Intervention in new amateur subtitling cultures:
a multimodal account
Luis Pérez-González
The University of Manchester
Recent developments in the audiovisual marketplace have led to an increas-ing compartmentalization of subtitling audiences and the emergence of amateur subtitling cultures that aim to cater for the idiosyncratic demands of their target audience niche. Fansubbing, i.e. the subtitling of Japane animated films by fans, is one of the most influential and successful of such amateur cultures. This article examines the genealogy of this peculiar phe-nomenon, describes some of its most distinctive subtitling practices and explores the effects of its interventionist agenda. Drawing on the apparatus of multimodal theory and the insights provided by a small purpo-built corpus, this paper argues that fansubbing exploits traditional meaning-making codes in a creative manner and, more importantly, criss-cross the traditional boundaries between linguistic and visual miotics in innovative ways.
1. Introduction. Subtitling in an increasingly fragmented audiovisual marketplace
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An enduring question in audiovisual translation studies is how to adapt mainstream subtitling strategies to the needs and preferences of individual audience ‘niches’1. Long gone are the days when a single t of subtitling conventions sufficed to inform the interlingual and intercultural mediation practices of a relatively homogeneous group of professionals who worked almost exclusively for the film and television industries. Over the last two decades, developments in the audiovisual marketplace have led to a twofold expansion of subtitling. On the one hand, this form of translation has be-come increasingly enmeshed in the localization of more pragmatic or ‘utili-tarian’ screen-bad texts, ranging from promotional corporate programmes to videogames. On the other hand, subtitled films or television broadcasts have come to rve ulterior purpos, such as enhancing social cohesion or fostering the integration of specific groups within the community. In most cas, the gradual consolidation of subtitling as a tool for social integration has been the result of a concerted and clearly targeted action, as in the de-ployment of specialized mediation practices in programmes addresd at the deaf and the hearing impaired. In some other cas, the social relevance of subtitling can be accounted for on the basis of its sheer pervasiveness – as illustrated by the reliance of different social groups on freely available subtitled programmes as a means to develop their proficiency in another
Luis Pérez-González 68
language. Whatever the circumstances leading to the expansion of its area of influence, subtitling is now ud to translate an unprecedentedly hetero-geneous range of text-types. Concomitantly, it now targets different groups of viewers with diver expectations as to what subtitled texts can or should deliver. And whilst there is a growing awareness of the compartmentaliza-tion of subtitling audiences, “little rearch has been done to profile the target groups and subgroups” (Gambier 2003: 178) in terms of identifying the conventions and practices that would best suit their backgrounds and requirements.
This article focus on a specific audience niche: fans of Japane animated cinema worldwide. Section 2 begins by examining the genealogy of this peculiar viewer gment; of particular interest here is the fans’ active involvement in the design of customized subtitling strategies for the transla-tion of this culture-specific genre following the failure of mainstream subti-tling conventions to translate ‘japaneness’ successfully. On the back of technological developments, fan networks have grown to create the most influential subtitling-bad form of linguistic and cultural mediation by amateurs: fansubbing. This ction clos with a short overview of the most distinctive formal manifestations of this subtitling paradigm. Section 3 en-gages in a theoretical exploration of the generative principles that lie at the basis of actual fansubbing conventions in order to harness the co
rafale
mplexity of amateur mediation strategies and capture their potential resonance for other amateur subtitling cultures. Drawing on the apparatus of multimodal theory and the insights provided by a small purpo-built corpus, I discuss (i) the ways in which amateur subtitlers actively manipulate the finite range of meaning-making modes that are available to them; and (ii) how their inter-ventionist approach to subtitling contributes to the gestalt miotics of the translated audiovisual text.
2. Anime ‘fandom’ as an emergent audience niche
Fansubbing is a relatively new subtitling-bad mediation phenomenon ar-ticulated by fans of Japane animated films or anime worldwide. Born as a children-geared filmic manifestation in the late 1970s, anime has grown and taken over ‘live action’ films as the dominant form of cinematic entertain-ment in contemporary Japan. According to film studies specialists (Minh-ha 2005), this development can only be understood in the context of (i) the Japane society’s desire for Westernization and (ii) the identification be-tween Asian physiognomy and Japan’s uncomfortable past. More pointedly, Sato (2002) contends that “the ethnic lf-denial that has suffud Japane society ever since the Meiji era [...] in favour of a Western ideal has under-mined live-action film by affecting the performance of Japane screen ac-tors”. In a context in which Japane audiences find the dramatic emotions of Western-looking anime characters more credible than tho expresd
by
桃花源记 翻译Intervention in new amateur subtitling cultures 69 native actors in live-action films, “most of the rious and ambitious film efforts [in Japan] have ud the vehicle of anime” (ibid.).
Whilst anime subordinates cinematic naturalism to the arch for modernization, the aesthetics of this genre remain firmly anchored in Japa-ne idiosyncrasy. Pérez-González (2006) has recently argued for the cul-tural specificity of anime both as a narrating and a narrated culture. On the one hand, style markers such as “comic freeze-frames or elaborate tableau-like visual inrts” (ibid.) have rved as a springboard for the development of anime-specific narrative techniques and filmic syntactic conventions (Napier 2001), and hence led to the emergence of a unique narrating cul-ture. On the other hand, anime dialogues rely heavily on a plethora of genre-specific cultural references who interpretation requires the viewer’s familiarity not only with the Japane language but also with the narrated culture that embeds them. Overall, “the overlap between the narrated and the narrating cultures that characteris Japane animated films brings into a particularly sharp focus the role that the language-culture revolving door plays in the reception and enjoyment of the audiovisual products” (Pérez-González, 2006: 262-263).
2.1. The globalization of anime: implications for audiovisual translation The synthesis between “the global and the particular” (Minh-ha 2005: 40) which lies at the basis of anime films goes some way towards explaining their universal appeal. In a recent study on the emergence of the anime fan phenomenon or ‘fandom’ in the USA, Cubisson (2005) distinguishes three stages in the globalization of anime worldwide.
In the early 1970s, the USA audiovisual market witnesd the prolif-eration of children-oriented anime broadcast by the main television net-works. In the short term, the choice of dubbing to translate Japane anime led to changes in “the stories and characters [of the original films] to suit the perception of the tastes of American children and their parents”, the americanization of Japane names, and the removal of “elements of Japa-ne Culture” (2005: 52). However, halfway through that same decade, anime fans were already “aware of the extent to which the texts had been altered for American audiences” (op. cit.: 48) and t out to create the infra-structure required for the small-scale distribution of original versions of anime films outside Japan.
The advent of a cond generation of more sophisticated, adult-oriented anime in the early 80s coincided with the popularization of the home video technology, with anime soon growing into a popular market niche with home video retailers (Masters 2004: 44). This confluence of fac-tors provi
ded the final impetus for the spread of anime fandom. Fans de-manded their right to experience first hand the cultural ‘otherness’ that anime is imbued in and lobbied for the abandonment of dubbing as the de-fault translation modality for this genre. The engagement of fans in the ar-ticulation of their expectations – regarded by some specialists as a form of
Luis Pérez-González 70
resistance to Western popular culture (Newitz 1994) – soon pod impor-tant dilemmas for video distribution companies:
For a company to relea an anime on video-tape the company had to decide where the greater profit lay – among tho devoted fans who prized Japane audio tracks or among tho who preferred shows to be dubbed into their own languages. This commercial decision led to heated arguments among fans becau purchasing decisions of some fans affected availability of the alternative format for other fans.
hell什么意思(Cubisson 2005: 46)
The emergence of the DVD technology in the late 1990s marks the begin-ning of the third stage in th
e globalization of anime. With their capacity to accommodate multiple audio and subtitle tracks, DVDs enabled licend distribution companies to market professionally subtitled collections of anime films or ries that had been previously broadcast in dubbed form. But whilst fan communities worked hard at raising the distributors and re-tailers’ awareness of their expectations and preferences –so that the could inform the packaging of anime for commercial DVD relea – professional subtitles proved insufficient to quench the fans’ thirst for the fullest and most authentic experience of ‘japaneness’. Mainstream subtitling is a modality who limitations have been widely discusd in the literature. Trapped within the bounds of practices and conventions derived from the “hegemony of synchronous sound and the strict alignment of speaker and voice” in mainstream audiovisual products (Naficy 2001: 24), professional subtitlers have traditionally had little room for manoeuvre when dealing with the prence of ‘otherness’ in the source text. As attested by a growing body of scholarship, commercial subtitling practices are widely held to fos-ter cultural and linguistic standardization (Díaz Cintas 2005). For anime fans, the domestication of Japane culture and the ensuing dilution of the genre’s idiosyncrasy that commercial subtitling brought about was unac-ceptable (Carroll 2005) and would soon lead to the emergence of a new and influential mode of linguistic, cultural and miotic mediation known as fansubbing.
2.2. The role of technology in the empowerment of amateur subtitlers Fansubs are subtitled versions of anime that fans (amateur subtitlers) pro-duce primarily to express their disagreement with commercial subtitling practices and to impo linguistic and cultural mediation strategies of their own. Fansubbers, who work on a voluntary basis and without remuneration, aim thus to deliver tailored subtitled texts to a carefully profiled and neatly targeted audience that they themlves are part of. Additionally, fansubbed versions ek to “make minor films (that go unnoticed by the major distri-bution companies) more widely available to non-Japane speakers; to have minor films noticed, and hopefully redistributed, by the major companies;
washburnIntervention in new amateur subtitling cultures 71 and to make available a subtitled version where only a dubbed version ex-
ists” (Kayahara 2005).
There are a number of reasons why the fansubbing phenomenon has
managed to improve accessibility to a hitherto non-mainstream (and non-
Western) form of entertainment without concerning itlf with profitability
targets. Although fansubbed copies of anime were already available in VHS
and commercial lardisc formats back in the 1980s (Cubisson 2005: 48),
the expansion of fansubbing networks has gone hand in hand with the in-
creasingly widespread availability of information and communication tech-
nologies. In the era of digitization, such technologies provide networks of
veral造句fansubbers with the tools and avenues required for (i) the appropriation of
anime texts by literally ‘ripping’ audio and video captures of films and pro-
grammes they do not hold the copyright to2; (ii) the manipulation of footage
in pursuit of their mediation agenda; and (iii) the widespread dismination
of fansubbed products through dedicated channels that allow for hundreds
of thousands of downloads by fans worldwide within the next few hours
after a programme has been made available online (Henry 2006)3.
In the light of the above, it ems reasonable to argue that fansubbing
epitomizes a peculiar form of comprehensive intervention in the traditional618是什么意思
dynamics of the audiovisual marketplace bad on a combination of singu-
lar circumstances. Firstly, fansubber networks act effectively as lf-
appointed translation commissioners that choo what is to be subtitled;
condly, their mediating task is informed by their status as connoisurs of
the needs and preferences of their target audience, whom they ultimately
reprent (Díaz Cintas and Muñoz-Sánchez 2006); finally, most consumers
of fansubs are highly computer literate, capable of processing screen-bad
information with relative ea, and hence more predispod to accept new
developments in subtitling practice –such as the ones outlined by Díaz-
Cintas (2005). On account of this confluence of factors, amateur subtitling
grants fansubbers an unlimited degree of latitude that manifests itlf in the
subversion of a number of consolidated practices from mainstream subti-
tling.4
The conventions ud in amateur subtitling of anime were first ac-
counted for by Nornes (1999: 32), and later described in more detail by Fer-
rer-Simó (2005) and Díaz Cintas & Muñoz-Sánchez (2006). More recently,
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Pérez-González (2006) has provided a more extensive corpus-bad over-
view of fansubbing practices which I can be summarized as follows: •First, fansubbers experiment with a wide range of fonts and type-faces to ensure that “the visual styling of subtitles is compatible with
寻找我的钱包the aesthetics” of the frame/s that requires translation, “thus eking
to maximi the viewer’s enjoyment of the original miotic re-
sources while minimising the mediator’s intrusion” (ibid.).ginger
•Second, fansubbers rely on the principle of speaker-colour associa-tion – a well established convention in subtitling for the hard of hear-ing; changes in subtitle colour are also ud to signify shifts in “ma-
