The Linguist

12 The Linguist Vol/60 No/4 2021 thelinguist.uberflip.com MULTILINGUAL TV Subtitling can be lonely work, but collaborative practice could help with many of the challenges, says Lucy Harford N ot so long ago, before the advent of online streaming platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime, foreign-language drama was considered to be niche, arthouse and a bit snooty in the UK. And to some extent, it still is; many people have an ingrained aversion to subtitles. However, recently we've seen a dramatic rise in uptake and appreciation of foreign drama on a global level, and audiovisual translators/subtitlers are now bridging worlds left, right and centre. As things stand, subtitling is generally a post-post- production activity: subtitles are written once the final edit has been submitted and the director has already moved on to the next project. And this makes sense, especially if the material wasn't originally intended for foreign audiences. However, the subtitling guidelines in our textbooks don't necessarily apply any more, and we are constantly having to adapt due to a new thirst for world drama and modern filming styles. These include rapid shot changes, where the director changes the camera angle to cut between characters or scenery, which in an ideal world subtitles shouldn't cross. The problem is, as with anything that grows rapidly and without sufficient forethought, the field of subtitling has ballooned before the industry has had time to establish a decent working framework. Although the standard of subtitling on major platforms is generally very high and subtitlers do an amazing job, our lives would be so much easier if there were more opportunities for collaboration during the creative process. Many a subtitler has sat at their desk reading a line of a script over and over, wondering what a new piece of slang means, or whether there is a double entendre they're missing. Is the character being insulting? Slightly arrogant? Or was it a casual remark – no need to read too much into it? They may need a more succinct way of putting something; with sometimes just 42 characters per line to work with, a shorter word can make all the difference. The subtitler may wish they could lean across the desk and ask a colleague, but most freelance translators are lone rangers. They don't have the luxury of bouncing ideas off their peers. Unless the project manager absolutely loves sending emails back and forth, over the course of a project they are pretty much left to their own devices when it comes to deciphering the meanings of nuanced phrases and finding the best way of conveying them in the target language. In my experience (aside from a few notable exceptions), subtitling projects follow a standard process. The subtitler: 1 Receives notice of the upcoming project. 2 Downloads the scripts and audiovisual files. 3 Spots and translates the subtitles. 'Spotting' is the cueing of subtitles (i.e. deciding when they enter and leave the screen) and consists of inputting an 'IN' timecode and an 'OUT' timecode. 4 Delivers the project with some notes. 5 Moves on to the next project. After delivery, there is no feedback and no conversation with the reviewer/proofreader; the subtitler doesn't see or hear anything about the project again. Unique to subtitling Though the challenges are similar to other fields of translation in many ways, there is an additional layer of communication to decode in audiovisual translation, as factors such as facial expression, body language, background music and scenery play a role in what the words mean. Occasionally the audiovisual files are missing, which means the translator doesn't have access to the context in which the dialogue is meant to be interpreted, and has to guess from tone of voice, character knowledge and other cues. Open captions TEXT CUES There has been an increase in demand for audiovisual translation, which is generally a post-post- production activity IMAGES © SHUTTERSTOCK

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