Audiovisual translation as orchestration of multimodal synergies Expendability of interjections in intralingual film subtitling

This study explores the coordination between subtitles and other semiotic resources in films, from within a systemic functional semiotic framework. The paper focuses on the subtitling of interjections (e.g., 'oh', 'wow, `yay') to examine how subtitles are synthesized in films with respect to the presence of facial expressions and/or bodily gestures which might be perceived as conveying similar meanings. The analysis of multiple versions of intralingual subtitles of two English-language films shows that the seemingly random omission of soundtrack interjections from subtitles is patterned to a considerable degree - those interjections which are concurrent with semiotically correlated actions were frequently omitted. The findings suggest that subtitling is a complex process involving synergy between subtitles and other semiotic resources, which calls for interdisciplinary research integrating translation, multimodality, and linguistics.

Automated summary

The research found that subtitling in films is a complex process involving synergy between subtitles and other semiotic resources, calling for interdisciplinary research.