Audio Visual Translation: Subtitling Pragmatic Features

Abstract

Globally, this is the age of mass communications, of multimedia experience and a world where audiences demand the right to share the text, be it film, song , or book simultaneously across cultures" Bassnett (cited in Álvarez, 1996: 1). For these audiences, when it becomes difficult to understand other languages, translation is their tool for comprehension. In this thesis, audio-visual translation as a mode of translation is introduced and reviewed. The complexity of audio-visual texts, comprised of both verbal and non-verbal components, is explored. It is argued that some constraints and challenges inherent to the subtitling techniques, in addition to isolating pragmatic elements, hinder achieving the overall communicative goal. To this end, the thesis features a case study through the analysis of some examples taken from the Arabic subtitled version of the English film My Fair Lady. The strategies used by the subtitler to deal with some issues, including combining language with image and cross-cultural problems are considered.