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translation of Culture Specific Items, which are very relevant to the present study. I will
therefore discuss some of these in more detail under 2.6 below. Around the same time,
theorists also started to devote research to audiovisual, screen and film translation (e.g.
Hatim and Mason, and the focus of this study, subtitle translation comes under that
heading. Subtitling will be discussed in more detail in the next section under 2.5 below.
2.5 Subtitling
Dubbing, in which the original dialogue is translated and recorded by other actors, is
a common practice in European countries such as France and Italy. Audiences in those
countries are interested more in hearing dialogue in their own language than in reading
subtitles from the bottom of the screen (O‟Leary, 2005). Dubbing is preferred by those
who see subtitles as a visual intrusion. In action movies, for example, audiences might
find it exhausting to read subtitles while following the actions of characters (Dutka,
2003). Meanwhile, subtitling has some requirements on the audience‟s literacy. In
Mexico, dubbing is more welcome because 13% of the country‟s viewers do not read
subtitles (Schechter, 1998).
The advantage of subtitling, compared to dubbing, is that it allows the audience o
capture the character‟s original voice and gives a sense of authenticity. Dubbing‟s
weakness is lack of synchronisation with lip movement (Dutka, 2003). Therefore, if the
language of the audience differs greatly from that of the movie (in terms of grammar
structure, syntax, and so forth), dubbing might not be appropriate. Lack of
synchronisation can easily be observed by the audience.
As distinct from the translation of a text, the production of a subtitle has to coincide
with audiovisual information visible on screen and audible on the sound track and
therefore needs to overcome timing constraints. It is not easy to achieve synchronism
between the spoken word and the actual subtitle. The rhythm of the film and the speech
rhythms of characters or narrators are unique and sometimes not easy to be retained, if
the lines happen to be hard to be comprehended or culture-bound (Ivarsson & Carroll,
1998). The dilemma is that while the length of subtitles is preferably determined by the
length of sentences and phrases, some sentences and phrases cannot be explained
clearly within the given time constraints. This may be said to be particularly true in
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