The Retranslation and Mediated Translation of Audiovisual Content in Multilingual Spain: Reasons and Market Trends

Retranslations are the second, third, fourth or nth-translations of the same text produced at a later stage. In the case of audiovisual content, retranslations occur under certain circumstances. Focusing on Spain as a multilingual country, where regional languages demand new translations, frequently conceived as mediated translations, this article concentrates on the definition of retranslation and the differences between retranslation and mediated translation, and also lists the major reasons why retranslations, be them redubbings or resubtitlings, are commissioned and carried about. Economic, historical, linguistic and political issues triggering retranslations will also be dealt with, and some translatological conclusions will be drawn, as well as some new avenues of research grounded on retranslations

Is audiovisual translation putting the concept of translation up against the ropes?

The imposing reality of audiovisual translation has long challenged the concept of ‘equivalence’ and has put this notion against the ropes almost from the very first moments of its creation. Furthermore, the advent of new tendencies in audiovisual consumption, accompanied by a variety of localization practices, challenges the traditional concept of ‘translation’ as we know it. This article reviews which characteristics of audiovisual translation have called into question the very essence of translation, as it has been traditionally understood. After an explanation of new practices mainly created by the new audiences or prosumers, a list of concepts and terms that try to give account to this new reality is discussed, among them localisation, transadaptation, adaptation, transcreation and transmedia narratives, as well as remakes and format licensing. Conclusions call for a new concept of equivalence that also embraces new types of relations between original and target texts, such as iconic and narrative equivalence

An overview of audiovisual translation: Four methodological turns in a mature discipline

Digital technology has played a crucial role not only in the process of production and distribution of audiovisual content, but also in the process of localization and consumption of audiovisual products. This has had an obvious impact on audiovisual translation as a field, both in professional circles as well as in scholarly research. To date, this field of research has grown exponentially, parallel to the production, consumption, interaction with and general interest in audiovisual products. At the same time, translation studies have been growing as a discipline and, consequently, has been influencing audiovisual translation (AVT) research. This article presents a due brief overview of the four turns audiovisual translation has taken to date (the descriptive, the cultural, the sociological and the cognitive turns), and identifies some of the major steps already undertaken, as well as possible research avenues that such turns are currently opening

Prefabricated orality : a challenge in audiovisual translation

Creating fictional dialogues that sound natural and believable is one of the main challenges of both screenwriting and audiovisual translation. The challenge does not lie so much in trying to imitate spontaneous conversations, but in selecting specific features of this mode of discourse that are widely accepted and recognised as such by the audience. The main purpose of this article is to analyse and describe the linguistic code in an audiovisual corpus, focusing on what is specific to audiovisual texts and, therefore, to audiovisual translation. Although this code is common to all texts that need to be translated, it stands out further in audiovisual texts since they are “written to be spoken as if not written” (Gregory and Carroll, 1978: 42). We are therefore dealing with texts whose orality may seem spontaneous and natural, but which is actually planned or, as Chaume (2004a: 168) terms it, ‘prefabricated’. Since this is a characteristic that is common to most audiovisual fictional texts regardless of their origins, our aim here is to describe the main features of the linguistic code in native and foreign productions (dubbed from English into Spanish) and to highlight the trends when writing and translating these texts, in order to compare them at a later stage

Subtitling for d/Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children: Current Practices and New Possibilities to Enhance Language Development

In order to understand and fully comprehend a subtitle, two parameters within the linguistic code of audiovisual texts are key in the processing of the subtitle itself, namely, vocabulary and syntax. Through a descriptive and experimental study, the present article explores the transfer of the linguistic code of audiovisual texts in subtitling for deaf and hard-of-hearing children in three Spanish TV stations. In the first part of the study, we examine current practices in Spanish TV captioning to analyse whether syntax and vocabulary are adapted to satisfy deaf children’s needs and expectations regarding subtitle processing. In the second part, we propose some alternative captioning criteria for these two variables based on the needs of d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children, suggesting a more appropriate way of displaying the written linguistic code for deaf children. Although no specific distinction will be made throughout this paper, it is important to refer to these terms as they have been widely used in the literature. Neves (2008) distinguishes between the “Deaf”, who belong to a linguistic minority, use sign language as their mother tongue, and usually identify with a Deaf community and culture; the “deaf”, who normally have an oral language as their mother tongue and feel part of the hearing community; and the “hard of hearing”, who have residual hearing and, therefore, share the world and the sound experience of hearers. In the experimental study, 75 Spanish DHH children aged between 8 and 13 were exposed to two options: the actual broadcast captions on TV, and the alternative captions created by the authors. The data gathered from this exposure were used to analyse the children’s comprehension of these two variables in order to draw conclusions about the suitability of the changes proposed in the alternative subtitles.This study has been funded by the Basque Government through a predoctoral grant (BFI-2011-80), by TRALIMA/ITZULIK Consolidated Research Group (GIU 16/48, UPV/EHU) and projects IDENTITRA (MINECO, Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry and Competitiveness, FFI2015-68572-P, G15/P75) and ITACA (MINECO, FFI2016-76054-P)

Panorámica de la investigación en traducción para el doblaje

Dubbing, together with subtitling, is one of the most widespread types of audiovisual translation. Its origins can be traced back to the late twenties, with the need to transfer the new sound films to other languages and cultures. This article places dubbing in the world of audiovisual translation, reviews the origins of research on dubbing, and offers an overview of the first theoretical and professional approaches to this audiovisual translation mode. The paper then sets out to compare research approaches centred on the problems posed by the source text to descriptive approaches focused on the target text. It concludes by showing research avenues which are still unexplored and call for urgent attention among the academic community. Each section explores basic concepts which have proved to be useful to audiovisual translation theory, such as the notion of translation constraints, dubbese and dubbing norms. The article also presents new genres and new combinations of audiovisual translation modes that are progressively changing the dubbing industry.El doblaje, junto a la subtitulación, es una de las modalidades de traducción audiovisual más extendidas y practicadas por todo el mundo. Sus orígenes se remontan al final de la década de 1920, dada la necesidad de traducir los nuevos filmes sonoros a otras lenguas y culturas. Este artículo sitúa al doblaje en el universo de la traducción audiovisual, echa la vista atrás para rescatar los orígenes de la investigación sobre traducción para el doblaje, y ofrece un resumen de los primeros estudios teóricos y aquellos realizados bajo un prisma más profesional. Tras explicar estos primeros estudios, el artículo pasa a comparar los estudios centrados en el texto origen, con los centrados en el texto meta bajo el paradigma descriptivista. Finalmente, el artículo propone una serie de avenidas de investigación en el campo de la traducción para el doblaje que todavía siguen estando casi vírgenes para la comunidad científica. En cada una de las secciones, se incluyen los conceptos y nociones básicas que han caracterizado cada paradigma, como las nociones de restricciones, dubbese o normas de traducción para el doblaje. El artículo también presenta nuevos géneros audiovisuales y nuevas combinaciones de modalidades de traducción audiovisual que progresivamente están empezando a cambiar el mercado del doblaje

Dubbing a TV Drama Series: The Case of the West Wing

T he Spanish dubbing of The West Wing has been acknowledged as one of the best dubbings of a T V drama series in Spain. T his article focuses on the dubbing of Episode #10 from The West Wing (1999), entitled “In Excelsis Deo”, a Christmas special episode brimming with cultural references, intertextual references, register switchings, close-ups, and all the ingredients that are usually accounted for in dubbing. T his study shows an analysis of the quality of dubbing in just one episode of this mainstream American T V series dubbed into Spanish. In order to do so, a qualitative analysis according to the episode’s adherence to a checklist of dubbing standards, compiled in Chaume (2012), but taken from some other authors (Whitman-Linsen, 1992, among others), has been carried out

El nou paradigma dels estudis de traducció: (notes arran d'un article de Mona Baker)

This introduction tries to contextualize Mona Baker’s article in this same issue by revising her personal evolution in the field of Translation Studies, as well as by introducing some of the key notions tackled in her paper. The introduction mainly deals with the turn of Translation Studies into a new ideological paradigm which tries to overcome the alleged scientific and aseptic methodology of Descriptive Translation Studies. The concepts of descriptive methodology, ideology, frame and narrative theory are also discussed, with some examples of recent events. Attention is also paid to the Catalan context, where translations and language use also obey to certain ideological and political agendas

Els codis de significació no verbal en el cinema: La incidència del codi de mobilitat en les operacions de traducció

Application of the experience of the Translatology and the Discourse Analysis to the film translation, and particularly, to proxemics, kinetics and gestures elements, essential for the control of the isochrony between iconicity and verbality in the dubbing process