The editors of The Palgrave Handbook of Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility, Łukasz Bogucki and Mikołaj Deckert, have put together an impressive number of renowned scholars from a thriving and continuously expanding field of enquiry.
This handbook comprises 34 chapters, organised into five sections around a series of topics, as further explained below. Due to space limitations, I will discuss all five parts by considering the specific themes on which the papers focus. Deckert provides a clear, succinct introduction to the volume, and readers may also refer to it for a summary. He highlights the breadth and depth of the chapters while also remarking that the ever-growing interest in both audiovisual translation (AVT) and Media Accessibility (MA) shows that the latter need not be ancillary to the former (2).
Part 1 is made up of 5 chapters, starting with Bogucki’s interview with Jorge Díaz-Cintas, who provides a thought-provoking summary of the past and present state of the art of the discipline, covering terminology, the role of technology in AVT, teaching and learning via audiovisual content, future development, etc. One cannot but agree with Díaz-Cintas when he advocates the need to narrow if not close the gap between the AVT industry and academia to better cater to the needs of both (22). Perego and Pacinotti’s informative chapter on the way AVT has developed through the ages is followed by Greco and Jankowska’s contribution on MA, which they see as not limited exclusively to translation-based solutions, but extending to other practices that do not entail translation (e.g. clean audio, or making the different parts of a soundtrack more intelligible and therefore more accessible; 65). Categorisations aside, what really counts is that the field and/or subfields of AVT “can fruitfully interact and help humanity progress” (74; see also Neves in this volume on intersensory translation). Christopher Taylor’s chapter on multimodality and intersemiotic translation concludes this part.
Part 2 is specifically designed to offer an overview of the practical and theoretical issues connected to the many modes of AVT. It begins with dubbing (Chaume), voice-over (Matamala), subtitling (Díaz-Cintas), surtitling (Carrillo Darancet), and continues with Massidda’s and Baños’ contributions, which take us respectively into the world of fansubbing and fandubbing and which consider both phenomena from a procedural and sociocultural standpoint. Audio Description is discussed in Mazur’s chapter while Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing is tackled by Szarkowska. Romero-Fresco and Eugeni explain live subtitling through respeaking while Bernal-Merino talks about game localisation quality. Neves delves into intersemiotic translation and Fan concludes this section by analysing collaborative translation and AVT. In general, all authors foreground the way digitalisation and technology have contributed to changing the face of AVT practice and theory (see also Bywood in this volume). These stimulating pieces bring up some issues it may be worth reflecting on. For instance, Chaume rightly points out that the recent boost in dubbed AVT content (most notably, the increase in the previously almost non-existent English dubbing) has succeeded in ”finally casting off its ominous image of a fascist, anti-democratic and uncultivated practice” (123). While discussing voice-over (and off-screen dubbing) in factual television, Matamala finds it closer to dubbing. This is also confirmed by other scholars who however talk about “partial dubbing” (Baños 2019; Chaume 2013; Dore 2019) because of its hybrid form, which cancels traditional prosodic features of voice-over and makes use of more than one dubber to match the voices of the main characters. Again, regarding terminology, Díaz-Cintas uses the term “subtitling” to include surtitling, fansubbing, subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing etc. while some other scholars in the literature have suggested using “captioning” as opposed to revoicing, under which dubbing, voice-over, fandubbing etc. are subsumed (Zabalbeascoa et al. 2012; Chaume 2013). Certainly, “subtitling” is the most widespread and probably unreplaceable term, but “captioning” might capture better all the various titling practices under investigation. Carrillo Darancet’s chapter is devoted to surtitling, which he defines as a “deeply vulnerable modality, as it is prone to judgment by the author and the audience and rarely adopts a definite form” (173). Truly enough, this AVT mode is often exposed to errors, lack of synchronicity, missing text, etc. because it is mainly performed live (178). Yet, its great value lies in the fact that it allows viewers to access the text and, at the same time, appreciate the actors’ and singers’ performance. Undoubtedly, more research needs to be done to harmonise processes and practice. Massidda discusses the much-debated copyright issue and the legal consequences fansubbing communities may face, such as paying fines or having their websites shut down (196-200). Even if this may discourage some people from continuing fansubbing, others find other stimuli in Web 2.0, which offers a huge amount of content that can still be fansubbed (see also Fan, in this volume, on collaborative translation). This is backed up by Baños’ analysis of the multifaceted activities that fandubbing includes, which can be carried out by amateurs or non-professionals who are not necessarily “fans” (211). What is more, practitioners create dubbed content for lucrative, parodical, political or altruist purposes (211, 215-218). It could be worth adding that non-professional dubbing may not only include instances of interlinguistic translation but may also be done intralinguistically for altruist reasons such as fostering wellbeing among hospitalised children (Dore and Vagnoli 2020). Mazur explains the intricacies of Audio Description and reports on reception and experimental studies worth reading (237-239). Szarkowska rightly stresses the increasingly widespread use of SDH and its great value for both hearing and non-hearing viewers, leading to an increase in jobs and markets (262) which students sometimes overlook. Similar considerations also apply to respeaking as a profession, which may expand to cover not only intra- but also interlingual respeaking, as pointed out by Romero-Fresco and Eugeni (288).
Part 3 concentrates on methodology and comprises three chapters, respectively on research processes (Massey and Jud), corpus approaches (Bruti) and reception (Di Giovanni). For the sake of clarity, it should be noted that Massey and Jud describe “revoicing” and “captioning” as propounded by Chaume (2013), but it was first suggested by Zabalbeascoa et al. (2012), as also remarked above. That said, all three chapters offer thoughtful insights into those solid methodologies and experiments (involving practitioners and/or receivers) that have both allowed AVT to be become a discipline in its own right and contributed to the advancement of practice. Yet, much more can still be done, especially regarding the processes involved in creating accessible AVT products (372).
Moving on, Part 4 offers a focus on specific areas in AVT and MA. Hence, the contributions debate issues regarding norms and guidelines (Pedersen), parameters in quality assessment (Kuo), visual content (Pagano et al.), decision-making (Deckert), technology (Bywood), cloud-based applications (Bolaños-García-Escribano and Díaz-Cintas), accessible film-making (Romero-Fresco), didactics (Talaván), task design (Incalcaterra McLoughlin and Nocchi) and this section concludes with censorship and manipulation (Wang). Again, some considerations are worth pointing out here: Pedersen rightly remarks that norms, which can be descriptive or prescriptive, crystallise into guidelines. Consequently, researchers may be interested in verifying whether those norms are followed or subverted by practitioners (425-426). This line of inquiry is particularly interesting when comparing professional and amateur activities to understand whether and, if so, to what extent they may be influencing each other (Dore and Petrucci 2021). Such analyses are likely to include reflections on quality and the factors (e.g. low pay rates, time pressure) that may be affecting practice, as Kuo clearly expounds when discussing professional subtitling (455). As she correctly comments: “[s]ame as subtitles, subtitlers are only noticed when they commit errors” (447); although some companies (e.g. Netflix) and associations have been working to promote translators’ and subtitlers’ visibility, this has not become the standard yet (ibid). Pagano et al.’s study shows the important shortcomings regarding the way visual content is made available to visually impaired users in apps (460-461). Admittedly, the results of the research project named “Empoder@” are based on a limited number of informants, but they offer a clear indication that app design still has a long way to go to properly implement MA, and AVT translators can surely play a major role in making this possible (479). Deckert’s chapter further explores the audiovisual translators’ decision-making processes. This author’s insights into the factors influencing translators’ output are particularly interesting because, inter alia, he mentions oft-overlooked issues connected to physical ergonomics (e.g. posture, use of computer, etc.; 488-489). It is important to stress the fact that translators may sometimes work in a context that does not facilitate or can (negatively) impact on their performance. For instance, they may not even have a room of their own or share the kitchen table with their children while they do their homework. Bolaños and Díaz-Cintas’ chapter is the most intriguing in terms of what is currently happening in cloud-based AVT, with a particular focus on security factors as these kinds of environments store several users’ copyright material and share resources (524). CAT tools such as translation memory and machine translation systems are now an integral part of the process and are helping to improve productivity and cost effectiveness (particularly in subtitling). Consequently, cloud-based systems are likely to capitalise on this by helping both practitioners and clients (538). However, the ethical implications of the application of technology in translation still have to be fully assessed (Olohan 2017) and research can certainly contribute to exploring this. Romero-Fresco’s chapter on accessible filmmaking reports on interesting eye-tracking experiments that demonstrate the advantages of using “integrated/creative subtitling” (placed in areas of the screen other than on the traditional bottom lines) to enhance accessibility for both impaired and non-impaired viewers (555). Talaván’s and Incalcaterra McLoughlin’s long-standing interest in the application of AVT to foreign-language education and acquisition is demonstrated once more by their contributions to this volume. The value of this approach was predicted two decades ago, but it is only recently that this strand of research has gained traction (579-583, 596-597), and we can only hope it will continue in the future. Wang’s thought-provoking chapter on censorship and manipulation proves that these topics are not confined to past regimes like fascist Italy (Ranzato 2016) or Francoist Spain (Díaz-Cintas 2019), but they are still burning issues in AVT (623). One inspiring suggestion Wang makes is that, following in the footsteps of existing research in AVT re-translation (e.g. Zanotti 2018), researchers could not only look at professional but multiple re-translations of fansubbing communities to unveil their linguistic and cultural merits (630).
Finally, Part VI proposes four chapters that respectively deal with culture (Ranzato), humour (Zabalbeascoa), multilingualism (Chiaro and De Bonis), and music (Desblache) and AVT and MA. Ranzato’s intriguing look at cultural references and linguacultural clashes offers inspiring lines of inquiry in AVT, especially as far as TV series are concerned. Ranzato rightly contends that diachronic analyses of the translation of long-standing audiovisual productions might be able to explain how culture-specific referents are introduced into a given target culture. An interesting example of this is that, when first mentioned for humorous purposes in 1994 in Friends (Kauffman and Crane, 1994–2004), Mr Potato Head was replaced by E.T. in the Italian dubbing because Mr Potato Head was virtually unknown to the target audience. Conversely, it was retained in the Italian dubbing of Modern Family (Lloyd and Levitan, 2009–2020), 15 years later. This is because Mr Potato Head is currently a well-known toy and fictional character in Italy as well, and the reference is no longer culture-specific but international (Dore 2019: 194). What is more, Ranzato uses the term “intralingual conflicts” to describe instances including “individuals from different cultures who speak the same language” (663). Such instances are interesting from a sociolinguistic point of view but also pose important translation problems. This is particularly true where humour is concerned, as the translation tries to set, among its priorities, the attempt to convey the nuances that the source text entails (674). As Chiaro and De Bonis show in their contribution, the issue complicates further when multilingualism is an essential element in the storyline of a film or TV series, and it cannot be overlooked either by practitioners or by AVT scholars (706). Desblache’s chapter on music in MA deserves one final note. This may appear to be a niche in research, but it certainly needs more attention if we want to help audiovisual content to become truly and fully accessible.
To conclude, this handbook is very engaging for Translation, Accessibility and Media Studies students and scholars. It certainly contributes to giving a clear picture of AVT and accessibility as well as providing inspiring ideas for future research. It should be noted that, since many chapters look at the same phenomena from different angles, this sometimes results in overlapping information, which may appear repetitive to those reading the whole volume. However, considering the very nature of this type of publication and the fact that the chapters can also be purchased individually, the decision of the editors and publisher to have contributions that are exhaustive as self-standing papers can be seen as an advantage.
Margherita Dore
Università di Roma “La Sapienza”
E-mail: margherita.dore@uniroma1.it