Subtitles for Almodovar

by Dr Jorge Diaz-Cintas

Audio-visual translation

This is the generic term that refers to the translation of products in which the verbal dimension is supplemented by elements in other media. In cases such as songs and radio programmes the message is conveyed only auditorily. In some other cases, the visual channel is the only one: comic strips, published advertisements, etc. Other products such as films, CD-roms or documentaries resort to both channels to convey their message. The concurrence of different communication systems such as images, sound (music, noise) and the verbal component (oral production, written text) is responsible for a series of limitations that constrain the translator's task.

Subtitling is one of the several processes commonly used in the translation of audio-visual products such as films. Other such practices are dubbing, voice-over and simultaneous interpreting.

What is subtitling?

Subtitling can be defined as a linguistic practice that consists in providing, usually at the bottom of the screen, a written text that intends to account for what has been said (or shown in written form) in the audio-visual product.

Types of subtitling

From a technical perspective subtitles can be open, that is, the written text is delivered together with the image without the spectator being able to choose its presence. This is the sort of subtitling we experience with foreign films in TV or cinemas. Subtitles can also be closed, when they are broadcast separately from the audio-visual product and the spectator has the option to display them together with the original version, i.e. subtitling for the deaf or hard of hearing, versions produced for DVD and television programmes which are broadcast to different language communities with the relevant subtitle version encoded.

From a linguistic point of view, we can talk of two types: a) Intralingual subtitling, also known as captioning, which is primarily aimed at the deaf and hard of hearing, but also extremely useful for people learning a foreign language; b) Interlingual subtitling, the spoken/written message of the original product which is translated into the language of the target audience.

Subtitling vs dubbing

Although silent films needed the translation of the intertitles, it was not until the arrival of the talkies in the late 20s and early 30s that film translation became a real issue for the distribution of programmes worldwide. Subtitling and dubbing, in this order, were developed as the solution to the linguistic transfer that was needed, and ever since the confrontation between these two translation modes has epitomised most of the academic exchanges in the film translation debate.

Without intending to favour any of the two, let's take a contrastive look at the pros and cons of both methods of language transfer:

Dubbing		Subtitling
Expensive		Cheap
The original dialogue is lost		Respects the integrity of the original dialogue
It takes longer		Reasonably quick
Pretends to be a domestic product		Promotes the learning of foreign languages
Dubbing actors' voices can be repetitive		Quality of original actors' voices
Suits poor readers		Suits the hearing impaired / Helps immigrants
Respects the image of the original		Pollutes the image
Conveys more original information		Requires more reduction of original information
Allows the overlapping of dialogue		Does not allow the overlapping of dialogue
Viewer can focus on images		Dispersion of attention: image + written text
Viewer can follow the sense even if distracted from watching		Viewer will lose the sense if distracted
Constrained by lip-sync		Constrained by space and time
Only one linguistic code		Two different linguistic codes simultaneously can be disorientating
Allows more cinematic illusion		Can detract from cinematic illusion

Europe at a glance

For different reasons that range from the economic discrepancies between dubbing and subtitling to the preferences developed by the audiences in various nations, a clear divide has grown in Western Europe between the big dubbing countries (Spain, France, Germany, Italy) and the small subtitling ones (Portugal, the Netherlands, Greece, Scandinavian countries). Due to its inclusion in the huge anglophone audio-visual market, the case of the United Kingdom can be described as a special one where both methods are equally and rarely implemented.

Central and Eastern Europe does not seem to have a clear language transfer policy. Romania and Slovenia favour subtitling, whereas other countries such as Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria seem to dub most of their programmes. On the other hand, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and some CIS states use voice-over as their main method of language transfer in television.

The professional world

Subtitling is the result of a common effort that involves the cooperation of several people. The actual translation of the dialogue is only one of several stages.

Assuming a dialogue list has been provided by the production/distribution company, the first task is the spotting (also known as timing or cueing) of the film, which is normally done by a technician. This consists in noting in the dialogue list when subtitles should start and stop. Once the in and out times have been established, one can proceed to work out the length of the subtitles the translator has to write. According to the seconds and frames that are available, the subtitles will be graphically longer or shorter. In some instances, the spotting has already been done by the company that provided the dialogue list, in which case this document is known as a master list. When the timing has been done by a professional other than the translator, the latter's freedom can be severely restricted. The imposition of a maximum permitted number of spaces for a text may not work equally well for all languages and that is why, if translators could do their own spotting, they could be more flexible and make a more rational use of the spaces needed for any given subtitle.

Once the spotting has been done, the next step is to translate from one language to another, carried out by the translator. The final stage consists in adjusting the length of the subtitles to the spaces available, paying special attention to the syntactical presentation of the subtitles and making sure that cuts and changes of scenes are respected. The person in charge of adjusting tends to be a different professional known, by some, as the subtitler. Nowadays there is a call for the unification of all these tasks (spotting, translation and adjustment) in the figure of the translator, since it is believed that the combination of these functions in one person will help to reduce the risk of error. New developments in specialised computer software for subtitling, together with the designing of university modules where students are systematically taught all the necessary stages for subtitling, suggest the consolidation of this versatile professional in the very near future.

Dialogue list

In an ideal situation, the translator works from a document called a dialogue list (also known as post-production script) that is the (more or less) exact compilation of the linguistic exchanges that take place in the audio-visual product. Besides the linguistic material, a good dialogue list offers metatextual information about the social context and the cultural connotations, makes clear the meaning of words or expressions that may be obscure for the translator, explains puns and plays on words, offers the correct spelling of proper names and indicates ironic statements, etc. This is an essential document for the efficient work of the translator and ought to be provided by the production or distribution company.

Spatial and temporal constraints

In order to minimise the impact of the written text on the original image, it is common practice to present a maximum of two lines of subtitles at a time. Given the width of the screen, and taking into consideration the overriding need for legibility, each line can usually accommodate a maximum of 35 characters (including blanks and punctuation symbols). The golden rule applied for subtitling purposes is that an average viewer can read a two-line subtitle of 70 characters in 6 seconds. With this in mind, a table of correspondences between duration of dialogue and number of spaces available is worked out. According to this mathematical parameter, a 3 second speech segment in the film will have to be fitted in a maximum of 41 spaces and a 5 second one in approximately 58 spaces.

Some other considerations that the subtitler has to respect are:

-the subtitle projection has to be synchronised with the actual dialogue, that is, it has to appear on screen at the same time as the characters speak and has to be removed when they stop speaking;
-subtitles should not be left too long on screen because the viewer will tend to re-read the message;
-in order to guarantee its reading, no subtitle should appear for less than a second;
-there has to be some time between subtitle projections so that viewers realise that there has been a change of subtitle, otherwise the eye would not realise that there has been a change and will not read the new message;
-a subtitle should not run over a cut or change of scene.

Visibility and legibility of subtitles

Since the main aim of a subtitle is to convey in written what is being said orally in the film, it is paramount that the subtitle can be read. So, although subtitles are usually placed at the bottom of the screen to guarantee minimum pollution of the image, they should be placed in a different area when the background does not allow its reading or, alternatively, be superimposed on a dark-coloured box that will contrast with the written message and favour its reading. It is also extremely important that the subtitles be displayed using a font which ensures their clear visibility and easy legibility whilst distracting as little as possible from the picture.

If the subtitles are to be easily understood in the short time available, each subtitle must be a coherent, logical and syntactical unit. In order to facilitate the readability of the message, line-breaks ought to be applied in such a way as to coincide with the natural breaks in sentence structure. That is, lines should be divided in such a way that words intimately connected by logic, semantics or grammar are written on the same line (whenever possible). Let's see an example:

Unacceptable		Better
It was unexpected. Latin penguins do not speak that way.		It was unexpected. Latin penguins don't speak that way.

Graphic conventions

Although the subtitling discourse is governed by a set of rules that determines the graphic presentation of the information (use of dash, suspended dots, upper case, italics, indication of the end of a subtitle, etc.), there is a clear hesitation and lack of harmonisation in the punctuation and use of some other conventions in the delivery of the subtitle message. Short of a(n) (inter)national consensus, translators have to do their utmost to be consistent in the use of the symbols they implement all along the same programme to avoid disorientating the viewers and calling undue attention to the graphic presentation of the subtitles.

Bicultural subtitlers

As far as linguistic competence is concerned, subtitlers, like translators in other translation practices, must have an absolute command of their mother tongue and be fluent in the other language and culture if they are to carry out the linguistic transfer successfully. Unlike some other translation practices, they are severely restricted in the use of metalinguistic conventions, and are unable to resort to the useful literary footnote or the eloquent prologue at the beginning of the work.

Reduction

An added difficulty is that the subtitler is always confronted with the need of a ubiquitous reduction of original information. This reduction can be partial (condensation) or total (elimination) and always in accordance with the principle of relevance, that is, making sure that no information with a diagetic value is deleted. Although the subtitle cannot translate everything that is said, it must captured the essence of what is said.

Vulnerable translation

The basic aim of any translation is to reformulate a source language message in a given target language, avoiding at all costs any misunderstandings in the process. In other translation practices mistakes can easily pass unnoticed, but this is rarely the case in a mode of translation as uniquely vulnerable as subtitling. The written subtitle finds itself in the unpleasant situation of being always accompanied and challenged by its concurrent tertium comparationis. Anybody with some knowledge of the source language can easily play the "spot the error" game.

From oral to written

Another factor that defines and constrains this translation mode is the transition from the oral to the written medium. The language used in films tends to be very colloquial and the representation in written form of certain stylistic devices, such as repetitions or exclamations, would prove rather odd. The subtitler has to be aware of the different impact that a certain expression can have in its oral or written delivery, and of the fact that it might not always be possible to offer an effective written rendition of non-standard speech or colloquial vocabulary. Slang and taboo expressions are particularly sensitive to this media migration and it is the task of the subtitler to consider their value in the original and find a solution that is acceptable for the target audience, easier said than done.

Some facts about subtitling

• Despite nowadays being primarily a dubbing country, the first nation to have used subtitles seems to have been France which was screening subtitled films as early as January 1929.
• Subtitling in two different languages is not uncommon. In some areas in Belgium each of the two lines is always devoted to a different language, French and Flemish. The same happens in other countries such as Finland (Finnish and Swedish) or Jordan (Arabic and Hebrew).
• On average, a subtitled films costs 10 times less than a dubbed one.
• Most subtitlers work on a free-lance basis and are paid per subtitle.
• Although by no means a common practice, some film directors, like Woody Allen, keep a close eye on the translated versions of their films.
• The cost of subtitling is 1%-2% of the total production costs. Dubbing can add up to 10%.
• This is the breakdown of the price paid for subtitling a film: 25% for technical material, 15% for the technician and 60% for the translator.
• An average length feature film contains around 900 subtitles for the cinema version, 750 for the video/DVD release and 650 for the TV copy.
• Depending on the flow of linguistic material in the film, the percentage of reduction varies from 30% to 50% of the original.
• The average time for subtitling a feature film is 36 hours (4 working days).

Read more...Exercise One

Useful links

Subtitling equipment companies:
www.cavena.se
www.screen.subtitling.com

ESIST (European Association for Studies in Screen Translation):

Martine Goedefroy (Secretatry ) 
Erasmushogeschool,
Trierstraat 84
B-1040 Brussel
Tel: + 32 2 230 12 60
Fax: + 32 2 230 99 90
Email: Sylvie.Van.Lierde@ehb.be

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