Lyrics against images : music and audio description

Music has been an integral part of films from as far back as the silent movie era, where a piano accompaniment was used to build the narrative and an orchestra was used to drown out the sound of the projector. Music in films can encompass a wide array of elements, from a song to a whistle, and can play many roles, as has been commented upon by many researchers. Due to the relevance of music in film narrative, it is an element which merits attention when it comes to making a film accessible, be it through Audio description, Audio subtitling, Sign Language or Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing. This article focuses on Audio description (AD) and how music is handled in audio described films. First of all, a brief review of existing AD guidelines will be presented in order to highlight the secondary role given to music insofar as these guidelines focus more on topics such as characters, locations, actions, credits, among others. This will be followed by an analysis of a corpus of audio described films, focusing on the treatment of songs with significant lyrics. Two different scenarios will be considered: on the one hand, films with song lyrics that can be understood by the audience because they share the same language and, on the other, English language films with song lyrics in a foreign language. Finally, this article proposes new approaches to the treatment of music in AD.La música ha sido una parte integral del cine desde la época del cine mudo, en el que se utilizaba un piano para construir la narración y se recurría a una orquesta para cubrir el sonido del proyector. Asimismo, puede abarcar un amplio abanico de elementos, desde una canción hasta un silbido, y puede desempeñar muchos papeles. Debido a la importancia de la música dentro de la narración fílmica, es un elemento que merece atención a la hora de hacer accesible una película, bien sea a través de la Audiodescripción, la Audiosubtitulación, el Lenguaje de Señas o la Subtitulación para Sordos. Este artículo se centra en la Audiodescripción (AD) y en cómo se trata la música en el cine audiodescrito. En primer lugar, se presentará un breve repaso sobre las directrices de AD existentes con el fin de destacar el papel secundario que se ha dado a la música, dado que las directrices se centran más en asuntos como los personajes, las localizaciones, las acciones, los créditos, entre muchos otros. Más tarde, se presentará un análisis de un corpus de películas audiodescritas, centrándose en el tratamiento de las canciones con letras significativas. Así, se considerarán dos escenarios: por un lado, películas con canciones que la audiencia puede entender porque comparten la misma lengua y, por otro, películas en inglés con canciones en una lengua extranjera. Por último, este artículo propone nuevos acercamientos al tratamiento de la música en la AD

Developing a learning platform for AVT : challenges and solutions

Altres ajuts: FFI2009-0827The implementation of the Bologna process across Europe has meant a shift in university teaching methodology and practice. While the focus was previously on lectures, the new system proposes more active methodologies, with an emphasis on new technologies. This new paradigm has created the need to offer new learning environments. This is primary the aim of AVT-Lp (Audiovisual Translation Learning Platform), a software system developed at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) to foster autonomous audiovisual translation learning. This article presents this platform and discusses the main challenges that were faced and overcome during its development. These difficulties were experienced at three different phases of the project: while devising the initial platform design, while developing the platform, and during system testing

New Moon : aproximación a la traducción audiovisual del lenguaje de los adolescentes

El lenguaje juvenil o de los adolescentes cambia rápidamente y los productos audiovisuales son un buen formato que muestra estas características. Cada joven de cada lengua posee unas herramientas diferentes para expresarse, incluso contando con lenguas que conviven unas con otras. Teniendo esto en cuenta, este artículo analiza el gran fenómeno adolescente de los últimos años: The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Weitz 2009). La primera parte de este artículo aborda los aspectos más teóricos del lenguaje juvenil y su traducción, mientras que la segunda entra de lleno en el análisis de las traducciones existentes de la obra cinematográfica del inglés al castellano, catalán y euskera. Dicho análisis comprende las traducciones del doblaje así como las de la subtitulación. De este modo, se extraen conclusiones sobre las tendencias de traducción de este tipo de lenguaje en concreto en lenguas que conviven juntas en algunos casos, como el catalán y el castellano o el euskera y el castellano.The juvenile or teenage talk changes quickly and the audiovisual products are a good format that shows these characteristics. Every teenager from every language has different tools to express him/herself, even those languages sharing the same territory. Taking that into account, this article analyses the great teenager phenomenon of the last years: The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Weitz 2009). The first part of the article deals with the most theoretical aspects of the juvenile language and its translation. The second part tackles the analysis of the existent translations of the film from the English original version into Spanish, Catalan and Basque. This analysis covers the translations for the dubbing and subtitling. In this way, some conclusions are made on the translation's trends of this type of languages sharing the same territory, as it is the case of the Catalan and the Spanish or the Basque and the Spanish

Multimodalities in didactic audiovisual translation : a teachers' perspective

[Abstract] In the last two decades, the use of audiovisual translation (AVT) in the foreign language classroom has been consolidated as an extremely useful tool for improving communication, mediation, intercultural and ICT skills. Research has shown that it is highly motivating for students (Lertola & Talaván, 2020; Talaván, 2019). However, previous studies on teachers’ perceptions of the validity of didactic AVT (Alonso-Pérez & Sánchez-Requena, 2018; Sokoli et al., 2011) highlighted areas in need of improvement in the field. With this in mind, the article explores the integration of five AVT modalities (subtitling, voiceover, dubbing, audio description and subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing) in one autonomous learning sequence of 15 lesson plans, as designed by members of the research project TRADILEX, funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities. This paper analyses the results of a questionnaire completed by teachers (N=30) who supervised the implementation of this learning sequence in B1 and B2 proficiency level courses from higher education language centres. The main aim of this article is to determine to what extent this new approach addresses the weaknesses observed by teachers in previous studies. The analysis of the gathered data led to conclude that teacher training in didactic AVT significantly improves the implementation of the methodology. Besides that, the comprehensive approach of the TRADILEX sequence, including the five AVT modalities, allowed teachers to identity which modality is better suited for their teaching practice. On the other hand, high dependence on technology and motivation were two of the main concerns shown by teachers which require further research.Spanish Government, Science, and Innovation Ministry / Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PID2019-107362GA-I00)Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación; PID2019-107362GA-I0

"New Moon": aproximación a la traducción audiovisual del lenguaje de los adolescentes

[ES] El lenguaje juvenil o de los adolescentes cambia rápidamente y los productos audiovisuales son un buen formato que muestra estas características. Cada joven de cada lengua posee unas herramientas diferentes para expresarse, incluso contando con lenguas que conviven unas con otras. Teniendo esto en cuenta, este artículo analiza el gran fenómeno adolescente de los últimos años: The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Weitz 2009). La primera parte de este artículo aborda los aspectos más teóricos del lenguaje juvenil y su traducción, mientras que la segunda entra de lleno en el análisis de las traducciones existentes de la obra cinematográfica del inglés al castellano, catalán y euskera. Dicho análisis comprende las traducciones del doblaje así como las de la subtitulación. De este modo, se extraen conclusiones sobre las tendencias de traducción de este tipo de lenguaje en concreto en lenguas que conviven juntas en algunos casos, como el catalán y el castellano o el euskera y el castellano.[EN] The juvenile or teenage talk changes quickly and the audiovisual products are a good format that shows these characteristics. Every teenager from every language has different tools to express him/herself, even those languages sharing the same territory. Taking that into account, this article analyses the great teenager phenomenon of the last years: The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Weitz 2009). The first part of the article deals with the most theoretical aspects of the juvenile language and its translation. The second part tackles the analysis of the existent translations of the film from the English original version into Spanish, Catalan and Basque. This analysis covers the translations for the dubbing and subtitling. In this way, some conclusions are made on the translation’s trends of this type of languages sharing the same territory, as it is the case of the Catalan and the Spanish or the Basque and the Spanish.Esta investigación ha sido posible gracias al proyecto «La subtitulación para sordos y la audiodescripción: pruebas objetivas y planes de futuro», financiado por el Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación español (FFI2009-08027), y a los fondos de la Generalitat de Catalunya 2009SGR700

Traducción Automática y Posedición en TAV: estudio piloto de una práctica en alza

Machine translation (MT) and post-editing (PE) are still considered, in many sectors, enemies of the creative freedom traditionally associated with the audiovisual genre and its translation. Its growing presence in the market is unheralded due to the widespread rejection by a large part of the professional community. However, it is necessary to study the benefits of their implementation in all areas, from quality to productivity, considering all the parties involved in the process.In order to study the differences between the traditional Audiovisual Translation (AVT) process without tools and the process implemented with MTPE, a pilot study was carried out aimed at comparing the results in the English-Spanish translation of a series of 3-minute news and sports clips with different technical characteristics. The results will allow us to obtain an objective comparative description of both processes in order to better know the strengths and weaknesses of each one.La traducción automática y la posedición (TAPE) siguen considerándose, a menudo, enemigas de la libertad creativa tradicionalmente asociada al género audiovisual y a su traducción. El rechazo que su creciente presencia suscita entre gran parte de la comunidad profesional hace que la traducción audiovisual (TAV) no sea una de las disciplinas donde el uso de la TAPE se aborde abiertamente. Sin embargo, es necesario estudiar los beneficios de su implantación a todos los niveles, considerando todas las partes y a todos los implicados en el proceso.Con el fin de estudiar las diferencias entre el proceso tradicional de TAV –sin herramientas– y el proceso implementado con TAPE, se ha llevado a cabo un estudio piloto destinado a comparar los resultados en la traducción inglés-español de una serie de vídeos de noticias y deportes de 3 minutos de duración con diferentes características técnicas. Los resultados permitirán obtener una descripción comparativa objetiva de ambos procesos

Session 2. Creativity and transcreation

Accessible paratext: actively engaging (with) D/deaf audiences / Pierre-Alexis Mével (University of Nottingham) ; Creative subtitles: using typographic design to convey extra meaning / Rocío Inés Varela Tarabal (Universidade de Vigo) ; Accessible filmmaking and sign language (interpreting): from standardization to creativity / Ana Tamayo (University of the Basque Country) ; Defining transcreation from the perspective of professionals: the DTP survey / Oliver Carreira (Pablo de Olavide University) ; CREACTIVE: haute couture subtitling / Èlia Sala (Unversitat Pompeu Fabra). Chair: Paula Igareda (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Variations on the Pear Tree Experiment : different variables, new results?

Inspired by the Pear Stories Project, the Pear Tree Project has investigated how different cultures and languages describe the same film in order to apply its findings to audio description (AD). Participants from different countries were asked to "write down what they saw" in a controlled setting. This article proposes an alternative experiment, also based on the original Pear Stories Project, which aims to shed light on two issues: how different describer profiles (translation students with AD training/without AD training) and different instructions concerning the target audience profiles (blind/non-blind) could alter the final production. The results are analysed in this paper, taking into account the elements covered in the original Pear Stories Project as well as some additional elements proposed by the authors

Ressenya

Obra ressenyada: Federico M. FEDERICI (ed.), Translating dialects and languages minorities. Challenges and solutions. New trends in translation studies, vol. 6. Peter Lang, 201