

TITOL2 "La llegenda del indomable". Fins 52)

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5 / 03.53

TITOL3 "Reduir velocitat. Obres." Fins 55)

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6 / 04.03

DRAGLINE Permís per despullar-me, senyor!

KEAN 05) DE) Permís concedit, Dragline.

KOKO 14) Permís per mocar-me, senyor!

SHORTY 15) OFF) D'acord, Koko. Moca't.

GAMBLER 18) Permís per beure, senyor!

KEAN LL) Sí, Gambler! Podeu beure! Tu, Rabbit! Reparteix aigua!

SHORTY 34) OFF) Atenció! Permís per fumar!!

AMBIENT 36) OFF) Gràcies, senyor!!

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7 / 04.38

ORIGINAL

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8 / 04.53

KEAN Què mires, Society?

Dubbing symbols in Spain

Symbols inserted in the dubbing script or final translation, indicating where the voice comes from and some paralinguistic signs


SUBTITLING

= "a translation practice that consists of rendering in writing, usually at the bottom of the screen, the translation into a target language of the original dialogue exchanges uttered by different speakers, as well as all other verbal information that appears written on-screen (letters, banners, inserts) or is transmitted aurally in the soundtrack (song lyrics, voices off)." (Díaz-Cintas 2020)

Subtitles are "expected to provide a semantically adequate account of the original dialogue" (Díaz-Cintas 2020)while complying with spatial and temporal specifications inherent to the medium.

An "account": not an integral translation, otherwise viewers are forced to read too much and to disregard the audiovisual elements. In some subtitled versions, up to 40% of the information is reduced.

ESIST: Code of Good Subtitling Practice

Technical aspects:

Spotting (timing, cueing) [pautat ; pautado]= determining the in and out times of subtitles, depending on space and time parameters (Díaz-Cintas and Remael 2007, p. 88)

determining when a subtitle must appear on screen (in-time), and when it must leave the screen (out-time) depending on limitations of space and time. In other words, dividing the original dialogue into units to be subtitled, taking into consideration both the length of each of the exchanges and the media limitations” and indicating “ the in and out times of each individual subtitle” (Díaz-Cintas and Remael 2007, p. 252)

Segmentation =

Relationship between oral Source Text (temporal) and written Target Text (spatial): time measured in seconds and frames (24 frames per second); space measured by typographical characters (including blank spaces)

"Six-second rule" : it takes six seconds to read two full subtitle lines. If each full line has 36 characters, and the subtitle 72 characters, then
-> 1 second = 12 characters
-> 2 frames = 1 character.

Thus, a speech of 2 seconds and 8 frames would require a subtitle made of 28 characters.

Linguistic aspects

Reduction characterizes subtitling : its is "the core strategy" in subtitling, whether it is a partical reduction or condensation, or a total reduction or omission (Díaz-Cintas 2020)

Relevance is key to the decision of what to condense or omit.

Linguistic features likely to be omitted:

Bibliography

For further bibliography, see this AVT section