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Article published In:
Babel
Vol. 64:5/6 (2018) ► pp.777–791

Deconstruction subtitled – Subtitling deconstructed

 | Universidad Europea de Valencia
Derrida revealed the fallacy that it is possible to distinguish between reality, thinking and language; a fallacy constructed by Plato and transmitted through Western philosophy. Furthermore, this belief has been the foundation stone of translation studies, creating a concept of translation as a mechanism by means of which the essence of a message is transmitted from one language to another, and whose ultimate guarantor is always the author of the original text. Derrida makes use of writing to dismantle this fallacy and to show language as a complex system of signs that do not have one fixed, unchangeable meaning, insofar as they cannot actualize the referent, but rather imply a multiplicity of interpretations. In a multimodal context in which the original and the translation are simultaneous and complementary, subtitling brings us closer to the Derridian notion of writing as the place wherein language shows us precisely what it is.
Keywords: subtitling, deconstruction, writing, multimodality, Derrida
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Writing in Derrida
  • 3.Subtitling as multimodal translation
  • 4.Subtitling as writing
  • 5.Conclusions
  • References
Published online: 9 January 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00060.jor
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