Unit 6.

Audiovisual
Translation: Subtitling

Summary from Talaván, N., Ávila-Cabrera, J.J. & Costal, T. (2016).

Traducción y accesibilidad audiovisual. Barcelona: Editorial UOC.
ISBN 9788491164685 [chapter 2, pp. 53-100]
All the text in this presentation has been taken from this summary
Subtitling:
 A type of AVT (Audiovisual Translation) in which a written text is inserted
in an image in order to transfer the audio track of an audiovisual
product.

 The role of the visual information shown in the image is also

taken into account.
 Usually done through the insertion of written text at the
bottom of an image.
 The addition of such texts should be synchronized with the
image and soundtrack so that both channels (visual and
auditory), transmitting the same message, get to the viewers
at the same time.

 The definition of subtitling provided above refers to regular subtitles, be it

interlingual and intralingual, and not to subtitles for the deaf and the
hard of hearing (SDH), whose definition calls for further explanation.
 1. Types of subtitles
 Historically speaking, the first type of subtitles known
to us is the intertitles, which were signs edited over a
black background and inserted in between scenes
in silent films.
 There is a large terminology used for subtitles (three
or even more different terms can be used to refer to
a same type of subtitles) but we will focus on a
linguistic classification, that gives us three main
categories.
 1.1. Interlingual subtitles

 The most widely used and best-known.

 They transfer the audio track (in a foreign language
or L2) into the language of the recipient culture (or
L1).
 Thus, there are two kinds of transfer: a language
transfer (L2 to L1) and a code transfer (oral to
written).
 These types of subtitles are also known as traditional
or standard subtitles, especially when they are used
in language-learning environments (Talaván, 2013).
 Subtitles used in theater plays, in the opera or other
live events (concerts, conferences, etc.) are called
supertitles.
1.2. Intralingual subtitles

 In this type of subtitles, the transfer of an oral message into a written one
is done in the same language (the SL and the TL are the same).
 Although both languages are in L1 and, even though there is no linguistic
variation, the way they are presented and the discourse type do vary.
 Their origin can be seen in the “closed caption” subtitles, especially in the
United States and countries with a vast number of immigrants, where
they were created to facilitate comprehension of audiovisual products
broadcast on TV.
 Sometimes they are presented in different colors (to distinguish among
characters), or they even offer metalinguistic elements (making them
more useful for an audience with hearing problems.
 Intralingual subtitles are also commonly found in films and TV series that
make a profound use of dialects –such as the case of the movie
Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996)
 It is also important, at this point, to distinguish between automatic
captions (automatically generated subtitles, such as those used in
YouTube) and real subtitles.
Recently, new guidelines started to be developed to provide the
necessary paralinguistic information for accessibility purposes: not
only to receive audio-verbal information in subtitles but also to
receive other non-verbal, relevant auditory signs for a complete
understanding of the audiovisual message.

Respeaking is another use for intralingual subtitles, which is

applied to the subtitling of live TV programs, especially the news
and others of the like.

Intralingual subtitles have also been successful in the

improvement of comprehension, not only of lexical terms, but also
as regards the comprehension of oral speech and even the
production of language (Frumuselu et al, 2015 or Vanderplank,
2015). ClipFlair platform (www.clipflair.net).

Finally, intralingual subtitles are also used in karaoke, where they

are shown on a screen, usually in musicals or audiovisual products
that come with songs, so that users can follow the lyrics and sing
along if they wish to (Díaz Cintas and Ramael, 2007).
2. Main subtitling
conventions
 Synchrony is one of the fundamental characteristics of
subtitles: they should appear on-screen when the
actor starts speaking and should disappear exactly
when the actor has ceased to speak or has come to a
natural pause in his or her speech (Díaz Cintas, 2003).

 There are other important conventions to take into

account for the production of good-quality subtitles:
temporal, spatial and punctuation conventions,
among others.
2.1 Temporal conventions
Temporal conventions include the following guidelines related to: time
on screen, synchrony, rhythm and subtitles separation
 Time on screen: subtitles should remain visible for a minimum of 1 second and a
maximum of 6. One-line subtitles are usually on screen for about 4 seconds and two-
line subtitles for 6. This is influenced by the reading speed of the target audience, the
available time and the lexical-semantic load of the original product.

 The 6-second rule is a timescale rule related to how much information the average
viewer is expected to read and understand in a two-line subtitle that lasts 6 seconds:
that comes down to no more than 74 characters (including spaces), that is, 37
characters per line (considering a reading speed of 145 words per minute).

 This calcultaion can vary depending upon the means being used: in the cinema
subtitles can take up to 80 characters (including spaces) in two-line subtitles, whereas
on television subtitles range from 28 to 35 characters per line.

 Due to advancements in technology, some programs allow for more characters per
line than the 6-second rule does, and the term “characters per second” (or cps) seems
to be preferred these days.
The synchrony that needs to be established at the beginning and the end
of dialogues with the subtitles that appear on screen should be as precise
as possible, or else it may confuse or even distress the viewer.

However, a slight asynchrony (of half a second at the beginning of the

subtitle or up to 1 second and a half at the end) is often allowed if the
dialogue comes with a great semantic charge that complicates
reduction.

Rhythm is highly important as well. Ideally, each subtitle should appear

between the limits of a single scene.

Lastly, all subtitles must have a minimum spacing of about 2 frames to

avoid overlapping and to allow the eyes to rest (about 200 milliseconds).
Most subtitle editors tend to do this automatically.
2.2 Spatial conventions
There are four main spatial conventions to consider: number of lines and characters
per subtitle, positioning of subtitles on screen, and type of font and color.

 As a general rule, subtitles usually have one or two lines even though multilingual subtitles
can have up to four lines. Sometimes, SDH can have three lines: the first one used for
character tagging, sounds or noise descriptions or any references used to reflect a
character’s mood heard in his/her voice or intonation.

 Subtitles are normally positioned at the bottom of the screen, unless they cover relevant
information, in which case they will be temporarily positioned at the top of the screen. Since
visual information tends to be centered, subtitles are usually centered as well on screen, to
provide a natural movement from the image on the screen to the subtitles. The alignment of
the text (left or right) shall then be constant throughout the subtitling of the product.

 As mentioned above, the maximum number of characters and spaces shall be between 70
and 80 per subtitle, with a minimum of 4 and 5 (spaces included) and a maximum of 28 and
40 per line, with small variations depending on the means of transmission: television or
cinema, for instance.

 The type of font shall be clear, preferably Arial, Helvetica or Times New Roman, and the
standard size, though variable, is 12.

 The color of the font varies according to the means: white for cinema (usually because they
are laser-engraved and not electronic subtitles), yellow for DVD and television, etc.
2.3 Punctuation and orthotypographical
recommendations
Punctuation is of great importance when it comes to consistency, fluency and reading speed. The following list
summarizes the main guidelines to take into account regarding punctuation:

 Ellipsis (…): to mark the end of a subtitle that continues in the following subtitle (which will also start with ellipsis or
in lower case letters), or to mark a pause, doubt or suspense. However, ellipsis is little by little out of use and lower
case letters alone are preferred (both at the end and the beginning of continuing subtitles).

 Period or full stop (.): to mark the end of sentences and the end of a complete subtitle. Thus, the viewer will
understand that the message is complete and that a new one is expected.

 Comma (,) and semicolon (;): commas should not be overused, and they should be avoided at the end of
subtitles, since the natural break between subtitles already serves as a comma. Semicolons should be avoided in
subtitling because the pause they imply is even longer than commas.

 Quotation marks (“ « ‘): they should be used consistently throughout the subtitling project. The most common ones
are the double quotation marks (“”), which are also used to show irony in words and phrases or for magazine
names, books, movies, and so forth.

 Parentheses () and square brackets []: they are scarcely used given that they take a lot of space and characters
and not using them does not affect the final message.

 Dash (-): it is used to distinguish between characters when they are speaking within the same subtitle. They are
used at the beginning of a line without space in between the dash and the word.
With regards to orthotypographical conventions, the following
are the most important ones to consider when dealing with
subtitles:

Capital letters: they are used at the beginning of a subtitle (as

long as the subtitle is not a continuation of a previous one), for
proper names or titles (Mr., Dr., etc.), to show that someone is
shouting or for the translation of signs (Chaume, 2004).

Italics: this type of font is used when the subtitle line belongs to a
character that is not on-screen (such as a character on the
phone who is not physically present in the image), for subtitling
lyrics (songs are usually subtitled when their content is relevant
for the plot), for loan words or even new words not yet extended
enough for everyone to understand. It is not allowed to
underline subtitles or to write them in bold, with only a few
exceptions (as it is the case of creative subtitling, the subtitling of
a film such as Slumdog Millionare [Danny Boyle and Loveleen
Tandan, 2008], or Japanese anime).
Abbreviations and acronyms: they can be used to save
characters and spaces, but they should be common ones so that
the viewer can read and understand them correctly.

Symbols: they should be used only to save space, and making

sure the viewer will easily understand them. Examples: $, %, &,
etc.

Numbers: they are written in words up to number 10, and in

figures from 11 onwards to save space. When more than two
numbers appear in one subtitle, only one of them is usually written
in figures. Time, measure or weight references (hours, meters,
kilograms, etc.) are always written in figures followed by their
corresponding abbreviation of the unit of measurement.
 3. The process of subtitling

 According to Díaz Cintas (2008), subtitling is a relatively complex process through

which diverse professional subtitlers participate in different stages. The following is a
summary of such stages:

 Firstly, a customer (usually a TV channel or film production company) contacts a

subtitling company (or, less frequently, an independent subtitler).

 Secondly, the TV show or audiovisual text is viewed completely to make sure it

contains all the necessary information to carry out the subtitling.

 Next, a working copy of the product is sent to the subtitling company.

The following stage is related to the subtitling of the product
per se. If no spotting list is provided, the subtitler will also be in
charge of segmenting the original product through a process
called spotting or cueing.

This process deals with the division of dialogues that have to

be correctly synchronized according to timecodes (start and
end times for each subtitle).

0068 10:07:24:00 10:07:25:23

¿Hay, o no hay palmeras en Málaga?
0068 Subtitle number
10:07:24:00 Entrance of subtitle
10:07:25:23 Exit of subtitle
Now: we just have to find out the time frame from the subtitle
entrance to the exit: 1 second and 23 frames (fotogramas)
This figures will tell us the number of spaces and characters
that can be used in each subtitle.
http://www.lalinternadeltraductor.org/n5/subtitulacion.html
It is then when the translation of the subtitles begins. If
the spotting list is provided, it will mean that decisions
related to start and end times have already been
made. Spotting lists may also include additional
information such as description of characters, rapport
among them, historical context, or even a glossary.

Lastly, it is common to visualize the final product with

subtitles simulation together with the customer. In the
case of the film industry, as subtitles are laser-
engraved on the film, a final preview of the movie is
mandatory.
As we can see, there are many parties involved in the
subtitling process apart from the subtitler: the subtitling
agency (almost always), the spotter (only sometimes) and at
times (more rarely) the adaptor ( an expert who revises
condensation and reduction of the meta text).

In practice, some of the stages seen above are sometimes

skipped, and the final result may suffer the corresponding
consequences. This can be seen when, in order to reduce
costs, a video is sent to an independent subtitler who will do
all the work (spotting, translation, revision, etc.) in order to
simplify the process. Szu-Yu Kuo (2015) provides a detailed
description of how the industry is working at the moment and
what should be done to improve all aspects of the subtitling
process.
4. Main challenges faced by the
profession
 Some of the main challenges faced by the profession
are: reduction, intersemiotic coherence and cohesion,
and segmentation, as well as some other key
translation strategies, such as the ones used to deal
with offensive and taboo language, humor, and
cultural elements.
4.1 Reduction, and intersemiotic
coherence and cohesion

 In Translation Studies, the idea that any translation had to be a

complete and faithful transmission of the original message has
long been left aside, since the source text is not the only
element to consider in the translation process.

 When it comes to subtitling, the idea above is even more

complex, due to certain added difficulties (technical, linguistic
and cultural) that the subtitling discourse has to take into
account, such as the already mentioned spatial and temporal
limitations, which make this type of translation a reduced
version of the original message.

 To cope with this, subtitlers tend to avoid including

unnecessary information either because the spectators
already know it, either because they can clearly hear it (this
happens with easily recognizable words such as no) or simply
because it is not necessary to understand the message.
Díaz Cintas (2001: 124) talks about two types of possible
reductions: partial reductions (the most common ones, also
known as condensation or concision) and total reductions
(suppression of information).

It is important not to suppress key and relevant information

and not see reduction as a negative trait of subtitling. In fact,
the oral speech is full of redundant words, which are not
usually seen in the writing.

As per intersemiotic coherence and cohesion, the subtitler

should aim at visual-verbal coherence and cohesion (that is,
the relation between the image and the sound on one side,
and the oral text on the other) when it is time to decide what
information to include in the subtitles.
4.2 Segmentation
 Segmentation is fundamental and shall also be taken into consideration when producing
subtitles, as it provides them with a distinctive form and, if incorrectly done, it can even distort
the final message.

 When subtitles are short, one line is preferred to two lines to facilitate the reading and to avoid
using too much screen space.

 Thus, segmentation is needed when subtitles are long (more than one line) and a series of
guidelines need to be followed.

 Subtitles should be segmented according to the grammatical and/or semantical units that
compose them. The subtitler needs to segment subtitles in such a way that the spectator can
read and comprehend the text correctly, both from a syntactic and semantic point of view.

 A pyramidal positioning of the subtitles is relevant (the lines at the top are preferred to be
shorter than the ones at the bottom, but syntactical and semantical considerations will always
override the positioning of the subtitles
When segmentation takes place between a subtitle and the
following one (or even among a subtitle and its previous and
following ones), segmentation is even more complex
because the viewer needs to remember the notion of the
previous subtitle when it changes to a new one, and at the
same time pay attention to the images on the screen.

Sometimes the original discourse may be too long (meaning

that there are no full stops for a long period of time), and in
such cases, it is best to divide the original subtitle in shorter
syntactical units so that the viewers can find a full stop every
other two or three subtitles so that they can rest, and restart
assimilating the information of the following subtitles.
4.3 Strategies for the translation of offensive and
taboo language, humor and other cultural
elements

Apart from well-known translation strategies and techniques, such as transposition,

modulation, equivalence, calques, borrowings, omission, substitution, etc., there is
a series of subtitling translation strategies and techniques that tend to be used in
the field.

First, it should be noted that while some linguistic elements tend to be omitted,
such as vocatives, interjections, false starts, discourse markers, etc., there are others
that shall always be included: any element that contains new and necessary
information to understand the plot.

Also, as stated by Karamitroglou (1998), a great deal of structures can be simplified

for better understanding, for instance, turning a passive structure into an active
one or a negative sentence into an affirmative one.

Díaz Cintas (2003: 280-286) also talks about vocabulary simplification, syntactical
explicitness, repetitions (to facilitate global comprehension and cohesion), error
correction (common in oral language), theme-rheme manipulation (making sure
subtitles start by already known information –theme–), and linguistic
standardization as general features of the subtitling discourse to consider and so
apply the corresponding strategies or techniques.
Additionally, there are other challenging elements that
subtitlers need to deal with, such as offensive and taboo
language, humor, and culture-specific elements:

Offensive and taboo language: For decades, translators

have tended to bring down the tone of such language, or
even omit it (depending on its relevance on the final
message). Fortunately, with time, translators have been able
to treat this language more naturally, so that the viewers
can be exposed to it the same way viewers of the original
product perceive it (Ávila-Cabrera, 2015).

Culture-specific elements: according to Díaz Cintas and

Ramael (2007: 202-207), translators can turn to the following
translating strategies and techniques to tackle culture-
specific elements: loan words, calques, explicitation,
substitution, transposition, lexical recreation, neutralization
and omission. The translator needs to assess the intercultural
or transcultural relevance of an expression in order to make
a clear decision about what strategy to use.
Humour: as it happens with culture-specific elements, humor is
also difficult to translate, since it is frequently related to the
culture it comes from.

While different cultures have distinct ways of understanding

humor, there are spatial and temporal restrictions that do not
give the translator much time and space to recreate the
humorous message in the same terms.

In addition, the translated solution may contradict the images

that go along with the humorous source text. Fortunately, this
visual element sometimes helps the translator transmit the
message and the viewer understand it (Martínez Sierra, 2009).

Díaz Cintas (2003: 254) states that it is important to find a

balance between being as truthful as possible to the original
text and finding a similar comic effect on the target audience
(certain humorous references may be left untranslated if
there are no visual elements to go with it).
Lastly, any subtitling process may present limitations from a
linguistic perspective (Martínez Sierra, 2012) derived from the
specific nature of this AVT process: the impossibility of reflecting
dialogues overlapping the differences in pronunciation (foreign
accents, dialectal varieties, etc.), emotions shown in speech,
interruptions, and so forth.
 Additional reinforcement
exercises
a) Go online and find an example of multilingual subtitles. What are the advantages and
disadvantages of this type of subtitles? Take some screenshots with examples.
b) Go online and find two examples of fansubs and assess their quality in a short summary
(make sure the examples are different in quality and type).
c) Subtitle (in English and in Spanish) the fragment from Zontar The Thing From Venus (Larry
Buchanan, 1966) available at https://goo.gl/244whS. As this video includes the solutions,
we recommend that you watch it without subtitles first to be able to work directly with the
original version.
d) Watch a movie you have at home and turn on the subtitles in the language you prefer.
In a short summary, assess the different types of reduction used in the subtitling process
and the repercussion on the final quality of the subtitles.
e) Subtitle into English and Spanish the fragment from The Little Shop of Horrors (Roger
Corman, 1960), available at https://goo.gl/Vw3gtk, taking into account the challenges
subtitlers face as seen in section 4. This video includes suggested solutions so we
recommend that you work with the original version first.

Recommended free software for the exercises: AEGISUB http://www.aegisub.org/