Audiovisual translation and reception Текст научной статьи по специальности «Языкознание и литературоведение»

AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION AND RECEPTION

Y. Gambler1'2

1 University of Turku University of Turku, Turku, 00014, Finland 2 Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University 14 Nevskogo Str., Kaliningrad, 236016, Russia Submitted on September 15, 2018 doi: 10.5922/2225-5346-2019-1-4

Reception of translated texts has thus far received relatively scant, uneven attention in Translation Studies, even though reception studies theories have been applied in the last decades, first to literary translation and then touching upon other areas and text types. This chapter reports on audiovisual translation in particular, exploring the very concepts of audience and reception. Adjacent concepts are also discussed, all having a bearing on the approach and the methodology, and all chosen for the investigation of reception. Last but not least, the article discusses the opportunities and challenges of interdisciplinarity which has brought, is bringing, and may continue to bring advances to the study of the reception of audiovisual texts in translation.

Keywords: viewer, reception, audiovisual complexity, accessibility, audience.

Reception has become recently a kind of buzzword in Translation Studies (TS). But the word remains ambiguous. Very early in TS, translation and interpreting was defined as a social activity and socially embedded action, breaking away from a linear conceptualisation of communication — seen as the formal transfer of information from a sender to a recipient, and taking into account cultural elements. However, the failure to incorporate the reader as the re-interpreter of the translators' work has hampered the study of reader response in TS for a long time. It has also risked placing the translator as the ultimate controller of textual meaning, at least for the target culture audience, and reinforced the transmissionist model by assuming that the translator's interpretation reaches the reader intact.

Nevertheless, the reception of translated texts has been dealt with in TS from different perspectives, with different conceptual tools and different research methods (Gambier 2018). In section 1, we define the basic concepts of AV texts, the ambiguities of perception and reception, and the concept of audience and viewer before proposing a three-type model of reception. In section 2, we examine adjacent concepts that may shed light on reception in AVT and considers how new, challenging avenues could boost reception studies in AVT.

1. Reception and AVT

This section aims at framing AVT: some basic concepts are recalled, namely the complexity of AVT, the types of viewers, the kinds of settings, formats and genres, and accessibility. Finally, a more precise definition of reception is proposed in relation to AVT.

© Gambier Y., 2019

1.1. Basic concepts

AV implies quite a number of signifying codes that operate simultaneously in the production of meaning. The viewers, and the translators, comprehend the series of codified signs, articulated in a certain way by the director (framing and shooting) and the editor (cutting). The way in which all these signs are organised is such that the meaning of the film, documentary or series is more than the simple addition of the meanings of each element or each semiotic code.

There are strong methodological problems regarding how to tackle the multiplicity of signs — the multimodal approach (Taylor 2003) being one possible solution.

So, how does one define what is audiovisual? There are at least two main lines: verbal — non-verbal and audio-visual. The importance and number of certain signs are always relative: the importance of sound can outweigh visual semiotic forms in certain sequences; the film code can outweigh language signs in other sequences. Film genres and types of AVT can be classified according to this flexible scheme (Chaume 2004). The table below sums up the 14 different semiotic codes, which are active to different degrees in the production of meaning. We could also add "objects" to these 14 types of signs, since brands increasingly interfere as sponsors in production and are problems in audio-description.

Elements Audio channel Visual channel

Verbal elements (signs) — linguistic code (dialogue, monologue, comments / voices off, reading) — paralinguistic code (delivery, intonation, accents) — literary and theatre codes (plot, narrative, sequences, drama progression, rhythm) — graphic code (written forms: letters, headlines, menus, street names, intertitles, subtitles)

Non-verbal elements (signs) — special sound effects/ sound arrangement code — musical code — paralinguistic code (voice quality, pauses, silence, volume of voice, vocal noise: crying, shouting, coughing, etc.) — iconographic code — photographic code (lighting, perspective, colours, etc.) — scenographic code (visualen-vironmentsigns) — film code (shooting, framing, cutting/editing, genre conventions, etc.) — kinesic code (gestures, manners, postures, facial features, gazes, etc.) — proxemic code (movements, use of space, interpersonal distance, etc.) — dress code (including hairstyle, make up, etc.)

Another issue to be considered is the type of viewers. Let us look at the deaf and hard of hearing (HH) who may have access to audiovisual content by means of intralingual subtitling (or closed caption). There are different types of hearing impairment and it is difficult to obtain reliable statistics on which to base a clear representation of the group as a whole. The numbers change depending on the definitions used, as well as the nature of each medical survey and health system. What is important is the fact that the deaf are not a uniform, homogeneous group. The extent, type and the age of onset of deafness vary widely among individuals. This means that different groups of deaf consumers have very different language and communication needs, which must be understood and taken into consideration. We can differentiate between deafness in one ear and in both ears, temporary deafness, profound deafness and partial deafness, deafness by birth, by accident, because of medicines (hearing loss due to prescribed drugs) or certain diseases, because of a degenerating process and age. As people continue to live longer, the problem is here to stay. All these explain why the deaf and hard of hearing do not have the same command of language or the same development of speech. Some become deaf after they have acquired an understanding of spoken language and they retain some speech ability; some have learnt how to read well before they became deaf or hard of hearing; some have poor reading skills but a good command of a sign language. In other words, some can do lip reading, others finger reading, sign reading, reading a moving text (that is, captioning), or a static text (print). We could add to the deaf people those who have tinnitus (ringing or buzzing in the ears), which creates hearing problems. What do the deaf and HH want when they watch TV, a video, or go to the cinema? It has been found that some of the deaf and hard of hearing could not tolerate complex background noise such as applause; some stated that signing distracted them from reading subtitles; others said that breakdowns and freezes in the subtitles were too frequent. For all, however, having access to subtitles today was thought to be a considerable improvement on not having access to any subtitles in the past. Technology (DVD, teletext, DVB and the Internet) allows for changes and a better service adapted to specific audiences. But how do providers of such services make decisions relating to intralingual subtitling when there are different subgroups of the hearing impaired, with specific needs and expectations? Sometimes intralingual subtitles are a straightforward reproduction of what is said as if the hearing impaired can be assumed to read faster than "ordinary" viewers. The sight-impaired faces similar challenges.

Audio-description is a kind of double dubbing in interlingual transfer for the blind and visually impaired: it involves the reading of information describing what is shown on the screen (action, body language, facial expressions, costumes, etc.), which is added to the soundtrack of the dubbing of the dialogue, with no interference from sound and music effects. Who can benefit from audio description? The term 'blind' is widely used to imply a total loss of vision, but the blind can have some sight, depending upon the nature of the disability which gave rise to their visual impairment. This can range from loss of central vision due to muscular degeneration, to tunnel vision due to glaucoma, retinal detachment, diabetes, etc. The blind and vis-

ually impaired need different levels of detail and content in audio descriptions. Most forms of visual disability occur through a progressive degeneration of sight; in this case, the blind have a visual memory. People born blind have no such visual memory to draw upon; hence, they have little or no interest in the colour of someone's hair, description of their clothing, etc. Elderly people can find that audio-description helps them to better understand the plot. There is, therefore, a variety of backgrounds among blind audiences: some will remember TV and films and may be familiar with cinema terminology; others will have no experience of the audiovisual media, the de-scriber for them being a storyteller; many will not understand terms like close-up, mid-shot, long shot, back angle, etc. Some surveys reveal that some genres such as drama, movies, wildlife programmes and documentaries benefit more from the provision of audio-description than news and game shows, which have sufficient spoken content to allow the blind and visually impaired to follow what is happening without assistance. Just as with sighted audiences and the deaf and hard of hearing, the needs and wishes of the visually impaired are not homogeneous. Again, technology can offer a better and more versatile range of services.

Having described these two groups (the hearing and sight impaired), it is easy to realise that different variables related to viewers are to be taken into consideration if and when reception is to be studied: age, sex, education background, reading skill, reading habits, reading rate, oral and reading comprehension in one's mother tongue, frequency and volume of AVT consumption, AVT habits (opinion and preference), command of foreign languages, degree of hearing loss, age of onset of hearing loss, type of language of daily use, etc. This list does not include the multiple types of viewers: children, teenagers, students, middle-aged people, elderly people (all classified according to age), young educated adults, intellectuals, managers and professionals, employees and workers with different levels of qualifications, the middle classes (according to socio-economic parameters),monolingual or multilingual viewers, migrants (according to language proficiency), etc. Also to be added here are fans who, in an unsolicited way, subtitle films and TV series that they want to watch as soon as possible after they are released: fansubbers or user-centred participants are blurring the lines between consumers, users and fans, becoming "prosumers", in other words, both using and creating the content online and therefore shaping "expectancy norms" (Chesterman 1993) at the same time as they produce their own translation (Jiménez-Crespo 2017).

After the complexity of AVT and the categories of viewers, two further elements are worth mentioning. The third is the different kinds of settings and AV formats that AVT can be used in: cinemas for feature-length and short films, television channels (including specialised, thematic, local and regional, and international channels), outdoor screens, DVDs, the Internet (websites, YouTube, etc.), mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, theatres, museums, etc. Video-streaming, video on demand, podcasting and portable players (mobile phones, iPods, etc.) are creating new demands and new needs, such as new formats, an example being very short films lasting

only a few minutes (we already have mobisodes or series for mobile phones lasting one or two minutes). These new formats could place more emphasis on the role of close-ups and soundtrack, thus granting more importance to dubbing. The fourth element is the variation of AV genres (news, interviews, fiction, documentaries, docudramas, TV series, sitcoms, animation, cartoons, children's programmes, drama performances, operas, musicals, advertising, commercial videos, trailers, video clips, computer games, web pages, etc.). When variables such as age, education and types of AV formats and genres are crossed, one generates complex grids: cinema-goers are usually young, educated and computer literate, while TV viewers can be children as well as elderly people.

The final concept to refer to is accessibility. For a number of years, accessibility has been a legal and technical issue in various countries and for the European Union, with a view to ensuring that disabled persons can enjoy physical access to transport, facilities, and cultural venues. Recently, accessibility has also become an important issue in the computer and telecommunications industries and in information technology, the aim being to optimise the user-friendliness of software, websites and other applications (see section 2). The distribution of AV media is also involved in this trend since it is important to cater for the needs of user groups such as the deaf, older people with sight problems, etc. (Di Giovanni 2011). The implications of accessibility coincide to a certain extent with those of localisation: in both cases, the objective is to offer equivalent information to different audiences. Advances in language technology mean that audio-books, set-top boxes, DVDs, tactile communication, sign language interpreting and other systems are now complemented by more recent introductions such as voice recognition, and oral subtitles (subtitles read by text-to-speech software). This social dimension of AVT services demands a better knowledge of viewers' needs, reading habits, and reception capacity. Much work remains to be done in this area in order to ensure that technological progress can best satisfy users' demands and expectations. Accessibility is a key word in AVT, not only as a legal and technical issue but also as a concept that shakes up the dominant way of assessing the quality of a translation (see section 2.1). It may cover a variety of features, including:

• acceptability, related to language norms, stylistic choices, rhetorical patterns and terminology;

• legibility, defined (for subtitling) in terms of font, position of the subtitles and subtitle rate;

• readability, also defined for subtitling in terms of reading rates, reading habits, text complexity, semantic load, shot changes and speech rates, etc.;

• synchronicity, defined (for dubbing, voice-over and free commentary) as the appropriateness of the speech to lip movements, of the utterance in relation to the non-verbal elements, of what is said to what is shown (pictures), etc.;

• relevance, in terms of what information is to be conveyed, deleted, added or clarified in order not to increase the cognitive effort involved in listening or reading.

1.2. Reception: the 3 Rs

Before clarifying the concept of reception, a few words have to be written on the pair of terms 'audience' / and 'viewers'. The 'audience' is a collective entity, out there; it can be local, national, or transnational. It is identifiable and elusive, imaginable and unpredictable (Brooker and Jermyn 2003). Cinema right from the beginning in 1895 was considered to be a collective public event: that is, it has its own characteristics as a show in front of an audience. Before the brothers Lumière created cinema, there were already technical devices able to show animated images but only for one or two persons. The concept of 'audience' includes different types of viewers: citizens, consumers, fans, users, retired people, children, gays, females, etc., all with different viewing practices. There are different models of audience influenced by social classes, ethnicity, national culture, age, gender, and/or linked to global formats or local content. Audience research (first in TV studies) focused on the influence or effects of certain features, for example, the impact of violence on young audiences, the material conditions of reception, etc. It also studied and still does, audience ratings, box office figures, statistics of distribution flows, considering the audience as a kind of market as if the audience was only consuming and being influenced by TV's outputs in a social environment. The interest here has typically been motivated by the need to support programme planners and to attract advertisers. Today, audience studies have enlarged their scope, and include, for instance, audience interest and attitude towards TV series across different cultures.

Viewers (or spectators) are embodied individuals, or a group of individuals, with their subjectivities and personal identities, impacted by the aural, visual and emotional elements of a film or TV programme. Studies can be carried out on their satisfaction (in relation to the quality of translation) and their evaluation (in relation to their comfort). From this perspective, cinema is more an individualised experience, taking place in various temporal, geographical, social and technical settings. Today, the boundaries between public and private, local and global, digital and real worlds are becoming increasingly blurred. The data collected from viewers raise the issue of their representativeness: How do we go from viewers' beliefs and comprehension to those of the audience's attitudes? Further, it is difficult to assign a single cause to viewers' behaviour and audience reaction since many factors can have an influence in contextualised studies.

What about the pair of terms 'perception' and 'reception'? Perception could be defined as what is impressed on the eyes when watching a film and the way in which viewers represent the viewing act: how they think they watch a film, how they believe they apprehend the viewing process. Perception is made of opinions and impressions and varies over time. Studying reception means to investigate the way(s) in which AV products / performances are processed, consumed, absorbed, accepted, appreciated, interpreted, understood and remembered by the viewers, under specific contex-

tual / socio-cultural conditions and with their memories of their experience as cinemagoing (see, for instance, De Linde and Key 1999; Caffrey 2009; Kunzli and Ehrensberger-Dow 2011; Lavaur and Bairnstow 2011; Tuominen 2012; Romero 2015; Perego 2016; O'Hagan and Sasamoto 2016; Miquel Iriarte 2017, etc.). In other words, reception studies in AVT seek to describe and explain what viewers do with the AV products that they are watching or that they have watched, and also the role that AVT plays in the circulation of foreign-language films or how the presence of AVT influences choices about film viewing and cinema attendance. Do translations direct reception and how? But how should one understand and measure reception with such a broad variety of recipients?

Reception must be clarified because there are differences, for instance, between the impact of a translation upon reception and the effects (i.e. the response of the viewers) of the translation. Three types of reception (3 Rs) can be differentiated (Kovacic 1995; Chesterman 1998, 219—222; Chesterman 2007, 179—180; Gambier 2009):

- Response or the perceptual decoding (legibility of conventional and creative or aesthetic subtitling (Fox 2016). So far, the "response" has been mostly investigated by experimental psychologists, who have given answers to questions such as: How is attention distributed between images and subtitles? Do we read subtitles word-for-word? Can viewers avoid reading subtitles? When do they start re-reading the subtitles?

- Reaction or the psycho-cognitive issue (readability): What shared knowledge must be assumed by all the partners to allow efficient communication? What is the inference process when watching a subtitled programme? To what extent is there comprehension of the translation, for example, the condensed information in subtitles? The answers to these questions have consequences for translation strategies. The greater the viewers' processing effort, the lower the relevance of the translation;

- Repercussion, understood both as an attitudinal issue (what are the viewers' preferences and habits regarding the mode of AVT?), and the soci-ocultural dimension of the non-TV context which influences the receiving process (what are the values, the ideology transmitted in the AV programmes?).

1.3. Empirical research in AVT reception

What kind of research and methodology can be used for response and reaction (Tuominen, 2018)? Different variables (Chesterman 1998, 204 — 208) must be taken into account:

- sociological variables (population to be tested): age, gender, level of education, reading aptitudes, command of foreign languages and hearing / sight difficulties (see section 2.1);

- AV variables (corpus): broadcasting time, types of TV channels (public / commercial), film genre and interplay of images / dialogue.

These variables could be correlated with a range of features, such as:

- the space-time characteristics of subtitles: lead times (in/out time) or presentation speed, exposure time, subtitle rate, lag or delay between speech and subtitles, number of shot changes, position (left / centre justification), length, type and size of font;

- textual parameters (semantic coherence, syntactic complexity, text segmentation, lexical density and lexical frequency);

- para-textual features (such as punctuation).

The focus of research could be on the viewers: What are the cognitive processes activated at the moment of watching an AV product? Surveys using questionnaires, interviews, group discussions or keystrokes can be used to elicit viewers' feedback and assessments related to opinions or perceptions of subtitled programmes. An experimental method can also be used to better control the medium's variables (by manipulating the subtitles), in order to obtain data on the effects of particular subtitling features on reading speed, time lag, attention distribution, etc. For instance, what are children's reactions to reading pace? Is the complexity of a subtitle in relation to programme type? What are the consequences of speed watching (the viewer can watch more series in less time)? A third approach is possible: controlled experimental procedures — to control both the medium and the form of the viewers' response. Such procedures are designed to record actual motor behaviour and then analyse optical pauses, pace of reading, line-breaks, presentation time, re-reading, degrees and types of attention (active / passive, global / selective, linear / partial), depending on whether the focus is on the image (iconic attention), on the plot (narrative attention) or on the dialogue (verbal attention). Here, pupillometry (pupil dilatation), eye tracking, Ikoni-kat, and bio-logging (heartbeats) are useful (Kruger and Doherty 2018).

The focus of research might be on the translator (subtitler) as a key viewer. There are at least three possibilities:

1. Observation (in situ): What is the behaviour of the translator while producing (performing) subtitles (the somatic dimension of the work since rhythm is a key element in subtitling: rhythm of the action, rhythm of the dialogues and rhythm of the reading). The risks are the researcher's own subjective judgment, the difficulty scale and measuring what is observed.

2. Interviewing and/or questionnaires, to investigate personal attitudes (to obtain data about translation decisions, the personal representation of the targeted audiences, etc.).

3. Think aloud protocol (TAP) and/or eye tracking (combined or not).

If the focus of the research is on the output, the following can be used:

- corpus design: still rare in AVT because of the problem of compilation (need for high memory capacity), the problem of representativeness, the problem of copyright, and the problem of transcription: a tool such a Multi-modality Concordance Analysis (MCA) has so far been more useful for video clips and still images (ads) than for feature-length films;

- content analysis: for example, the study of different translations into the same language, different translations of the same film into different lan-

guages or for different media (TV, DVD); analysis of certain emotions (anger, fear, disgust, sadness, etc.), culture-specific items, linguistic variation, humour, etc.; and possible regularities in the dialogues: if there are predictable elements, their translation could be automatized.

To sum up, quantitative and qualitative approaches or a multimethod approach can be used, with a combination of sources, data and possible triangulation.

2. Reception and challenging avenues

Two main issues will be dealt with in this section. In a model of communication in which there is a constant, direct or indirect interplay between senders and addresses, some adjacent concepts should not be forgotten. In this perspective, reception studies can open up to new disciplines.

2.1. Reception and adjacent concepts

Three connected concepts can shed light on reception in relation to audiovisual translation research.

Language policy: for sociolinguists, language policy has been relevant in understanding language change, language rights, language minorities and language processes such as creolisation and language standardisation. In the past, 'policy'has been understood in the narrow sense of language status and corpus planning, in relation to state authorities managing language education, linguistic laws, terminology, spelling reforms, etc., as if native speakers and language users have nothing to say about this. Today, besides language management, language policy would include language practices, language beliefs and (overt or covert) translation policy. This means that to cope with a multilingual setting, different strategies are possible, beyond translation and interpreting: we can learn foreign languages, use active or passive bilin-gualism, switch or mix languages, resort to a lingua franca, etc. In any case, the solution is not top-down but a negotiation between participants (Who decides what? Who calls for interpreters? Who pays?). Language and translation policy are not reduced to official public domains. They also structure international meetings, media, publishing houses, business firms and cultural events. Thus, managers, organisers and planners need to know both sides of the communication — headquarters and subsidiaries, vendors and consumers, local workers and expatriates, artists and spectators, etc. Languages are not only discrete tools but also, and primarily, allow social activities in which different stakeholders are involved with their needs, interests and expectations.

Censorship and self-censorship also play a role in the reception of any translated event, especially if censorship is not limited to the suppression or prohibition of speech or writing by a political or religious institution, on behalf of sexual morality, political orthodoxy, racist considerations, etc. Censorship can depend on ideological, cultural and economic circumstances (Gambier 2002) when explicit criteria or implicit norms impose what is ac-

ceptable or unacceptable to read, watch, or translate. More often than not, translators, according to their options or different types of pressure from the publisher or the film distributor, exercise an indeterminate series of self-censorship(s) (or betrayals?) in order to safeguard their status or their socio-personal environment. In an era of globalised fake news, and viral rumours, self-censorship is not set to disappear, along with the lines of an individual ethics and attitude towards religion, sexuality, (in)decency, (im)politeness, truth, family, disability, drugs, etc. Self-censorship can include forms of elimination of insults / blasphemies / and taboo words, distortion, downgrading, paraphrasing, misadjustment, biased translation and omission of swear words or sex-related terms. The manipulation may result from preventive or repressive censorship or self-censorship (in the media or on the Internet) at the hands of a censor, translator, editor or reviser. Translation and (self-)censorship have been the topic of several conferences and publications in the last twenty years. Again, what is worth mentioning here, in relation to reception, is that self-censorship can apply to verbal or non-verbal elements (tobacco and drinks omitted in certain films) and require decisions regarding the interaction between senders and viewers.

The third concept is the quality of a translation. If the focus is not exclusively on the authors' intentions and the text, but also encompasses the reader, the quality of the output can no longer be defined only by a comparison of the target text with the source text. The same applies to the multifunctional and multimodal nature of AV texts in the complexities that derive from context and reception (see section 1.1). Translation quality assessment in TS has been considered through many different lenses: with error analysis, in a retrospective (comparing with the ST) or prospective way (measuring the effect), by lateral assessment(comparing with non-translated parallel texts or against expectancy norms), or according to international standards, such as ISO 17100 (2015), which sets up a quality control system for the process which involves different participants: the client, the language service provider, the translator, the reviser, etc. In that respect, quality is neither based solely on textual features nor on the translator alone. It is the result of a network of committed stakeholders (Abdallah, 2012).

In AVT, that means the quality of subtitles (for instance) is linked, among other criteria, to the working conditions, the purpose of the work and the targeted viewers, with their reading habits and expectations. In their real or virtual network, commissioners (be they private local or multinational AVT companies, public TV broadcasting companies, non-governmental organisations, associations, private firms or festival events), distributors, freelance or in-house translators, and viewers are in an asymmetrical relationship, with different competences, objectives, resources and interests, where trust is at stake, involving delays, costs, and codes of good practices.

2.2. Opening up

AVTS is a dynamic and prolific field moving from a bipolar one (subtitling and dubbing) to a multi-practice one (including AVT modalities such as audio-description and subtitling for the Deaf). The challenge today for

AVT is not so much its status in the academic and professional worlds (admittedly still to be improved in certain societies) as much as its competition with new fields dealing with multimodal and interactive texts.

One of the most recent research directions is usability or user-centred translation (UCT). UCT offers practical tools and methods to empower translators to act for their readers or active users of translated instructions and other types of documents (Suojanen et al. 2015). In a way, a convergence between UCT and translation as a user-localised activity or user-generated translation by non-professional translators or interpreters could be drawn: in both cases, the conventional strategies of replacement and substitution leave space for more innovation. Recipient-oriented rewriting influences such different mediated discourses as localising software, websites, video games, the popularisation of specialised texts in the sciences, medicine and trans-editing news (or adapting format and content of the foreign news to the expectations of the new readership), etc. AVT here can teach and learn from localisation and collaborative translation: both types work on volatile and intermediate texts (production scripts, dialogue lists, online documents in progress, software under construction and texts regularly updated), exceeding the traditional dichotomy between source text and target text, and requiring the questioning of the concept of an original. Furthermore, the quality criteria are not only of acceptability: comprehensibility, accessibility and usability are also to be taken into account. Such a convergence may eventually change both the name and the position of AVT.

Another direction is Internet studies and web science. Their research agenda is large because cyberspace can be described according to data structures, visual surface, algorithmic processes, site of human-computer interaction, cultural uses, e-commerce, means and venue for artistic expression and e-learning and other forms of the social dimension of Web-applications. These different fields of inquiry go beyond the confines of academic disciplines (sociology, psychology, economics, linguistics, semiotics, etc.) and demand interdisciplinary thinking and practice, including collaboration networks of various scholars. Again, AVT experience can bring in original inputs: about the complex interplay of signs which produces meaning (see section 1.1) and the role of the recipients in decision-making when you translate / subtitle. The same goes for localisation: What is, for instance, the impact of the non-verbal signs of a website (font size, colours, etc.)? Who are the addressees / end-users and to what extent do they determine the home pages, in particular when using English as a lingua franca for an international audience? Does knowledge of the user profiles (thanks to data accumulated on their usages) improve the usability of the website?

3. Concluding remarks

There is a risk in a too strong recipient-oriented practice: the product or performance may become so domesticated that the output is similar to the one viewers are already familiar with. If the needs, expectations and preferences of the targeted viewers shape the adaptation of the source text (includ-

ing images, which can be technically manipulated as well) into complete domestication, going as far as censoring dialogues, changing parts of the plot to conform to target-culture ideological drives and aesthetic norms, what is then the function of the translation, and the role of the translator? If to translate is to reproduce, imitate fully the target norms and conventions and become a tool of the protectionist use of culture, erasing traces of the foreign voice, why translate at all?

Remaking is an intriguing case in this perspective: if a film is completely recontextualised according to the values, ideology and narrative conventions of the new target culture, do we have a translation or a local production which has sucked the lifeblood from a foreign production? From La Cage aux Folles to The Birdcage, from Trois Hommes et un Couffin to Three Men and a Baby, from Les Fugitifs to Three Fugitives, from Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis to Benve-nuti al Sud, are we facing a translation process or a new production derived from another one as creation has always been: a hybrid process with different influences and filiations? Does translation promote conformism or open us up to differences? With the democratisation of knowledge and practice via the Internet intertwined with existing social demands, the question is not neutral. It is a socio-ethical challenge.

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Jiménez-Crespo, M. A., 2017. Crowdsourcing and Online Collaborative Translations. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Kovacic, I., 1995. Reception of subtitles. The non-existent Ideal viewer. Translatio (Nouvelles de la FIT/FIT Newsletter), 14 (3—4), pp. 376 — 383.

Kruger, J.-L. and Doherty, S., 2018. Triangulation of online and offline measures of processing and reception in AVT. In: E. Di Giovanni, Y. Gambier (eds.). Reception Studies and Audiovisual Translation. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 12, pp. 91—110.

Künzli, A. and Ehrensberger-Dow, M., 2011. Innovative Subtitling: A Reception Study. In: C. Alvstad, A. Hild and E. Tiselius (eds.). Methods and Strategy of Process Research. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 187—200.

Lavaur, J.-M. and Bairnstow, D., 2011. Languages on the screen: Is film comprehension related to viewers' fluency and to the language in the subtitles. International Journal of Psychology, 46 (6), pp. 455—462.

Miquel Iriarte, M., 2017. The Reception of Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. PhD thesis. Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona.

O'Hagan, M. R. S., 2016. Crazy Japanese subtitles? Shedding light on the impact of impact captions with a focus on research methodology. In: S. Hansen-Schirra and S. Grucza (eds.). Eye-tracking and Applied Linguistics. Berlin: Language Science Press, pp. 31 — 58.

Perego, E., 2016. History, Development, Challenges and Opportunities of Empirical Research in AVT. Across Languages and Cultures, 17 (2), pp. 155—162.

Romero-Fresco, P., 2015. The Reception of Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Europe. Bern: Peter Lang.

Suojanen, T., Koskinen, K. and Tuominen, T. (eds.), 2015. User-centered Translation. London, New York: Routledge.

Taylor, C., 2003. Multimodal transcription in the analysis, translation and subtitling of Italian films. The Translator, 9 (2), pp. 191 — 205.

Tuominen, T., 2012. The art of accidental reading and incidental listening: An empirical study on the viewing of subtitled films. PhD thesis. University of Tampere.

Tuominen T. Multi-method research: Reception in context. In: E. Di Giovanni, Y. Gambier (eds.). Reception Studies and Audiovisual Translation. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: Benjamins, 12, pp. 69 — 90.

Further reading

Assis Rosa, A., 2006. Defining Target Text Reader. Translation Studies and Literary Theory. In: J. Duarte, A. Assis Rosa and T. Seruya (eds.). Translation Studies at the Interface of Disciplines. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 99 — 109.

Borodo, M., 2017. Translation, Globalisation and Younger Audiences. The situation in Poland. Bern: Peter Lang.

Chan, L., 2010. Readers, Reading and Reception of Translated Fiction in Chinese. Manchester: St Jerome.

Enríquez, A. and Mercedes, M., 2007. Recepción y traducción. Síntesis y crítica de una relación interdisciplinaria. Málaga: Universidad de Málaga.

Fish, S., 1980. Is There a Text in this Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Hammerschmid, B. and Krapoth, H. (eds.), 1998. Übersetzung als kultureller Prozess: Rezeption, Projektion und Konstruktion des Fremden. Berlin: Schmidt.

Hickey, L., 2003. The Reader as Translation Assessor. Studies in Translation, 1 (1), pp. 59 — 92.

Iser, W., 1974. The Implied Reader. Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett. Baltimore, London: John Hopkins UP (1st ed. 1972).

Iser, W., 1978. The art of Reading. A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore: Johns Hopskins University Press.

Jauss, H. R., 1982. Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. Transl. by T. Bahti. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Kruger, H. and Kruger, J. L., 2017. Cognition and Reception. In: J. W. Schwieter and A. Ferreira (eds.). The Handbook of Translation and Cognition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 72-89.

Machor, J. and Goldstein, P., 2001. Reception Study. From Literary Theory to Cultural Studies. London, New York: Routledge.

Nardocchio, E.F. (ed.), 1992. Reader Response. The Empirical Dimension. Berlin, New York: Mouton De Gruyter.

Nightingale, V. (ed.), 2013. The Handbook of Media Audiences. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

Rogers, T. and Soter, A.O. (eds.), n. d. Reading across Cultures. Teaching Literature in a Diverse Society. New York: Teachers College Press.

Ruokonen, M., 2011. Target's reader's expectations, and reality: Conformity or Conflict? In: K. Pekka et al. (eds.). Beyond Borders. Translation moving Languages, Literatures and Cultures. Berlin: Frank & Timme, pp. 73 — 100.

Santayo M., César, J. and Lanero Fernández, J.J. (eds.), 2007. Estudios de traducción y recepción. Universidad de Léon.

Scott, C., 2012. Translating the Perception of Text. Literary Translation and Phenomenology. Oxford: Legenda — Modern Humanities Research Association.

Staiger, J. (ed.), 2005. Media Reception Studies. New York: New York UP.

Takahashi, T., 2010. Audience Studies: A Japanese Perspective. London, New York: Routledge.

The author

Yves Gambier, Professor Emeritus of Translation (French) School of Languages and Translation Studies, University of Turku, Finland; Professor, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad, Russia. E-mail: [email protected]

To cite this article:

Gambier, Y. 2019, Audiovisual translation and reception, Slovo.ru: baltijskij accent, Vol. 10, no. 1, p. 52-68. doi: 10.5922/2225-5346-2019-1-4.

РЕЦЕПЦИЯ В АУДИОВИЗУАЛЬНОМ ПЕРЕВОДЕ И. Гамбье1' 2

1 Университет Турку 00014, Финляндия, Турку, Университет Турку 2 Балтийский федеральный университет им. И. Канта 236041, Россия, Калининград, ул. А. Невского, 14 Поступила в редакцию 15.09.2018 г. ао1: 10.5922/2225-5346-2019-1-4

Рецепция переведенных текстов до сих пор не получала должного освещения в рамках науки о переводе, хотя в последние десятилетия теория рецепции применялась сначала к литературному переводу, а затем и к другим типам текстов. В статье

рассматривается процесс аудиовизуального перевода (АВП), анализируются понятия «аудитория» и «рецепция», а также смежные концепции, имеющие отношение к подходу и методологии исследования рецепции. Наконец, что не менее важно, поднимается вопрос о проблемах и возможностях междисциплинарного подхода, который способствовал, способствует, а в будущем может значительно содействовать изучению рецепции аудиовизуальных текстов.

Ключевые слова: зритель, рецепция, комплексность аудиовизуального перевода, доступность, аудитория.

Список литературы

Abdallah K. Translators in Production Networks. Reflections on Agency, Quality and Ethics : PhD thesis. Joensuu : University of Eastern Finland, 2012.

Bourdieu P. Le marché des biens symboliques II Année Sociologique. 1971. Vol. 22. P. 49 — 126.

Bourdieu P. La distinction. Critique sociale du jugement. P. : Éd. de Minuit, 1979.

Brooker W., Jermyn D. (eds.). The Audience Studies Reader. L. ; N. Y. : Routledge, 2003.

Caffrey C. Relevant abuse? Investigating the effects of an abusive subtitling procedure on the perception of TV anime using eye tracker and questionnaire: PhD thesis. Dublin City University, 2009.

Chaume F. Film Studies and Translation Studies: Two disciplines at Stake in Audiovisual Translation II Meta. 2004. Vol. 49 (1). P. 12 — 24.

Chesterman A. Causes, translations, effects II Target. 1998. Vol. 10 (2). P. 201 — 230.

Chesterman A. From 'is' to 'ought': Laws, norms and strategies in Translation Studies II Target. 1993. Vol. 5 (1). P. 1 — 20.

Chesterman A. Bridge concepts in translation sociology II Constructing a Sociology of Translation I ed. by M. Wolf, A. Fukari. Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : Benjamins, 2007. P. 171—183.

De Linde Zoé, Key N. The semiotics of subtitling. Manchester : St Jerome, 1999.

Di Giovanni E. (ed.). Between text and receiver: Translation and accessibility. Entre texto y receptor: traducción y accessibilidad. Bern : P. Lang, 2011.

Fox W. Integrated titles: An improved viewing experience? II Eye-tracking and Applied Linguistics I ed. by S. Hansen-Schirra, S. Grucza. Berlin : Language Science Press, 2016. P. 5 — 30.

Gambier Y. Les censures dans la traduction audiovisuelle II TTR. 2002. Vol. 15 (2). P. 203 — 222.

Gambier Y. Challenges in research on audiovisual translation II Translation Research Project 2. Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2009. URL: http:IIisg.urv.esI publicityIisgI publicationsItrp_2_2009I chaptersI gambier.pdf (дата обращения: 15.09.2018).

Gambier Y. Translation studies, audiovisual translation and reception II Reception Studies and Audiovisual Translation Ied. by E. Di Giovanni, Y. Gambier. Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : Benjamins, 2018. Vol. 12. P. 43 — 66.

Jiménez-Crespo M. A. Crowdsourcing and Online Collaborative Translations. Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : Benjamins, 2017.

Kovacic I. Reception of subtitles. The non-existent Ideal viewer II Translatio (Nouvelles de la FITIFIT Newsletter). 1995. Vol. 14 (3 — 4). P. 376 — 383.

Kruger J.-L., Doherty S. Triangulation of online and offline measures of processing and reception in AVT II Reception Studies and Audiovisual Translation I ed. by E. Di Giovanni, Y. Gambier. Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : Benjamins, 2018. Vol. 12. P. 91—110.

Künzli A., Ehrensberger-Dow M. Innovative Subtitling: A Reception Study // Methods and Strategy of Process Research / ed. by C. Alvstad, A. Hild, E. Tiselius. Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : Benjamins, 2011. P. 187-200.

Lavaur J.-M., Bairnstow D. Languages on the screen: Is film comprehension related to viewers' fluency and to the language in the subtitles // International Journal of Psychology. 2011. Vol. 46 (6). P. 455-462.

Miquel Iriarte M. The Reception of Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing : PhD thesis. Barcelona : Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, 2017.

O'Hagan M., Sasamoto R. Crazy Japanese subtitles? Shedding light on the impact of impact captions with a focus on research methodology // Eye-tracking and Applied Linguistics / ed. by S. Hansen-Schirra, S. Grucza. Berlin : Language Science Press, 2016. P. 31-58.

Perego E. History, Development, Challenges and Opportunities of Empirical Research in AVT // Across Languages and Cultures. 2016. Vol. 17 (2). P. 155 — 162.

Romero-Fresco P. The Reception of Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Europe. Bern : Peter Lang, 2015.

Suojanen T., Koskinen K., Tuominen T. (eds.). User-centered Translation. L. ; N. Y. : Routledge, 2015.

Taylor Ch. Multimodal transcription in the analysis, translation and subtitling of Italian films // The Translator. 2003. Vol. 9 (2). P. 191 — 205.

Tuominen T. The art of accidental reading and incidental listening: An empirical study on the viewing of subtitled films : PhD thesis. University of Tampere, 2012.

Tuominen T. Multi-method research: Reception in context // Reception Studies and Audiovisual Translation / ed. by E. Di Giovanni, Y. Gambier. Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : Benjamins, 2018. Vol. 12. P. 69 — 90.

Для дальнейшего чтения

Assis Rosa A. Defining Target Text Reader. Translation Studies and Literary Theory // Translation Studies at the Interface of Disciplines / J. Duarte, A. Assis Rosa, T. Seruya (eds.). Amsterdam ; Philadelphia : Benjamins, 2006. P. 99 — 109.

Borodo M. Translation, Globalisation and Younger Audiences. The situation in Poland. Bern : Peter Lang, 2017.

Chan L. Readers, Reading and Reception of Translated Fiction in Chinese. Manchester : St Jerome, 2010.

Enríquez A., Mercedes М. Recepción y traducción. Síntesis y crítica de una relación interdisciplinaria. Málaga : Universidad de Málaga, 2007.

Fish S. Is There a Text in this Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities. Cambridge, MA : Harvard University Press, 1980.

Hammerschmid B., Krapoth H. (eds.). Übersetzung als kultureller Prozess: Rezeption, Projektion und Konstruktion des Fremden. Berlin : Schmidt, 1998.

Hickey L. The Reader as Translation Assessor // Studies in Translation. 2003. Vol. 1 (1). P. 59 — 92.

Iser W. The Implied Reader. Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett [1972]. Baltimore ; L. : Johns Hopkins UP, 1974.

Iser W. 1978. The art of Reading. A Theory of Aesthetic Response. Baltimore : Johns Hopskins University Press.

Jauss H. R. Toward an Aesthetic of Reception / transl. by T. Bahti. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 1982.

Kruger H., Kruger J. L. Cognition and Reception // The Handbook of Translation and Cognition / ed. by J. W. Schwieter, A. Ferreira. Hoboken, NJ : John Wiley & Sons, 2017. P. 72—89.

Machor J., Goldstein Ph. Reception Study. From Literary Theory to Cultural Studies. L. ; N. Y. : Routledge, 2001.

Nardocchio E. F. (ed.). Reader Response. The Empirical Dimension. Berlin ; N. Y. : Mouton De Gruyter, 1992.

Nightingale V. (ed.) The Handbook of Media Audiences. Hoboken, NJ : Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.

Rogers Th., Soter A. O. (eds.). Reading across Cultures. Teaching Literature in a Diverse Society. N. Y. : Teachers College Press, 1997.

Ruokonen M. Target's reader's expectations, and reality: Conformity or Conflict? // Beyond Borders. Translation moving Languages, Literatures and Cultures / ed. by K. Pekka et al. Berlin : Frank &Timme, 2011. P. 73-100.

Santayo Mediavilla J. C., Lanero Fernández J.J. (eds.). Estudios de traducción y recepción. Léon : Universidad de Léon, 2007.

Scott C. Translating the Perception of Text. Literary Translation and Phenomenology. Oxford : Legenda — Modern Humanities Research Association, 2012.

Staiger J. (ed.). Media Reception Studies. N. Y.: New York UP, 2005.

Takahashi T. Audience Studies : A Japanese Perspective. L. ; N. Y. : Routledge, 2010.

Об авторе

Ив Гамбье, почетный профессор, Школа языков и перевода, Университет Турку, Финляндия; профессор, Балтийский федеральный университет им. Иммануила Канта, Калининград, Россия.

E-mail: [email protected]

Для цитирования:

Gambier Y. Audiovisual translation and reception // Слово.ру: балтийский акцент. 2019. Т. 10, № 1. С. 52—68. doi: 10.5922/2225-5346-2019-1-4.