The challenge of subtitling linguistic variation in film dialogue has been subject to considerable debate. The debate, however, has focused on the technical, textual and sociocultural contextual factors behind the strategies employed to translate the linguistic varieties in AV products (Ramos Pinto, 2017). Little attention has been paid to the intermodal relations established between the verbal and the image modes and the different diegetic functions they serve in film. Researchers in AVT often begin their analysis by claiming that film-makers use a number of signifying modes to produce meaning, but they often focus this analysis solely on the relations established between the elements in the spoken and subtitles modes (Gambier, 2013). A possible explanation for this might be the literary background of most scholars. Another possible explanation is the lack of an analytical framework capable of accounting for the different modes at play in the translated AV product and the multimodal relationships established between them (Gambier and Ramos Pinto, 2016).
Another challenge is the compilation and (automatic) analysis of large multimodal corpora. The challenge arises as a result of the move from a case- study approach to build larger corpora in order to identify regularities in a larger set of AV products (Ramos Pinto and Mubaraki, forthcoming). An associated challenge is the fact that the majority of corpus-based translation research draws on corpus linguistic tools and methods. There have been attempts to create multimodal corpora for translator training activities such as the Forlixt multimedia corpus of screen translations (Valentini, 2006; Heiss and Soffritti, 2008) or to test lexical simplification using indices of lexical density and variety such as The European Parliamentary Interpreting Corpus (EPIC) (Monti et al., 2005; Russo et al., 2006). Zanettin (2014), however, argues that as a result of the technical constraints brought by the tools available and of the complex nature of multimodal products, quantitative corpus data is not a sufficient approach because the corpus usually only allows the production of frequency data for the verbal mode. A qualitative approach is, thus, necessary to identify a) the different diegetic functions that are constructed through the intermodal relations established between the different modes and elements in the AV product, and b) the impact of the translation strategies on preserving, modifying or cancelling these functions.
The present study is an attempt to address the above issues associated with the study of the subtitling of linguistic varieties and to discuss the added practical challenges associated with this topic. One of these challenges is the already mentioned semiotic switch from the spoken to written mode (Díaz- Cintas and Remael, 2014; Georgakopoulou, 2009), given that colloquial features of the source dialogue (such as slips of the tongue, pauses, false starts, unfinished sentences, ungrammatical constructions, hesitations, etc.) are difficult to render in writing. The task becomes even more complex when a particular dialect or accent is used to depict the characters’ geographical location and social group. An attempt to reproduce all colloquial features or use grapho-phonetic features to reproduce regional or social dialects in the subtitles, for example, would influence the rates of acceptability (grammar, style, terminology), legibility (position, subtitle rates) and readability (reading speed rates, shot changes) (Gambier, 2003).
Díaz-Cintas and Remael (2014) argue that certain linguistic varieties may need to be rendered in the subtitles, since these features contribute to promoting the plot and developing the characters’ profile. This draws attention to another challenge in AVT study concerning the use of linguistic varieties in AV products. Linguistic varieties are purposely used in AV products such as films and TV series to convey essential traits and features about a character’s social group and geographical background as well as their interpersonal relations with other characters and the author’s point of view (Kozloff, 2000; Lippi-Green, 1997; Hodson, 2014). However, little attention has been paid to the analysis of linguistic varieties in films since film has historically been defined as a visual medium (Kozloff, 2000).
Non-standard grammar, specific lexical features and distinctive accents are linguistic features used in film dialogue to mark the non-standard discourse associated with a character’s low level of social prestige. An example of this can be found in a scene from Howards End analysed by Hodson (2014). The film sheds light on the connections between different social classes in early 20th-
century England. Hodson (2014) analyses the speech of two characters: Leonard Bast, a bank clerk, and Jacky, an old woman. Hodson notices that Jacky’s speech has a marked London accent. She uses phonological features typical of a London accent such as H-deletion or T-glottalisation. Non-standard grammatical features including double negatives are used in the speech of Jacky. By contrast, Leonard’s speech is close to the standard in all linguistic levels. The use of linguistic features in this film serves the diegetic function of distinguishing between Leonard and Jacky and characterising them as belonging to different social classes with different levels of education. This shows that the use of linguistic varieties automatically imports communicative meanings to the AV product.
Linguistic variation conveys contextual information regarding particular uses and individual language users. Contextual information regarding uses means that linguistic varieties might provide information about the situation and the relationships between users. Other contextual information regarding individual users means that linguistic varieties can also provide information about the user’s geographical and social provenance, which will be marked as a dialect
(Bell, 1991). Hatim and Mason (1990) propose two contextual dimensions to be considered in discourse, in addition to the communicative dimension that carries contextual information regarding users and uses: the pragmatic and socio- semiotic dimensions. From the pragmatic point of view, linguistic variation has a practical function in the context in which it is used. As a socio-semiotic dimension, discourse has a correlation with a given social status and prestige within a linguistic community (Rosa, 2012). This shows that linguistic varieties used in AV products are culturally, geographically and socially bound.
Therefore, the challenge does not lie so much in the change from spoken to written mode or the translation of the non-standard varieties themselves but, rather, in the difficulty of finding a variety in the target culture which exactly matches the communicative meaning attributed to the source culture variety. This challenge has been explained as follows: “The connotations of the different target culture dialects will never be the same as those of the source language dialects they replace” (Díaz-Cintas and Remael, 2007, p.191). In a similar case in the context of theatre translation, Perteghella (2002, p. 45) asserts that translators “probably face one of the most difficult challenges of their profession, transporting such strong cultural, historical, social, and local features of a given language across into another, alternative linguistic and cultural frame”. In other words, the communicative meaning associated with linguistic varieties does not necessarily have an automatic correspondent in the target culture, which may be organised and structured in a completely different way (i.e. Arabic and English), leading to Leppihalme’s famous expression, ‘culture bumps’ (1997), and to some authors considering it an impossible translation task (Brodovich, 1997; House, 1998; Lane-Mercier, 1997).