Translation Spaces - Online First

This article examines the practice of retranslation within the context of subtitling, an area that has received little attention compared to literary works. Using a corpus of English translations of the French film La Haine, it highlights the complexities of resubtitling due to technical and multimodal constraints, while evaluating how retranslations handle non-standard language and cultural references. The analysis shows that with new translations cultural references get closer to the source text, a finding that aligns with the so-called retranslation hypothesis, whereas in the translation of marked speech this parallelism is less straightforward. The results suggest that the practice of resubtitling is far from predictable and cannot be moulded on the premises of the retranslation hypothesis.

This article presents a study that examines how international university students perform in English Medium Instruction (EMI) lectures with live intralingual subtitles, or lectures in which the lecturer’s words are subtitled in real time in the same language as the speaker. It investigates which study variables are predictive of the students’ performance, taking into account perception, visual attention and cognitive load. Two one-hour simulated Research Methodology lectures were examined to determine the effects of live subtitling. The lectures were in English for international students. Automatic voice recognition was used for the live subtitling. Data collection used: online language tests; an online demographic questionnaire; online questionnaires regarding the lecture content and students’ perceptions and academic motivation; and eye tracking glasses to gauge visual attention and cognitive load. Findings show that students did not benefit from subtitles as much as expected, suggesting that the presence of subtitles may not significantly enhance comprehension or retention for all learners.

This study investigates ergonomics, well-being and sustainability in translation through the eyes of trainers and students, drawing on insights from a small-scale survey involving 60 respondents from Canada and beyond. Participants highlighted challenges related to non-ergonomic conditions and tools in educational environments, which often contribute to health issues and frustration. They also reported on strategies to cope with or prevent health issues, as well as on their use of mobile devices and speech-based techniques and tools in their academic work. The findings underscore the need for interdisciplinary research on ergonomics and well-being in translator training, and point toward implications for developing practices that support long-term health and career sustainability among trainers and students. This study also advocates for the gradual integration of speech-based multimodal technologies, as well as physical activity, into translation curricula, aligning with the demands of the ubiquitous computing era and prioritizing ergonomics for trainers and students.

This study investigates localization strategies in the Arabic dubbing of The Smurfs animated series, focusing on the translation of idiomatic expressions and cultural references through a relevance-theoretical lens. By analyzing dubbed episodes, the research explores how translation optimizes relevance by balancing cognitive effects and processing effort in cultural and linguistic adaptation. The investigation centers on references to cultural heritage and the idiomatic usage of language. The findings reveal a sophisticated dubbing process that transcends literal translation, demonstrating how translators manipulate the cognitive environment to achieve optimal relevance. Dubbing emerges as a vehicle for cultural affirmation and cross-cultural communication, carefully managing cognitive effort while maximizing contextual effects. The study suggests that relevance-theoretical principles can create globally appealing content that resonates locally, despite limitations in accounting for the linguistic diversity across Arabic-speaking regions.

The global growth of the video game market demands high-quality Arabic localization, yet the process faces major linguistic, cultural, and technical challenges. This study examines the difficulties encountered when localizing popular English-language video games into Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and, occasionally, Arabic dialects. Using a qualitative descriptive approach, the study analyzes a corpus from diverse commercial games, focusing on user interfaces, subtitles, and in-game texts. Drawing on translation studies, localization theory, and contrastive linguistics, the paper identifies issues such as terminological inconsistency, structural differences (e.g., word order), orthographic problems (e.g., disconnected letters), lexical-semantic challenges (e.g., collocation accuracy), and cultural adaptation. Arabic examples with transliteration illustrate how these obstacles affect naturalness and clarity. The findings emphasize how linguistic typology, cultural factors, technical constraints (e.g., limited UI space), and workflows (e.g., blind localization) intersect. The study calls for greater linguistic expertise, cultural awareness, and improved industry practices to enhance Arabic game localization quality.

Silent film translation was a dynamic and multifaceted phenomenon. Films were not only inherently translatable and widely adapted, but the film text itself was ultimately shaped by the specific context in which it was exhibited (Vasey 1997). Adapting a foreign film demanded a high level of expertise, encompassing complex operations such as translation, film editing and dialogue writing. This study focuses on the “adaptive strategies” (Adamson 2019, 32) used by film translators to tailor silent films for international audiences, enabling them to transcend their original cultural boundaries. Its aim is to contribute new insights into the localisation of film media during the silent era by examining the translation and reception of Charlie Chaplin’s cinema in Italy. Drawing on archival sources and contemporary periodicals, the study explores how Hollywood films were reworked and reframed to align with local audience expectations, while also interrogating the notion of translation in the silent film world.

This paper analyzes the music video of the parody song “Es una pasiva,” the Spanish interlingual cover of “Boy Is a Bottom,” released by drag performer Willam in 2015. The first stage of the analysis examines how the Spanish version, through its linguistic material, constructs a distinct representation of passive or receptive sexual positionality in male homosexual relationships, differing from the portrayal in the English source song. The second stage focuses on the translated text to explore how the linguistic elements are “amplified” and recontextualized through visual components that draw from both Latin American and globalized queer cultural frameworks. Building on these analyses, the study highlights the relevance of the concept of “embodiment” to expand the conceptual repertoire of audiovisual translation studies, particularly in relation to semiotic interaction.

This article offers an academic reflection on creativity in dubbing, considering the emergence and growing presence of AI-dubs. It explores the concept of creativity as a possible key differentiator between human agency and machine-generated content (Brandt 2023; Grassini and Koivisto 2024; Runco 2023). To this end, the article first examines creativity through a cross-disciplinary lens, establishing a broader conceptual theoretical framework and context for its definition and meaning. It then explores the creative practices associated with traditional studio-generated dubbing from both industry and academic perspectives, drawing insights from other fields that engage in constrained creative processes (Baetens 2010; De Geest and Goris 2010; Krauth 2016; Wang 2009). Finally, it rethinks traditional creative practices in the context of AI-generated dubbed content, briefly summarizing preliminary research findings that compare studio-dubs and AI-dubs. The discussion focuses on how AI-dubbing technologies challenge established boundaries and norms, reshaping creative practices and the roles of dubbing practitioners — especially translators — and potentially influencing viewer perception.

The past decade has seen the Web 2.0 expand dramatically: content creators nowadays dominate the scene and dictate trends in a plethora of social dimensions within a mediascape no longer dominated by traditional TV and replaced by top streamers and social platforms. The massive quantity of audiovisual content produced in multiple other languages requires interlingual mediation into English. Thus, the need to create cost-effective translations has propelled audiovisual translation (AVT) technological developments in an unprecedented manner.

Against this background, this paper dives into a peculiar aspect of AVT, that of creative subtitling in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), which has been challenging traditional workflows, and calling for innovative localization strategies. Creative subtitling, in the form of intertitles, in- and out-show comments and web-subs, provides a novel way of conceiving AVT in the digital age, not as a largely automated activity with a pinch of human touch, but as an artistic process in the hands of directors, creators and professional translators.