(2014) Audiovisual Translation. Theories, Methods and Issues

In Target 28:2, 2016, pp. 261–275; special issue on AVT and research methods, edited by Yves Gambier and Sara Ramos Pinto This article considers theoretical and methodological questions of language and translation policy in the dissemination of audiovisual products across languages. This is an area where scholarly research is inevitably playing catch-up with rapid change both in the language industries and in film and television production. For example, we have a general sense of ‘dubbing territories’ and ‘subtitling territories’ but in reality the picture is more complex. Norms changed in the course of the home entertainment revolution, with the arrival of the DVD format in the late 1990s ostensibly increasing viewer choice and flexibility of translation provision. The relocation of much audiovisual material to an online environment has also generated fundamental changes in the way that works circulate, with volunteer translators and automated translation processes playing a larger role. Policy developments in access translation have meant that there have also been great changes relatively recently in the availability of SDH subtitling, audio description and other modes of access translation.

Cultus Journal, 2018

Target, 2016

This paper aims to identify theoretical and methodological issues, challenges and opportunities posed by the specific nature of research on audiovisual translation (AVT) developed within the framework of Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS). For this purpose, it offers a brief presentation of the overarching principles of DTS; a selective overview of research on AVT in the 21st century, considering the main achievements and challenges involved in such research; and a discussion of some theoretical and methodological issues, challenges and opportunities faced by Descriptive Audiovisual Translation Studies.

The paper will be organized into two main parts: (i) an overview of background research topics in the field of Audiovisual Translation studies (AVT), which allow us to clearly delimit the main research trends which have emerged in the last decade, along with their repercussions, limits, and conceptual and methodological gaps; (ii) a prospective discussion combining Audiovisual Translation together with some specific trends in Translation Studies, which will force us to (re)view some key concepts such as text, accessibility, standard, and so on.

Target. International Journal of Translation Studies, 2016

Within academia gender analysis has been circumscribed mainly to Social Sciences. For years the focus of this analysis has been on the unbalanced representation of men and women as perceived through the use of the (sexist) grammatical and linguistic patterns of a language – for example, in literature – and the use of the images selected to portray male and female bodies – in the case of the mass media. With time, an interest in the implications that also the translation of written and audiovisual texts may have on the representation and perception of gender has grown, and attention has gradually shifted from the literary translation field to the audiovisual one. In the last decade, the study of audiovisual translation discourse from a gender perspective has ranged over a number of genres (TV series, films and commercials) and has resulted in a fruitful debate around the manifold approaches from which gender bias may be investigated, questioned and eventually reversed. In particular,...

Digital Age in Semiotics & Communication 5: 7-14, 2022

The contributions to this volume of Digital Age in Semiotics and Communication deal with various translation phenomena such as intermediality, film adaptation, film colorization, remediation, and various technospheric phenomena such as cinefication, audiovisual and digital mass culture, digital transformation, cyberspace, and digital image.

International Journal of Language and Translation Studies, 2022

Since the turn of the millennium, audiovisual translation has developed into a well established subfield of translation studies and has continued to grow in popularity. Publication of numerous books and essays, including Orelo (2004), DíazCintas (2009) and Bogucki (2015), attests to its importance for contemporary scholarship. However, there is still much more to be done. This innovative collection of essays, organized by Michael Organ, is a valiant effort to bridge existing gaps in audiovisual translation. Apart from the editor's brief and panoramic introduction, the book is divided into seven chapters that cover topics such as audiovisual material in language teaching, interlingual subtitling, closed captions, folktales, censorship, translating puns and audiovisual translation in video games.

Linguistica Antverpiensia, 2007

Journal of Language and Translation, 2010

This article is based on an intercultural conception of what translating means. First, I illustrate some of the links between cultural studies and translation studies. Translation is defined as an intercultural practice, so the idea that both fields of study converge at a given point is supported. Second, I argue for the figure of the translator as an intercultural expert or mediator, a perception that stems directly from the conception of translation that underlies this paper. Finally, I reflect on the weight that certain cultural notions have in audiovisual translation, focusing on the key role of cultural referents and intertextual allusions. These elements are portrayed as possible restrictions (mainly because of the shared knowledge that is necessary for their comprehension), and their transmission (particularly in the case of cultural referents) is depicted as a consequence of cultural globalization. * This research has been conducted as a part of the research project HUM2007-65518/FILO, Estudio empírico y descriptivo de las normas profesionales de la traducción audiovisual para televisión en España, founded by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia.

Massidda Serenella (2025). Audiovisual Translation and Audience Participation in the Digital Age.. In: Lu S. Lu S. & Liang L. (Eds.). Danmu-mediated Communication and Audiovisual Translation in the Digital Age (1st ed.). Routledge. p. 10-29, New york:Routledge, ISBN: 9781003475422, 2025

In the last decade, the media localization industry has observed a major shift in the way audiovisual content is localized, broadcast, and consumed by multifaceted audiences (Massidda 2023). Linear TV has surrendered to subscription video-on-demand (SVOD) services characterized by the novel freedom provided to viewers by streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO and Netflix. New audiences around the world plugged into SVOD systems have virtually never-ending catalogs at their disposal and decide when and how to watch the content available, taking the driver’s seat in a process that had never been in their hands util now. As a result of a series of epochal changes in the industry, both technological and mediatic in their profound nature, media participation has greatly evolved in the last few years. Audience participation in the digital age, popularized by Danmu (in Chinese 弹幕, meaning “bullet curtain”) a form of online commenting system by which viewers post their comments on top of audiovisual content, has proliferated enormously in the last few years thanks to the rise of subtitling (Diaz Cintas and Massidda 2019). The peculiarity of Danmu, as opposed to other ‘participatory culture’ (Jenkins 2009) modalities, is the lack of an orderly fashion in the way content is delivered, ‘projected on the screen, floating horizontally through the video, and overlaying the original content’ (So 2017: online) this way reflecting the naturalness and spontaneity of oral speech. The Danmu phenomenon mainly trends in East Asian countries, but in China has particularly boomed and become a default feature in most video websites. This chapter will outline how the latest trends in audiovisual translation (AVT) – and subtitling in particular – have shaped today’s media participation in the digital age.