Cross-cultural pragmatics and audiovisual translation

Marie-Noëlle Guillot
University of East Anglia, Norwich
Abstract

In this article, audiovisual translation (AVT) is considered contrastively from a cross-cultural pragmatics perspective, in its uses of language across languages and cultures. This inevitably broaches questions of linguistic and cultural representation, critical in a world in which the global availability of cultural products is ever greater. They are a main focus in this paper, with related questions about the development of subtitling and dubbing language as idiosyncratic varieties and expressive media, and implications for representation and its impact on audiences. AVT research has had many challenges to confront in its early days and these are relatively uncharted territories. Yet current developments like fansubbing and other crowdsourcing activities are re-defining the name of the game and heralding significant changes, in AVT practices and in the ways they and the products and responses they generate are accounted for in research (as evidenced in emerging re-evaluations of quality and subjectivity, e.g.; see Pérez-González 2012, 2014). These are central concerns in mapping the way forward.

Keywords:
Table of contents

This paper approaches audiovisual translation (AVT) from the perspective of cross-cultural pragmatics – the branch of pragmatics that considers language use across languages and cultures from a comparative or contrastive point of view.

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