Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Subtitling’s cross-cultural expressivity put to the test: A cross-sectional study of linguistic and cultural representation across Romance and Germanic languages

  • EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: August 21, 2019
Multilingua
From the journal Multilingua Volume 38 Issue 5

Abstract

This article focuses on linguistic and cultural representation in AVT as a medium of intercultural literacy. It has two objectives: it puts to the test increasingly accepted assumptions about AVT modalities’ distinctive meaning potential and expressive capacity, with a case study of communicative practices in their representation, via AVT, in subtitles across Romance and Germanic languages. The second objective is to make a start on a neglected question to date, by considering, concurrently, the respective potential for representation of different types of languages, Indo-European in the first instance, in different pair configurations.

The study applies to (Romance) French, Italian, Spanish and (Germanic) English and German and uses a cross-cultural pragmatics framework to explore representation, per se and comparatively across the languages represented in the main data, Lonnergan’s 2016 feature film Manchester by the Sea. Data is approached qualitatively from a target text end in the first instance and primarily, in a subset of scenes from across the film. Quantitative analysis is used complementarily for diagnostic purposes or as a complementary source of evidence, with initial focus on types of features identified in earlier studies as a locus of stylised representation in subtitling with evidence of distinctive pragmatic indexing (e.g. pronominal address, greetings, thanking).

The study is a pilot study and is exploratory at this stage, but part of a broader endeavour to inform debates about, and build up the picture of, AVT as cross-cultural mediation and, ultimately, promote our understanding of films in translation’s societal impact.

Keywords: subtitling; linguistic and cultural representation; expressive capacity; Romance and Germanic languages

Funding statement: This work was supported by the AHRC Research Network project Tapping the Power of Foreign Language Films: Audiovisual Translation as Cross-cultural Mediation (TPFF), (Grant Number: AHRC AH/N007026/1).

References

Bruti, Silvia. 2009. The translation of compliments in subtitles. In Jorge Díaz Cintas (ed.), New trends in audiovisual translation, 226–238. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.10.21832/9781847691552-018Search in Google Scholar

Díaz Cintaz, Jorge & Aline Remael. 2007. Audiovisual translation: Subtitling. Manchester: St Jerome.Search in Google Scholar

Fowler, Roger. 2000. Orality and the theory of mode in advertisements. In Marie-Noëlle Guillot & Marie-Madeleine Kenning (eds.), Changing landscapes in language and language pedagogy, 26–39. London: AFLS CILT.Search in Google Scholar

Guillot, Marie-Noëlle. 2008. Orality and film subtitling: The riches of punctuation. The Sign Language Translator and Interpreter 2(2). 127–147.Search in Google Scholar

Guillot, Marie-Noëlle. 2010. Films subtitles from a cross-cultural pragmatics perspective: Issues of linguistic and cultural representation. The Translator 16(1). 67–92.10.1080/13556509.2010.10799294Search in Google Scholar

Guillot, Marie-Noëlle. 2012. Stylization and representation in subtitles: Can less be more? Perspectives 20(4). 479–494.10.1080/0907676X.2012.695379Search in Google Scholar

Guillot, Marie-Noëlle. 2016a. Cross-cultural pragmatics and audiovisual translation. In Sara Ramos Pinto & Yves Gambier (eds.) Audiovisual translation theoretical and methodological challenges. [Special Issue]. Target 28(2). 208–301.10.1075/target.28.2.09guiSearch in Google Scholar

Guillot, Marie-Noëlle. 2016b. Communicative rituals and audiovisual translation – representation of otherness in film subtitles. META 61(3). 606–628.10.7202/1039221arSearch in Google Scholar

Guillot, Marie-Noëlle. 2017. Subtitling and dubbing in telecinematic text. In Miriam Locher & Andreas Jucker (eds.), De Gruyter handbooks of pragmatics: Pragmatics of fiction, 397–423. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110431094-013Search in Google Scholar

Guillot, Marie-Noëlle. 2018. Subtitling on the cusp of its futures. In Luis Pérez-González (ed.), The Routledge handbook of audiovisual translation studies, 31–47. London: Routledge.10.4324/9781315717166-3Search in Google Scholar

Manhart, Sibylle. 2000. ‘When worlds collide’: Betrachtungen über fremde Kulturen im filmtranslatorischen Handlungsgefüge. In Mira Kadric, Klauz Kaindl & Franz Pöchacker (eds.), Translationwissenschaft: Festschrift für Mary Snell-Hornby zum 60. Geburtstag, 167–181. Tübingen: Stauffenburg Verlag.Search in Google Scholar

Martínez-Sierra, José. 2006. Translating audiovisual humor. A case study. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 13(4). 289–296.10.1080/09076760608668999Search in Google Scholar

Messerli, Thomas. 2017. Participation structure in fictional discourse. In Miriam Locher & Andreas Jucker (eds.), De Gruyter handbooks of pragmatics: Pragmatics of fiction, 25–54. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Grutyer.10.1515/9783110431094-002Search in Google Scholar

Munday, Jeremy. 2018. A model of appraisal: Spanish interpretations of President Trump’s inaugural address 2017. Perspectives 26(2). 180–195.10.1080/0907676X.2017.1388415Search in Google Scholar

O’Sullivan, Carol & Jean-François Cornu. 2018. The translation of films 1900–1950. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.5871/bacad/9780197266434.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Pavesi, Maria. 2013. This and That in the language of film dubbing: A corpus-based analysis. Meta 58(1). 107–137.10.7202/1023812arSearch in Google Scholar

Pavesi, Maria. 2018. Reappraising verbal language in audiovisual translation. From description to application. Journal of Audiovisual Translation 1(1). 101–121.10.47476/jat.v1i1.47Search in Google Scholar

Pedersen, Jan. 2007. Cultural interchangeability: The effects of subtitling cultural references in subtitling. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 15(1). 30–48.10.2167/pst003.0Search in Google Scholar

Pérez-González, Luis. 2014. Audiovisual translation: Theories, methods and issues. London: Routledge.10.4324/9781315762975Search in Google Scholar

Scott, Clive. fc. 2018. Translation, adaptation and the senses of medium. In Ann Lewis & Silke Arnold-de Simine (eds.), Adapting the Canon. Oxford: Legenda.Search in Google Scholar

Yule, George. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Filmography

Caché/Hidden. 2005. Dir. Michael Haneke, Screenplay by Michael Haneke. Les Films du Losange.Search in Google Scholar

Manchester by the Sea. 2016. Dir. Kenneth Lonnergan. Screenplay by Kenneth Lonnergan. K films Manchester LLC.Search in Google Scholar

Paris. 2008. Dir. Cédric Klapish. Screenplay by Cédric Klapish. Ce qui me meut StudioCanal and StudioCanal Image France 2 Cinéma.Search in Google Scholar

Volver. 2006. Dir. Pedro Aldomovar. Screenplay by Pedro Almodóvar. Almodóvar and Garcia.Search in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2019-08-21
Published in Print: 2019-09-25

© 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Editorial
  3. AVT as intercultural mediation
  4. Articles
  5. Subtitling’s cross-cultural expressivity put to the test: A cross-sectional study of linguistic and cultural representation across Romance and Germanic languages
  6. Subtitles and cinematic meaning-making: Interlingual subtitles as textual agents
  7. Talking proper vs. talking with an accent: the sociolinguistic divide in original and translated audiovisual dialogue
  8. Comparing insults across languages in films: Dubbing as cross-cultural mediation
  9. (Dis)aligning across different linguacultures: Pragmatic questions from original to dubbed film dialogue
  10. Happily lost in translation: Misunderstandings in film dialogue
  11. POST-SCRIPT FROM FILM STUDIES: Whose choice? Watching non-English language films in the UK
https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2018-0116
Keywords for this article
subtitling; linguistic and cultural representation; expressive capacity; Romance and Germanic languages

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Editorial
  3. AVT as intercultural mediation
  4. Articles
  5. Subtitling’s cross-cultural expressivity put to the test: A cross-sectional study of linguistic and cultural representation across Romance and Germanic languages
  6. Subtitles and cinematic meaning-making: Interlingual subtitles as textual agents
  7. Talking proper vs. talking with an accent: the sociolinguistic divide in original and translated audiovisual dialogue
  8. Comparing insults across languages in films: Dubbing as cross-cultural mediation
  9. (Dis)aligning across different linguacultures: Pragmatic questions from original to dubbed film dialogue
  10. Happily lost in translation: Misunderstandings in film dialogue
  11. POST-SCRIPT FROM FILM STUDIES: Whose choice? Watching non-English language films in the UK
Downloaded on 14.4.2026 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/multi-2018-0116/html
Scroll to top button