Speaking in Subtitles

Abstract

With over 6000 languages in the world today, media speak is far from universal, yet the complexities of translation are rarely acknowledged by the industry, or by audiences and scholars. Redressing this neglect, Speaking in Subtitles aregues that the oddities and idiosyncrasies of translation are vital to screen media’s global address. Examining a range of examples from crowdsourced subtitling to avant-garde dubbing to the growing field of ‘fansubbing’, Tessa Dwyer proposes that film, television and video are fundamentally ‘translational’ media. The case studies in this book explore areas of practice that lie beyond the parameters of professional, ‘quality’ practice and are consequently identified as ‘improper’, such as anime fandom, crowdsourced translation, censorship and media piracy. They demonstrate that in many contexts, issues of speed, access, commerce and control take precedence over considerations of quality. These errant modes of screen translation are becoming increasingly paradigmatic of the current translation and media environments, as they become less controlled and more communal in response to new digital technologies and the decentralising impulses of globalisation. By focusing on lines of ‘errancy’ rather than fidelity, this monograph highlights elements of screen translation that are regularly passed over by other studies in order to re-conceptualise questions of cultural value.