INTRODUCTION

What’s subtitling?
Subtitles are the text that you usually see at the bottom of the screen;
they’re basically a transcript of the screenplay in films, TV shows,
videogames etc. (basically all types of media content). Subtitles are mostly
used as a written translation of the dialog in a foreign language for the
viewers of different countries to fully understand what they’re watching.
They’re also used as a written rendering of the dialog in the same
language for people who have difficulties understanding the accent of the
spoken language and people who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Subtitling consists of rendering in writing a translation into a target

language of the original dialog script, including all verbal information
present on screen (e.g. banners, posters, letters, etc) or aurally in the
soundtrack (songs, low voices). It keeps the original text while adding
some extra information.

When subtitling a film or a TV show, the subtitle translator analyzes both

picture and each sentence of the audio track; also, the subtitle translator
may have the chance to read a written transcript of the dialog for an easier
process. This changes when it comes to translating commercial ads; here,
the subtitle translator often interprets the meaning rather than just
translating the way the dialog is stated.

As an audiovisual translation, subtitling has its own specification and rules.

It has two important restrictions of time and space which directly affect
the final result. Our translation will always depend on these parameters
and it doesn’t always consist about translating only the context but also to
support us in the image and audio with determined time and space.

Subtitlers are expected to reach a right balance and interaction between

all the audio and visual dimensions of the material they work with. They
must take into account the fact that all viewers need the time to both read
the subtitles and see the images without actually losing something
important in the content they’re watching.
Characteristics of subtitling:

Time and space restrictions: The most important characteristic of

subtitling is the restrictions of time and space, which affect and determine
the quality standards and form of translation. Generally speaking, the
space in subtitles should be limited to two lines, which are usually placed
and centered at the bottom of the screen without interfering the image
utmostly. Each line should not contain more than 35 characters, including
any letter, symbol, or space. In terms of the limits of time, a subtitle
generally has a minimum duration of a second and a maximum duration of
six seconds on screen. Therefore, the subtitler must be sure that the text
should be synchronized with both the image and the audio, which is also
the biggest charm of subtitled films and teleplays.

Instantaneity: Subtitling is a kind of immediate translation. On one hand,

subtitle combined with the image makes sense, and thus helps the
audience understand the plots. On the other hand, subtitles flash by, and
cannot be browsed like books, so too long subtitles are out of permission
for they might affect viewers’ understanding and appreciation.

Colloquialism: Different from other kinds of literature, films and TV

programms inspired by life pursue not only the beauty of art, but also the
authenticity of life. Most dialogues in plain language make films and TV
programs popular among modern viewers. Thus, subtitling should be
colloquial and life-oriented with eye-catching and simple expressions.
Types of subtitles:
Pre-recorded programs tend to make use of pop-on or pop-up subtitles,
which can appear anywhere on the screen as a block and remain visible for
a certain time before they disappear to give way to a new subtitle. Live
events, on the other hand, resort to roll-up or scroll subtitling, a method in
which the words appear from left to right and when the line is filled it
scrolls up to make way for a new line, and the top line is erased to give
way to a new bottom line. This continuous rolling up tends to allow for
greater speed in presenting the information but has the drawback of
making reading more difficult. From a technical standpoint, subtitles are
open when they are an integral part of the audiovisual program, usually
burned onto the images, and cannot be turned off, as in the cinema. The
opposite are closed subtitles, which are not an integral part of the
program and can be added to the program at the viewer’s will, as on most
DVDs. The process of merging the subtitles with the images has evolved
considerably over the years and today’s main methods are laser and
electronic. The former consists in burning the subtitles onto the celluloid,
whereas the latter projects the subtitles onto the screen without
damaging the original copy and is widely used at film festivals.

Pre-prepared or offline subtitles are prepared ahead of the program’s

release whereas subtitles produced at the very same time as the program
is being broadcast are called (semi)live, real-time or online. Traditionally,
real-time subtitling has been done by a pool of subtitlers working with
dual keyboards. However, recent technological developments have made
speech recognition-based subtitling, known as re-speaking, one of the
preferred techniques in the industry for the production of live subtitles, as
it helps broadcasters to increase the amount of subtitles provided for their
deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers in a cost-effective way. As a relative
newcomer, re-speaking is a subject of growing interest in the academic
and professional worlds, with considerable research potential.
Technical aspects of subtitling:

The subtitling carries a technical part which is the spotting of the subtitles.
So, the translator should aim to calculate the moment in which the
subtitles appear and disappear on the screen, so that the subtitles are
synchronized with the audio. Also, the duration of the subtitles and the
changes of the camera shot must be taken into account. When a change of
shot is produced, the viewer tends to return to lowering their view and re-
reading the subtitle, so one must consider, where possible, the shot and
scene changes.

Therefore, the process of subtitling consists of the following phases:

– Spotting: Identifying the entrance and exit times of the subtitles

synchronized with the audio, calculating the minimum and maximum
duration times and considering the changes in camera shot and scene.

– Translation (adaptation): Translation from the original, adapting it and

adjusting it to characters permitted according to the duration of the
subtitle.

– Simulation: Representation of the translated subtitles with the image

and the audio to check that they meet all of the criteria and that they can
be read in a natural way.

– Correction: Checking errors to correct them and readjustment of the

text.
In terms of the adjustment (the textual content of the subtitle), there is a
series of basic criteria which follow in subtitling. The text which contains
subtitles must be a natural text, with the same punctuation, spelling rules
and natural language conventions. The language must not become
unnatural when trying to adjust the number of characters, but it must
reach an adjustment which is natural and correct. Some of the basic
principle criteria are:

- The cutting of the subtitle, the separation of the two lines, must not
interrupt any phrase. A noun or adjective must not be separated in two
different lines, nor a noun and a verb, as it must be a natural separation.

- A short hyphen is used (-) in conversations to indicate that two people

are speaking, with a hyphen on each line of the subtitle when someone
else is speaking.

- Italics are used for voices in off, and for songs and audio away from the
scene of electronic devices.

- Quotation marks (“”), recognized abbreviations and figures are used, and
where possible capital letters are avoided (used for titles, and signs or
written content in the image).

The ideal final result is that the subtitles are synchronised with the
audiovisual document, in such a way that it sounds natural and fluent, so
much so that the spectator is almost unaware that they are reading and is
absorbed in the image, the audio and the text.
History of subtitling:
The first films, shot in France in the late 1800s, were silent, totally devoid
of music or dialogue. There were no words in films — only moving, black
and white images.

But as advancements in motion pictures continued, by 1903 Edwin Porter’s

famous rendition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin came along. Based on Harriet
Beecher Stowe’s novel of the same title that swept the nation, the film
was innovative in several capacities. In particular, its use
of intertitles paved the way for what would become subtitles in the future.

Intertitles were texts written or printed on paper that were displayed

between scenes of the film. They described what was going on in place of
dialogue.

Live and recorded music eventually accompanied the pictures, adding

other layers of expression and experience for filmmakers and their
audiences. But for a good stretch of time, intertitles — which paved the
way for subtitles — were among the most innovative moving picture
technologies.

Intertitles made translation a breeze: One simply translated what was

written on the card. And since the United States quickly emerged to
dominate the film industry, the demand for intertitles for American films
increased in other industrialized countries.

Films that allowed sound, called talkies, gained popularity by the 1920s,
and naturally increased the need for subtitles and also dubbing. Dubbing is
when a recording of dialogue in a foreign language replaces the dialogue
in the native language. While dubbing adds an audio element for foreign-
language speakers, it can be confusing to hear dialogue that doesn’t match
the movement of the actors’ mouths when they speak.

Subtitles are more precise than intertitles and avoid the viewing confusion
that stems from dubbing. By the 1930s, around the time color television
became prevalent, subtitles that showed on the screen at the same time
as the moving picture were finally patented.
Way back then, filmmakers used to stamp subtitles directly onto film
strips. They could be difficult to read, but still. This was a step toward
progress that would lead to digitized, computerized subtitles in the future.

This isn’t to say the path was totally smooth: Over decades of
experimentation, different technologies had to be developed for subtitles
to be as marketable as possible. The need for new technologies in
subtitling only increased as television played an increasingly important
role in people’s lives in the 1960s to the present, and as popular media
became increasingly globalized.

By the late 1980s, many new processes made it possible for entire subtitle
systems to be downloaded onto a computer.

Nowadays, subtitling allows English-language movies to be enjoyed in

many countries across the world, and for English-speaking countries to
enjoy films made in other languages.

Dubbing has slowly been phased out in favor of the continuously advanced
concept of subtitling. However, in some countries with low literacy rates,
dubbing can still serve as the most effective means of reaching an
audience. Some people simply don’t like subtitles because they can be
distracting or difficult to read fast enough.
Abstract
En esta investigación hemos tomado como tema principal la problemática
de lo que es la transferencia de referentes culturales en películas y series
de televisión a través de la subtitulación interlinguística. Nuestro enfoque
durante todo este proyecto estuvo puesto en el proceso de subtitulación
de películas y series de televisión norteamericanas al idioma español, más
específicamente el latinoamericano. El simple proceso de traducir al
español un dialogo de una escena en una serie o película es una tarea fácil
para el subtitulador, pero qué sucede cuando en uno de estos diálogos se
hace, por ejemplo, uso de un chiste que sólo tendrá sentido en la
audiencia del país origen del material audiovisual, ¿Qué sucederá con el
publico de otros países? ¿Debería el subtitulador cambiar algo o mantener
todo igual? Durante toda esta investigación se han respondido este tipo
de preguntas habiendo tomado en cuenta cómo hoy en día se manejan
este tipo de situaciones en la subtitulación profesional. Se han tomado
como ejemplos principales para este proyecto escenas de películas y series
como Deadpool 2 y Supergirl.

Purpose of the study

La meta principal de esta investigación es analizar cómo a través del
proceso de subtitulado de series televisivas y largometrajes estado-
unidenses, se ven afectadas expresiones coloquiales, chistes, dichos etc al
momento de ser transferidos a otras culturas más allá de simplemente
otro idioma, y así llegar a la conclusión sobre si es importante utilizar el
proceso de adaptación durante la transferencia.

Preguntas de investigación
1. ¿Afecta el proceso de subtitulado de una película o serie de
televisión a su contenido cultural?
2. ¿Qué tan exacta puede ser la equivalencia de un concepto cultural
de x país al de otro país?
3. ¿Cuáles son los principales motivos para adaptar un concepto
cultural de un país a la cultura de otro durante el proceso de
subtitulado?
 Theoretical Framework

Empecemos primero con una definición básica de lo que es un referente

cultural ¿Qué es un referente cultural? Un referente cultural podría
entenderse como los elementos que componen el entorno e imaginario
social y que identifica a una población, ciudad, país, a un
determinado grupo o sociedad, algo que caracteriza, distingue y da a
conocer a éstos por esa particularidad.
Podríamos hablar de un monumento característico de un país, pueblo o
ciudad; de un baile, un dicho, un personaje, un tipo de alimento o bebida e
incluso hasta una obra literaria o audiovisual, simplemente todo aquello
que lo distinga del resto. Aquello que se considere importante y popular,
que tenga influencia en el comportamiento y forma de pensar de la
población.
Desde un punto de vista psicológico, se aborda el término como un
elemento distintivo de una determinada cultura/ ideología (pudiendo ser
un objeto, un acto comunicativo específico, una idea...), creado en esta
misma y la mayoría de veces originado sobre la base de sus estereotipos,
que aporta una serie de informaciones cognitivas y representaciones
asociadas a dicha cultura, a quién entra en contacto con éste.
Los referentes culturales tienen en común una serie de características,
indiferentemente de la cultura de la cual provengan:
- a medida que las culturas avanzan, avanzan con ellas los
estereotipos, lo que genera una pérdida de la significación del
referente y el cambio de éste por un nuevo elemento distintivo
- todos tienen un valor: tanto expresivo (en el sentido de la
identificación de la cultura/ideología), como referencial (nos
emmarcan el contexto en el que se adscribe el elemento)
- ofrecen una perspectiva determinada de las realidades sociales que
describen
- incorporan información del momento histórico y del factor espacial
de la cultura que los define
- siguen una jerarquía, estando en la cima aquellos que son más
distintivos y más fácilmente reconocidos por los miembros de una
cultura ajena a la que refieren, y en el nivel más bajo aquellos que
 solo los miembros de la propia cultura pueden atribuirles un
significado
- simplifican la interpretación que el individuo hace de los entornos
nuevos
- la importancia del referente recae en su significado, no en el
elemento en sí
Como funciones principales de los referentes culturales encontramos las
siguientes:
- dar valor expresivo al objeto
- aportación de una gran carga ideológica a un objeto que permite a
los individuos ajenos o pertenecientes a la cultura identificar dicha
ideología en el entorno
- función como elemento cohesionador de una cultura
- los referentes asociados a un rasgo cultural / ideológico, refuerzan
tal rasgo
Es de especial relevancia destacar desde esta perspectiva qué estructuras
cognitivas intervienen en la interpretación de los referentes culturales por
parte de cada individuo. Grosso modo, éstas son:
- las representaciones sociales (forma específica de entendimiento y
comunicación con el mundo) basadas en la ideología.
- el conocimiento previo sobre la ideología del referente
(conocimiento implícito y declarativo)
- el proceso de categorización social
- los estereotipos generados por la sociedad e internalizados por el
individuo
- el sentido común, entendiendo éste como la manifestación de los
valores y creencias de una determinada ideología
Los referentes culturales juegan un papel muy importante en la identidad
de un país, ciudad o población específica, tanto que hasta obras
cinematográficas y televisivas se encuentran plagadas de estos. Hoy en día
es imposible no encontrar una película o serie de televisión donde en una
escena alguien haga mención de cierto personaje famoso en una forma
sarcástica, utilice un dicho, expresión coloquial etc., que pertenezca a la
cultura del país origen del material audiovisual. You can see through
cinema and television the culture of a country reflected in the expressions
used by the characters, thoughts, celebrations, places, famous
personalities, etc. Taking into account that a lot of movies nowadays
(especially comedy ones) are full of cultural references, it could be said
that there’s a bit of a documentary essence in them as they have
information about their origin countries.
But what happens when movies and tv series are going to be consumed by
a foreign audience instead of the one in the origin country? Thanks to
dubbing and subtitling nowadays this doesn’t seems to be a problem,
except obviously with the cultural references. We have to bear in mind
that a foreign audience means different countries with different languages
and cultures, which gives subtitlers the next problem: The transference of
these cultural references.
How does subtitling arrive into these cultural references? How well is
handled this information that is familiar to the local audience but
unknown to the foreign public? This is where the subtitler, obviously a
professional one, takes on the role of a translator. The subtitler must have
a deep knowledge about the culture of both languages or at least the
culture of the original country of the material and the country or specific
region where the subtitles are targeted, so he/she can successfully transfer
the cultural referent given.
Initially it hasn’t always been easy for the audience to fully understand
jokes and comments with cultural referents in movies and tv series, which
is why different translation alternatives have been created so the best
possible equivalent in different cultures can be found and the same effect
created on the local audience is created on a foreign audience.
Estas a continuación son tres técnicas creadas para la transferencia de
referentes culturales, a las que se puede recurrir no solo en el doblaje pero
también en el subtitulado:

Naturalización
La naturalización, o domesticación, consiste en eliminar por completo el
referente del texto origen ya que puede resultar extraño para el público
meta que consuma la traducción. Si por ejemplo en el vídeo se habla, a
modo de anécdota o comparación, de un personaje que solamente es
conocido en Reino Unido o de una marca que solamente se comercializa
en Estados Unidos, es probable que esto no le diga nada al público que
reciba la traducción. Por ese motivo, se opta por buscar algún referente
similar a lo que trate de transmitir el guión original.

Por ejemplo, si en una serie cómica hablan de un personaje muy peculiar y

conocido en la zona, siempre se puede buscar un referente similar en la
cultura de llegada y, en esa idea, basar la traducción. Eso explica que Julio
Iglesias o Belén Esteban puedan aparecer en una traducción de vídeo
grabado al otro lado del planeta.

Extranjerización
Esta técnica de traducción audiovisual es la opuesta a la naturalización. En
lugar de buscar un referente cultural para expresar una idea similar, se
opta por conservar el mismo que en el original. Para muchos expertos
lingüísticos ésta es la mejor forma de traducir. Y esto se hace porque se
considera que queda menos brusco, porque respeta el original con mayor
fidelidad y/o porque se cree que, de algún modo, el público puede
comprender la idea gracias al contexto.

Por ejemplo, si se habla del Show de Oprah, que fue un programa de

entrevistas muy famoso en Estados Unidos durante un cuarto de siglo, no
se buscan programas similares que sí se hayan emitido en España.
Neutralización
Se trata de una técnica de traducción audiovisual menos agresiva y que
busca conseguir una solución intermedia ante los problemas culturales
que pueda haber. Por ejemplo, si se habla de un referente que no se
conoce, se explica pero no se menciona.

Un ejemplo puede ser si en un vídeo se habla de que una persona ha ido

a Wegmans. ¿Qué esWegmans? Wegmans es una cadena de
supermercados muy conocida en la costa Este de Estados Unidos, pero
que no le dice nada al público español medio. Por ese motivo, si el nombre
de esta empresa no es relevante, se opta por traducirlo como ir al
supermercado.

De este modo, las siguientes frases se podrían traducir de tres formas

diferentes atendiendo a las diversas técnicas de traducción audiovisual.

I am going to Wegmans.
Naturalización: Voy a Mercadona.
Extranjerización: Voy a Wegmans.
Neutralización: Voy al supermercado.