Dubbing

Dubbing. I think that dubbing is a really complex job, amazing process of translation, adaptation and recording of movie or television program to create the feeling of illusion that the characters talk in the target language. People who cannot read the subtitles can always watch movies because dubbed film reach more people (I have in mind the blind people, children or dyslexics). The dubbing process is highly complex and involves many factors. The first difficulty is matching the lip movements of the actor. So we have to change the order of the words to accomplish this or find synonyms that will fit. Recording of the translated text is done a professional sound studio by professional actors or specialists of this area. After the test is recorded and specialists provide the file montage. In Italy, for example, dubbing is systematic with a tradition going back to the 1932. Dubbed movies had golden years in Mussolini’s period when the foreign language movies was banned for political reasons

                                                                            Video about dubbing

Subtitles

In audiovisual translation, subtitles, which are not preferred by Italian people, are text of movie, television program, video game usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. In my opinion, creating subtitles is not only the cheapest method of translation, but it is also usually preferred by people all around the world. They want to hear the original voices of the favourite actors. Voice-over can destroy everything. However, subtitles translation differs form what we hear. During the process of creating subtitles for a film or television program, the picture and each sentence of the audio are analyzed by the subtitle translator. Why? It is not possible to translate all sentences. Sentences of language A can be completely different from sentences of language B. In other words, the meaning is more important than the form. In addition, culturally implied meanings cannot be conveyed in the written subtitles (for example, Beh! - Italian expression which is untranslatable in another language).

Audiovisual Translation

I think that the term philology is not only the study of culture but also the study of translation. Recently, I have the opportunity to know translation strategies and techniques in Audiovisual Translation. At the beginning, I would like to start from “what does Audiovisual Translation mean?!”. Actually, Audiovisual Translation is the term which is used to refer to the transfer from one language to another of verbal components contained in audiovisual works and products. In other words, this kind of Translation deals with translation of films, television programs, Web pages or video games. Audiovisual translation is completely new field in translation studies that convers not only dubbing, but also voice-over, subtitling or surtitling. I think thay my new course of audiovisual translation will be very interesting and I hope that it will help me during my work.

If you are interested in this kind of translation, I recommend the following books:

1) "Przekład audiowizualny" Teresa Tomaszkiewicz

This book offers not only  theory of audiovisual translation but also practice of translation. The author presents the secrets of translation, considering the translation of many famous movies.

2) "Tłumaczenie filmowe w praktyce" G. Adamowicz-Grzyb

The books is intended  for anyone interested in film translation which presents the principle of creating a film version for people with impaired vision and hearing, or audio description and subtitles for the hearing impaired and the important issues of copyright.

3) "Jak redagować napisy do filmów. Abc tłumacza filmowego" G. Adamowicz-GrzybThe author tells how to avoid basic mistakes. This guide contains many examples of different films and presents useful strategies.