Subtitles
1. The effects of subtitles on language acquisition
The second part of this paper will discuss what effects subtitles have on language acquisition by focusing mainly on the work of one of the leading researchers in the field of subtitles, Géry van Outryve d'Ydewalle.
1.1 Types of subtitles
Technically-speaking, there are two types of subtitles:
- Open subtitles (not optional) which include cinema subtitles, being a physical part of the film, and on television, being broadcast as part of the television picture.
- Closed subtitles (optional). These include television subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH), which the viewer can select by remote-control and which are generated by a decoder in the television set; interlingual television subtitles transmitted by satellite, allowing different speech communities to access different versions of the same program simultaneously
Linguistically-speaking, we can distinguish between two types of subtitling:
- Intralingual subtitling (in the original language) and referred to as ‘vertical’, in that the subtitler changes mode, from speech to writing, but not language. It is used on domestic programs for the DHH and on foreign-language programs for language learners.
- Interlingual subtitling. This type is referred to as ‘diagonal’ in that the subtitler moves from spoken text in one language to written text in another, changing mode and language. (Routledge 2004: 247).
Since the intralingual subtitles’ language is not changing, and we cannot rely on CLI or language distance, we will from now on focus on interlingual subtitles.
1.2 The effect of subtitles in movies
To see whether subtitles added to any audio-visual content will change the watching behavior, d’Ydewalle, Praet, Verfaillie, and Van Rensbergen (1991) found that even if a movie is presented in the native language of the viewer, considerable amount of time was spent, reading and processing the subtitles, equally by two different nations
The second part of this paper will discuss what effects subtitles have on language acquisition by focusing mainly on the work of one of the leading researchers in the field of subtitles, Géry van Outryve d'Ydewalle.
1.1 Types of subtitles
Technically-speaking, there are two types of subtitles:
- Open subtitles (not optional) which include cinema subtitles, being a physical part of the film, and on television, being broadcast as part of the television picture.
- Closed subtitles (optional). These include television subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH), which the viewer can select by remote-control and which are generated by a decoder in the television set; interlingual television subtitles transmitted by satellite, allowing different speech communities to access different versions of the same program simultaneously
Linguistically-speaking, we can distinguish between two types of subtitling:
- Intralingual subtitling (in the original language) and referred to as ‘vertical’, in that the subtitler changes mode, from speech to writing, but not language. It is used on domestic programs for the DHH and on foreign-language programs for language learners.
- Interlingual subtitling. This type is referred to as ‘diagonal’ in that the subtitler moves from spoken text in one language to written text in another, changing mode and language. (Routledge 2004: 247).
Since the intralingual subtitles’ language is not changing, and we cannot rely on CLI or language distance, we will from now on focus on interlingual subtitles.
1.2 The effect of subtitles in movies
To see whether subtitles added to any audio-visual content will change the watching behavior, d’Ydewalle, Praet, Verfaillie, and Van Rensbergen (1991) found that even if a movie is presented in the native language of the viewer, considerable amount of time was spent, reading and processing the subtitles, equally by two different nations