To all students in foreign languages passionate about cinema and any other audiovisual content, this might pique your curiosity. Among all types of translation, audiovisual translation might be one of which we are most aware of on a daily basis. Through all sorts of videos, it entertains us, informs us, gives us access to the culture and history of other countries and improves our language skills by making learning easier and more enjoyable. It even allows deaf people to watch videos without facing difficulties understanding what is being said. Audiovisual translation applies to any audiovisual content, and we benefit from it every day.
Interesting, isn’t it? Well, let’s see if you are up to the challenge of studying audiovisual translation by going through the basics you need to know to work in this field.
From the Skills Needed to the Types of Projects: A General Description of the Profession
First, you are probably wondering what skills are needed to be a good audiovisual translator. To transmit the message of a video properly for their own country, translators have an important objective: to respect the original work. To do so, just as any other translator, they need to master at least two languages and write them perfectly. They also need to have solid knowledge about the cultures of the countries of which they speak the languages.
When they receive a new project, translators need to define the targeted public and the appropriate level of language to use in the translation in order to respect the effect, emotions and messages shared with the audience. This is an important step that helps them be natural in their translation. After all, if their work doesn’t sound natural, they will lose the attention of the audience.
Making the video understandable for a foreign viewer by adapting its content, all the while respecting its message in the original culture, is also a key aspect of the work. We call this adaptation process “localisation”. This is particularly important when it comes to jokes, plays on words, or idioms for instance. Does the name Oprah ring a bell to everyone or will it need to be localised as a national television host name? This part of the job can be very interesting for translators as it requires some thoughts and a great understanding of cultures.
Now that you know about the main skills needed, let’s talk about the types of content they work on. The first ones that might come to your mind are cinema-related contents and TV shows, and it is indeed a big part of the projects. But it is far from being all there is. TV programmes offer a lot of project opportunities to translators. Documentaries, news, reportage, interviews, reality shows, everything can be translated. It is a substantial part of the market. Companies are also often in need for promotional or industrial video translation and require the services of professionals. Even institutions require translators’ services. Indeed, even if audiovisual translation started with talking pictures, today it is not just about cinema but about any type of audiovisual content, no matter the field.
From Subtitling to Dubbing: The Techniques Used in Audiovisual Translation
Now that we have talked about the skills needed and the type of project audiovisual translators deal with, how about we talk about the techniques used to reach an international audience? Note that we are not going to go through all the translation methods, including subcategories of subtitling or the techniques that are more representative of niche markets. We are going to focus on translation techniques in the broad sense so that you can have a general idea of the field.
The first technique in audiovisual translation is subtitling. It is the most common method worldwide. As you probably already know, it consists in writing a translated version of the actors’ dialogues on the screen. The major constraint is to transmit to the audience the information necessary for a good understanding of the plot, while remaining concise. Indeed, the length of a subtitle is quite limited. It has to be short, remain natural and be consistent with the tone and message of the original version of the speech. If not, either the audience doesn’t have enough time to read it and can’t understand the story properly, or we lose their attention because they can feel that something is wrong with the translation. There are various categories of subtitling, including subtitling for deaf people for instance, which represents ambient sounds in addition to the dialogues.
The second technique, widely used in some countries, is dubbing. The original dialogues are replaced by new dialogues in the target language. The method requires you to choose the words carefully because the question of lip-synchronism will be taken into consideration. We don’t face this question with subtitles, but with dubbing it is a key aspect. The idea is that, for the duration of a film, the audience should believe that Susan Sarandon or Anthony Hopkins are national actors who are speaking their language. The sounds of the words produced in the original language must coincide as much as possible with the translated sounds so that the lip movements are more or less similar and don’t disturb the viewers. Of course, with dubbing, translators must be careful about the length of sentences too. The dubbing actor can’t keep talking if the actor on the screen has stopped, can he? Dubbing requires a great level of expertise regarding the use of words.
The last technique we will discuss, which is a little less used than the other two, is voice-over. This method consists in reading the translated speech over the voice of the person in the video. The voice-over is usually louder than the voice of the original speaker, and adapts to his talking speed. We are not talking about word-for-word translation here, but rather a translation of the train of thoughts and of the essence of the speech. The length of the translation must be shorter than the original speech. Voice-over is often used for interviews or in documentaries.
All these techniques may differ from one another but, to some extent, they all have the same goal: Make people understand the video while making them less aware of the language gap or of the translation process.
Taking a Closer Look at the Reality of the Market: Draw your Own Conclusions
The audiovisual translation industry is constantly expanding, and the demand keeps growing. However, just as any other professional field, the sector is facing issues, especially in the film industry. As too many translators wish to work in this field and as there is not enough job opportunities, it is quite difficult to find a job in audiovisual translation. Clients and employers know that too. Therefore, they tend to want to pay lowers wages to translators and the rates charged on the market are falling.
Fansubbers, who are film enthusiasts subtitling non-professionally, also create competition. They exist because there is a need to answer the viewers’ demand for immediacy. They translate projects quicker than professionals, but their translations are often full of mistakes. Sometimes they don’t even really make sense. After all, translation needs actual skills and you can’t become a professional in one day. But this tends to put real translators in a position where they have to work rapidly, which has a real impact on the quality of the projects and working conditions.
Of course, these problems are no reason to be discouraged from pursuing a career in the industry. After all, a job chosen out of passion is surely a job worth fighting for, isn’t it? If you think this field is for you, give it all you have to succeed, and draw your own conclusions.
O’Neil Lola
La Traduction de A à Z 