Quality in Subtitling

🎬 Subtitling aims to make multimedia content accessible to all, but its quality is often criticized for failing to meet viewers’ needs, such as being inaccurate or difficult to read.

⏹ Defining QUALITY in subtitling is complex. Different stakeholders (policymakers, language service providers, researchers, professional subtitlers and viewers) prioritize different aspects.

⏺ Subtitling, since it involves translation, presents a great challenge when it comes to defining quality.

⏹ For instance, omissions are usually errors in translations, but using text reduction techniques is part of the subtitling process and can’t be considered an error.

▶ Subtitle quality is influenced by THREE main factors:

1️⃣ TECHNICAL ASPECTS
– Synchronization
– Display rate
– Minimum gap between frames
– Reading time
– Respecting shot changes
– Character limit per line

2️⃣ LINGUISTIC TRANSFER
– Misreading
– Excessive message reduction
– Awkward line breaks
– Typos
– Inadequate solutions to convey the source language and cultural references

3️⃣ PROFESSIONAL SUBTITLERS’ WORKING CONDITIONS
– Poor wages
– Unreasonable deadlines
– Poor source materials
– Inadequate training
 
💡 This is the perspective of researchers.

What factors do you consider important for quality subtitling?


Souce: Quality is in the eye of the stakeholders: what do professional subtitlers and viewers think about subtitling? By Agnieszka Szarkowska, Jorge Díaz Cintas & Olivia Gerber-Morón

Image by brgfx on Freepik