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Article published In:
Translation and Interpreting Studies
Vol. 18:1 (2023) ► pp.91–112

How subtitling professionals perceive changes in working conditions

An interview study in German-speaking countries

ORCID logo | University of Geneva
The job of a subtitler is undergoing significant changes. This study investigates subtitling professionals’ perceptions of the effects these changes are having on their working conditions. With this aim in mind, an email interview study was conducted with nineteen freelance subtitling professionals producing German-language subtitles. Overall themes in the subtitlers’ accounts were disillusion with recent trends in the subtitling profession (the precarization of the subtitling profession, acceleration of production processes, virtualization of collaboration), concerns about quality (unavailable or low-quality working materials, market entry of unskilled subtitlers, replacement of established local subtitling guidelines by international ones, machine translation), but also opportunities (predictability, solidarity among subtitling professionals). Suggestions for future directions concern longitudinal studies to evaluate the effects changes in professional subtitling practice have on working conditions over time with follow-up surveys to collect subtitlers’ opinions on how the problems identified could best be tackled.
Keywords: subtitling professionals, German-speaking subtitling practice, working conditions, email interviewing, thematic analysis
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Related research
  • Method
  • Results
    • Change as disillusion
    • Concerns about quality
    • Change as opportunity
  • Conclusions
  • Acknowledgments
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 1 November 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.20107.kun
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