Audiovisual translation as orchestration of multimodal synergies: Expendability of interjections in intralingual film subtitling

Yi Jing

Abstract

This study explores the coordination between subtitles and other semiotic resources in films, from within a systemic functional semiotic framework. The paper focuses on the subtitling of interjections (e.g., ‘oh’, ‘wow’, ‘yay’) to examine how subtitles are synthesized in films with respect to the presence of facial expressions and/or bodily gestures which might be perceived as conveying similar meanings. The analysis of multiple versions of intralingual subtitles of two English-language films shows that the seemingly random omission of soundtrack interjections from subtitles is patterned to a considerable degree – those interjections which are concurrent with semiotically correlated actions were frequently omitted. The findings suggest that subtitling is a complex process involving synergy between subtitles and other semiotic resources, which calls for interdisciplinary research integrating translation, multimodality, and linguistics.

Keywords:
Publication history
Table of contents

The study of audiovisual translation (AVT), which deals with multimodal texts, has naturally been closely aligned with multimodal approaches (e.g., Chaume 1997; Taylor 2003, 2004, 2013, 2016; Gambier 2006; Perego 2009; Burczynska 2012). This article contributes to the growing body of AVT research, and explores how subtitles are coordinated with other semiotic resources in films. This study focuses on interjections (e.g., ‘oh’, ‘wow’, ‘yay’, ‘aha’, ‘ouch’, ‘oops’, ‘hurray’), and examines the English intralingual subtitling of soundtrack interjections with respect to the presence of concurrent facial expressions and bodily gestures. For instance, it might be possible that where the visual shows a facial expression of raised eyebrows and widened eyes and mouth, the concurrent spoken interjection ‘wow’ might be considered expendable for subtitling. The assumption is that the meaning conveyed via the facial expression is analogous, or at least related, to the meaning conveyed via the utterance (in this case, ‘wow’), which, according to Gottlieb (1994, 273) may be regarded as a case of “intersemiotic redundancy.” This study interprets this hypothesis of intersemiotic redundancy from a systemic functional semiotic perspective, and suggests that intralingual film subtitling can be conceptualized as a process by which subtitlers orchestrate multimodal complementarities between their subtitles and other semiotic resources, such as facial expressions and bodily gestures.

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Filmography

DeMicco, Kirk, and Chris Sanders
2013The Croods. DreamWorks Animation. USA: 20th Century Fox, DVD.Google Scholar
Anderson, Wes
2014The Grand Budapest Hotel. Fox Searchlight Pictures. USA: 20th Century Fox, DVD. Google Scholar

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