The third volume of the Translation and Interpreting Series entitled Insights into audiovisual and comic translation. Changing perspectives on films, comics and videogames is edited by two researchers with consolidated experience, María del Mar Ogea Pozo and Francisco Rodríguez Rodríguez. This work comprises a wide-ranging collection of papers focused on audiovisual spheres, taking into account innovative points of analysis. New applications of leisure and culture, like videogames, cinema and comics, reflect that societies are in constant evolution, and Translation Studies should go hand in hand with this development. On that note, the volume explores interconnected aspects such as translation and multimodality, interculturality, sociolects, didactics, pragmatics and fan translation.
In the first chapter, Brisset studies the concepts of cosmopolitanism and nationalism, their impact on media and the challenges posed by the transfer of cultural features in dubbing by assessing the adaptor’s role. Should he or she orient the translation primarily towards the source text or towards the target culture?
Next, Cabanillas examines linguistic choices in the translation of oral discourses in film dialogues, which can either reveal a portrayal of social and ethnic identities – when oral markers in original discourses are preserved in the target text – or capture homogeneous standards – if translation does not reflect these characterisation marks.
Casado and Arrufat explore foreign language teaching which includes the translation of videogames. This research aims to improve learning tools when it comes to acquiring updated skills in Japanese as a third language by taking advantage of localisation processes, which imply intercultural contrasts concerning communicative, textual, strategic, interpersonal, and psychophysiological competencies.
In the following chapter, Compañy focuses on the challenges involved in comic translation, resulting not only from the usual difficulties caused by textual features such as onomatopoeia, dialogue-heavy balloons and a great amount of cases of orality, but also resulting from the restrictions that the Internet is triggering. To explore this, the author delves into new formats and media requirements, such as GIFs, multiplatform storytelling and social networks. These elements can lead to an easier preservation of the effects of orality, given the freedom that webcomics provide compared to paper comics.
Gambier and Jin then emphasise the need for connecting different elements that have an influence on audiovisual translation in order to trace its history in the most accurate way. They compile a corpus with data from the United States, France, Germany, England, and China and also undertake a comparative analysis of linguistic politics, innovations in the film industry, traditions and conventions, new translation studies, internationalisation of products and technological evolution.
In the next chapter, Hamza tackles the concepts of multimodality and transcription, stressing that verbal and non-verbal content should be considered jointly when studying macro and micro units of meaning in segmentations of filmic units. This proposal pursues a better specification and pertinence of translation criteria for subtitling.
Next, Iaia explores videogame localisation in depth through a qualitative investigation, focusing on the translation of humorous discourse. The author argues that translators need to have an academic background and professional experience in order to guarantee an optimal gaming experience for players which requires appropriate translation of creative texts, software features and culture-related concepts.
Lautenbacher then investigates the applicability of intralingual subtitling of films for second language acquisition, and its results in terms of global understanding and retention of information. The study shows that intralingual subtitling reduces the retention of linguistic elements, but improves global understanding.
De los Reyes Lozano presents a comprehensive view of the origins and the evolution of audiovisual translation in France, focusing on dubbing and its characteristics and differences in relation to other countries. Moreover, the author explores the task of translators and adaptors in the dubbing process at present and emphasises the need for a diversification of competencies.
Sello draws particular attention to the effectiveness of interlingual subtitling in minority languages as part of a language policy on Botswana Television. In this way, the participation of speakers belonging to cultural minorities in their nation’s political, economic, and social life is reinforced through social inclusion in multilingual countries.
Finally, Vázquez-Calvo, Shafirova, Tian Zhang and Cassany shed light on multimodal fan translation through ‘funsubbing’, ‘fundubbing’, fan translation of games (‘romhacking’) and ‘scanlation’. They highlight the differences between these altruistic, collaborative practices and highly demanding types of translation. The researchers stress that fan translation is closely connected to computing knowledge, collaboration, proactivity, and multifold objectives.
In conclusion, the articles in this volume constitute a fresh, far-reaching, and updated starting point for a new generation of researchers interested in audiovisual and comic translation. All of the contributions bring into focus the indispensable multimodal quality of audiovisual products. In addition, the authors often provide their own valuable practical suggestions and translations, which support their theoretical proposals.
Paula María León Alonso
University of Córdoba
E-mail: paula.leon.trad@gmail.com