Audiovisual Texts Research Articles

Within a Carnivalesque Space: The Textual Identity of Danmu and the Rise of Mass Writing

Danmu is the Chinese pinyin of 弹幕, which is often used to describe the interactive, on-screen commenting system featured by both sub-cultural bullet-screen platforms and dominant video-sharing platforms. While the transformation of the power relationship between the public and the official and between viewer and author has received considerable scholarly attention, less attention has been paid to how the danmu system has affected the textuality of contemporary online audiovisual texts. Based on the Bakhtinian carnival, this paper explores the textual structure and signifying mechanism of danmu. It argues that danmu has dual textual identity, the paratext of online videos and the textual component of bullet-screen videos respectively. Danmu allows viewers to not only make comments on online videos but also reconstruct them. Such interactive construction of online audiovisual texts represents the rise of mass writing.

(Re)Visiting Game of Thrones: film-induced tourism and television fiction

ABSTRACT This study examines the relationship between how a television series presents the locations where it is filmed and the tourist experiences of its audience, combining content analysis and reception theory. The Spanish filming locations for Game of Thrones (HBO) were chosen as a case study. The findings suggest that tourists post more photographs on social media of locations that are shown longer on screen, that have more sequences of importance to the narrative structure and that characters interact with more intensely. These findings demonstrate the importance of the audiovisual text to the potential role of film in tourist destination promotion.

Cercados, o documentário: entre fatos e mentiras, entre imprensa e discursos

Abstract In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil, the clash and resistance of the press to the attacks and aggression by the deniers was evident. The documentary Cercados, produced by Globoplay, object of analysis of this work, portrays the challenges behind the scenes of the news coverage in the first year of pandemic in Brazil. Supported by concepts of enunciation theory and television studies, this paper aims to reflect on the effects of meaning produced by the audiovisual text and its contribution to critical reflection about the disinformation scenario, as well as the relevance of journalism as an institution of the democratic system. The results indicate that the organization of the discourse, marked by the aesthetics of self-referentiality, allows the enunciatee to enter the universe of journalistic production and identify with the thematic roles played by journalists.

Between sound and noise: Features of urban soundscapes formation

Soundscapes of a city as a cultural-symbolic space mediating our perception of sounds and noises are dynamic, changeable and heterogeneous. The way of everyday life, cultural experience, audio-visual texts are consumed outline different trajectories of interaction with sonic environment and make the border between sound and noise quite fluid. This article presents ethnographic data, important for understanding the process of formation of urban soundscapes. The research of St Petersburg soundscapes was conducted by the authors in 2016–2021 demon strated the possibilities of using such methods as “sound diary” and “sound walk”. The article is based on the analysis of 380 hours of observations made by 38 citizens, data from 19 interviewswalks with people living in 15 different microdistricts are presented. As the results the article represents the specificity of sounds and noises categorization, as well as the role of sonic experience in the formation of patterns of interaction between St Petersburg citizens and the urban environment. The research provides tools for analysing the social and cultural superstructure of the perception of urban sounds and noises, which is possible be of interest to sociologists, urbanists, urban anthropologists, ecologists, and researchers of local communities.

The role of a paragraph in the semantic organization of a secondary text (Based on the audio-visual text)

The role of a paragraph in the semantic organization of a secondary text (Based on the audio-visual text)

Las polacas w Buenos Aires: prostytutki w historii i kulturze

The article discusses the literary and cultural uses of so-called white slavery – the prostitution and pimping in the Americas (especially in South America) of women from Eastern Europe at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. This motif, tragically linking the history of Poland and Argentina, is associated with historiographic, literary, and sociological research. The article analyses various attitudes of historians towards the issue and the scope of ideological issues (in particular, the issue of anti-Semitism) and criticises the impact of the specificity of media coverage on the sensational nature of reports on the white slave trade. The main aim of the work is to present to the Polish reader both the historical context and the literary and cultural realisations of the subject in a multi-faceted manner, especially since only a few works have been translated into Polish. The second goal is to identify repetitions in prose, dramas, and audio-visual texts depicting the stories of Eastern European prostitutes in South America.

Peut-on traduire une image? Implications de la créativité dans la traduction de textes audiovisuels

Multimodality is an integral characteristic of Audiovisual Translation. Regardless of type and genre, audiovisual texts (i.e. film, TV series, videogame) are above all semiotic constructs comprising several signifying codes that operate simultaneously in the production of meaning. While audiences mechanically receive and interpret the information transmitted by each of these codes and signs, audiovisual translators must know their functioning and consider their possible impact on translation operations. In this context, images represent one of the major challenges to ensure coherence within audiovisual translation. This paper sets out to explore the main strategies used to explicit iconographic information in the target text. These practices typically involve, but are not limited to, the inclusion of linguistic signs related to the icon as well as the inclusion of signs belonging to other meaning codes, thanks to the possibilities that new technologies and digitalization now offer. Linked to the notions of transcreation and localization, these help target audiences fill gaps in the understanding of audiovisual texts, but also promote overtranslation. This may lead to an extreme domestication, a phenomenon in which foreign cultures would be erased. In this regard, we wonder if such practices will not assume a paternalistic approach to target audiences.

Comment la présence de l’image influence-t-elle les décisions du traducteur? Étude des relations du couple mot/image dans la traduction filmique

The audiovisual text constitutes an inherent and obvious whole, the components of which, being linked to each other and entering into different types of relations and interactions, contribute to the construction of its meaning. This article presents a study of cases where visual information influences decisions made by the translator and ultimately sometimes changes the translation of dubbed dialogues. In the analysis, the following examples are distinguished:– those in which, under the influence of the image, the translator modifies the source text (compared to the original version) by adapting it to the visual contents of the audiovisual document, or by adding information to the target text;– one in which, under the influence of the image, both the author of the original version and the translator modify one of the elements of a given idiomatic expression.In this regard, contemporary computer-animated films (such as « Shrek 2 », « Madagascar » and « Monsters, Inc. »), aimed at all types of audiences and translated for dubbing, where the visual component plays a prominent role, represent interesting cases.

Educational audiovisual text design: empirical evidence and new research perspectives

Abstract The article presents a systematic analysis of international literature concerning the design of educational audiovisual texts at university level. The theme appears very important in light of the extensive use of these cognitive artefacts in flipped, blended,Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) teaching processes. This is even more important in the era of health emergency that has led to the use of audiovisual text as the main teaching medium at school and university. The aim of the work is to provide a contribution to research on educational technologies for the purpose of identifying new instructional design principles that support multimedia learning. The analysis highlighted new research directions, such as the significant role of the camera point of view in learning complex manual procedures, new design elements on the ways of representing the teacher and his/her communicative attitude, and the increasingly close relationship between educational sciences and neuroscience. The result may be useful, on the one hand, as a stimulus for an in-depth study of the new lines of research identified, by researchers on educational technologies, and on the other, for a more informed evidence-based use of audiovisual texts in teaching practices.

YouTube Doctors Confronting COVID-19: Scientific-Medical Dissemination on YouTube during the Outbreak of the Coronavirus Crisis.

The coronavirus crisis has highlighted the consumption of social media and online video platforms in search of an alternative discourse to that provided by traditional media. The objective of this article is to find an approach to education and scientific dissemination on COVID-19 present in the Spanish context of YouTube, focusing on the content analysis of audiovisual texts generated by creators from the medical and biomedical fields. A methodological orientation was used for this based on the Grounded Theory, which was applied to five case studies whose informative material on SARS-CoV-2 exceeded ten million views as of March 2021. The results reveal the existence of a group of medical professionals in the Spanish YouTube sphere who, since the COVID-19 outbreak, have been involved in the construction of an alternative discourse around the health crisis and its evolution that pursues a high standard of audiovisual quality, scientific rigor, and educational ability.

A complex mode of screen translation: the case of advertisements on Spanish television

This study on the translation of television commercials explores several aspects of this very specific audiovisual translation subtype. Firstly, it looks into dubbing and the language policies on Spanish television, which are issues affecting the decisions on the translation of television advertisements. Secondly, it approaches the notion of a TV ‘spot’ as an audiovisual text whose main components, image and sound, form a cohesive unity that is meant to trigger a persuasive effect, but may vary in translation. Finally, it analyses an example of a television spot, in English and in Spanish, focusing on the manipulation of the text when it is translated for Spanish television channels.

La Audiodescripción desde la representación del conocimiento general. Configuración semántica de una gramática local del texto audiodescrito

Audio Description is a new text type which offers the prototypical receiver – blind or partially sighted people – a narrated representation of what is occurring at specific moments in the other audiovisual text to which it is subordinated. An AD script is subject to multiple subordination: to what is happening on the screen, to the distribution of silent spaces in the other text, and to the amount of time provided in each space. This fact, however, does not prevent the AD script from offering a representation of the general knowledge encoded by specific fragments of the film. Such a representation of knowledge, understood as the description in words or other signs of a specific reality, may serve as a semantic basis for the creation of a local grammar of AD scripts.

Script Structures in Modern Audio-Visual Art

Every last detail in a work of art of any scale depends on the correctness of its construction. This study reveals the essence of audio-visual text as an artistic area that develops and operates in the modern media landscape. The problem of determining the structure of the audio-visual script at the present stage of development was one of the most significant issues addressed in this study. The purpose of the study is to explore the main stages of creating a script for an audio-visual work as an intricate complex object that is the result of creative and production activities. The primary research method was the method of analysis, which managed to achieve the goal of discussing the current stages of creating and structuring the script of an audio-visual work. The task of compositional construction of the script for an audio-visual work is to unite its elements into one, giving the future work logic, harmony, and integrity. It was established which modern methods of writing a script are the most effective in practice. It was concluded that the use of modern methods of structuring the script in creating an audio-visual product contributes to its improvement as a work of art. The practical significance of the study is that the methodological basis of creating the script presented in this study can be used to construct any audio-visual product.

The Album Cover

The Album Cover

Conceptual Approaches to Scientific Discourse and its Functions

All communicative situations of using language for scientific purposes form a scientific discourse. The scientific discourse genre is built on the basis of the oral or written text form: scientific written texts form the corpus of scientific written discourse, while audiovisual texts form the corpus of audiovisual scientific discourse. Smaller forms can be part of a larger text, or mega-genre. Oral mega-genres are: conference, forum, and congress, which can be subdivided into various smaller forms. The written scientific discourse has a distributed chronotope, whereas the oral one is tied to a specific time and place. Online forms are characterized by a distributed topos and a specific time. Communicators perform certain discursive roles: undergraduate – consultant; graduate student – reviewer; the author of the article – editorial board, readers. A scientist is a nuclear participant of scientific discourse. The key discourse-forming features of scientific discourse are: regulation, consistency, and structuredness; objectivity, accuracy, and abstractness; polemic; theatricality; intertextuality. The language of scientific discourse is impersonal, with multiple passive constructions. The functioning of scientific discourse is determined by external social factors, general patterns of communication, internal trends, and developmental contradictions. Each text is polyphonic because it is the result of the interaction of many discursive paradigms that can be systematized in two directions: "vertical" and "horizontal" (from core to the periphery). Three tendencies dominate in the development of scientific discourse: the growth of phatic; displacement of communication activity to the periphery; authorization of scientific discourse.

Insights into the subtitling of films from Arabic into Spanish

Audiovisual translation studies (AVT) have experienced an exponential growth in the last twenty years, have consolidated proven analysis methodologies, and attracted the interest mainly of Western scholars. It is interesting to investigate whether these methodologies are also applicable to the study of subtitling of films from linguistically and culturally distant cultures such as Egyptian and Spanish. Therefore, the main objective of this work is to verify whether the translation norms proposed in the translation methods for dubbing and subtitling, traditionally based on language combinations with English, are applicable for the specific case of the Arabic-Spanish language combination, based on the analysis of the treatment of the cultural elements present in the audiovisual texts selected for this research. Among the findings, the distinctive features and colloquial character and spontaneity of the original versions are frequently lost.

And What About Children?: Representations of Infant Migration in Latino/a Cinema

The conceptualization of the border as a living, fresh wound has become the foundation of numerous studies that have described and tackled the issue of immigration from myriad perspectives: social, economic, cultural, and political, among others. Similarly, this ‘herida abierta’ has been the focus of diverse written, visual, and aural representations, in artistic manifestations of all kinds. In particular, in the case of Latino/a cinema, the act of migrating has been exposed in movies such as El Norte and/or Sin Nombre , among others. However, as noted by Katharine M. Donato Vanderbilt and Blake Sisk, “although studies point to children and young adults in the Mexico-US migration process, most do not focus on children’s experiences per se” (2015, 61). Following this line of thought, this essay intends to explore the way immigration (understood as a process which involves a point of departure, a journey, and the arrival and settlement of migrants) is represented in Latino/a cinema, paying special attention to the way children are affected by it. The essay will look at several audiovisual texts, ranging from the documentary film Which Way Home , to movies such as Under the Same Moon and Entre Nos .

Stakeholders facilitating hope and empowerment amidst social suffering: A qualitative documentary analysis exploring lives of homeless women with mental illness.

Globally homeless mentally ill (HMI) individuals are considered one of the most vulnerable populations. An individual-centric, psychopathology-oriented focus of the existing mental health-care system limits the understanding of the HMI individuals through the disability lens overlooking their strengths and resilience that enable them to survive extremely hostile environments. Contemporary mental health research has embraced a paradigm shift that allows researchers to look beyond the predominant medical model to give precedence to a socio-culturally contexted and experientially firm understanding of human behaviour. Through the theoretical lens of social suffering, this article attempts to understand the lived experiences of the HMI women, the perspective of their caregivers and the standpoint of service providers in the context of homelessness and mental illness. A documentary analysis as a qualitative research methodology has been used to reflect upon the concerns mentioned above. Following Figueroa's approach to the analysis of audio-visual texts, the documentary Lapata Zindagi, directed by Radhika Lata Murthy, has woven the stories of four HMI women and their caregivers have been analysed. The two-phased analysis involved constructivist grounded theory procedures. The methodological steps, rigour and the resulting categories (experience of social suffering associated with homelessness among HMI women, denial of care and rights within patriarchy, helplessness associated with the burden of caregiving and roles of NGO and community in building hope and empowerment) have been discussed through the lens of social suffering and how stakeholders might facilitate hope and empowerment amidst it. The article highlights the dire and urgent need to integrate mental health into primary health care and community-based intervention and move beyond clinical recovery to nurture 'hope' to enable recovery and empowerment for such marginalised populations.

Subtitling Humor in The Series “The Big Bang Theory”

Humor is an element which is frequently used in audiovisual texts. Considering the technical constraints of audiovisual translation types such as subtitling and dubbing along with the linguistic factors and many more variables on screen, the translation process of audiovisual humor could be fairly challenging for the translator. The goal of this present study is to discuss the translation process with a focus on the translation of audiovisual humor. In an attempt to observe the theoretical and methodological approach toward the translation of humor in audiovisual texts in a practical study, the humorous elements in 23 episodes in the 3rd season of the famous American comedy series “The Big Bang Theory” were identified and the translation process of subtitling those into Turkish was examined. When the humorous examples in the series were studied in terms of humor theories, it was clearly seen that its humor is mostly produced through superiority and incongruity theories. In addition, it was observed that humor in the series was largely dependent on linguistic elements. It was deduced that a target-oriented approach had been adopted in the translation of humor elements and on that account, mainly the substitution strategy had been applied in subtitling humor from English into Turkish. Overall, in this study, it was concluded that the humorous examples in the source text had been successfully translated into the target text and an attempt had been made to preserve the humor effect from the source culture in the target culture.

The Effect of Sense of Movement in Audiovisual Media: A Study on Kineticism as a Formant of Expression in Globo News’ Institutional Motion Sequence Intolerância

This article analyzes the Brazilian cable television channel Globo News’ institutional motion sequence Intolerância. Israeli designer, Noma Bar, illustrated and directed Intolerância, which reveals in its discursive structures how the gaze of a Latin American country hegemonic media on the identity conflicts between West and East is aligned with Western powers. In the wake of Floch’s theoretical developments in plastic semiotics and Bergson’s postulations on the mechanism of the philosophy-centered filmmaking movement, this study aims to consider kineticism as a constitutive formant of visuality in audiovisual texts. The analyzed motion sequence is a notably exemplary object of establishing such hypothesis.