ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on style in audiovisual translation, specifically film subtitling and film adaptation. The study of audiovisual translation is a relatively new field in translation studies but it is becoming increas- ingly prominent with the explosion of new media, including DVD. It is an example of what Titford (1982) termed “constrained translation,” where the linguistic form of translation is restricted and shaped by the existence of a non-verbal medium. This applies above all in cases where the TT is in some way superimposed on the ST format. Examples are: adverts which maintain the same visual in the TT, changing only the written or spoken word; comic books, where again the visuals remain the same and the TL translation must fit into the same space on the page; and film transla- tion, where the dubbing or subtitling must match the visual and bow to a series of practical constraints, notably lip synchronization in dubbing and reading speed and caption length for subtitles. Mayoral, Kelly, and Gallardo (1988), drawing on the related concept of synchrony originally used by Fodor (1975) for the analysis of dubbing, describe subtitles as being constrained due to space, time, and image synchrony: that is, the subtitles are constrained by the image on the screen, by the space allocated to subtitles (in many Western languages a maximum of two lines, each of approximately 37 characters) and by the duration of appearance on- screen. The subtitle normally needs to coincide with the spoken words and avoid frame cuts. Although these constraints do not exist in the same way in conventional written translation, we can see that they coincide with various concerns of spatio-temporal narrative point of view which we dis- cussed in chapter 1. From a translational stylistics perspective, the main interest lies in comparing the patterns of subtitles and the corresponding SL spoken word. But, as we shall see in this chapter, the object of inves- tigation is more complex since the film versions are often adaptations of novels or novellas in the SL and considerable rewriting takes place in the move from ST to screen play to film to subtitle.
