This PhD is presented through a compendium of publications which follows the progression and results from the research conducted. Three articles constitute the main body of this work and are now presented and contextualised.
1.1.1 “All Together Now: A multi-language and multi-system mobile application to make live performing arts accessible” JosTrans 20: "Image, Music, Text…?"
Translating Multimodalities, July 2013.
The first article portrays how accessibility services for the Scenic Arts are being increasingly required by European Directives. Yet, many barriers still make accessibility an almost utopian ideal. Recent technological developments, such as second screens, may be the way to improve and introduce access to live performances, and this is the subject of this paper.
The aim of this paper is to first present the many challenges that exist in a live production where synchronous accessibility should be provided. It then presents the system – Universal Access System (UAS) — which is a top-down solution to deliver accessibility services for live performances via a mobile application.
This article was submitted in April 2012, and its acceptance was confirmed by the publisher in February 2013.
1.1.2 “The tyranny of the tool: Surtitling for the scenic arts” Perspectives:
Studies in Translatology, May 2013.
The following article provides a revision of the existing bibliography in the field of AVT for the Scenic Arts, particularly surtitling for theatre and opera. Most of the
literature in this field mainly focuses on the translation process of the surtitles, providing a descriptive approach from a professional point of view without examining the external aspects that may determine the final text displayed on the screen.
Central to this paper is, first, to define the external aspects involved in the creation and broadcasting processes of the surtitles, namely, theatre and opera venues. Second, to analyse the current surtitling practices of stage performances.
Third, to analyse and compare commercially available software programmes according to genre and considering the technical parameters proposed by Bartoll 2008. The paper concludes with a reflection on the multiple accessibility solutions that second screens, like the UAS System, could offer to stage performances.
This article was submitted in September 2012, and its acceptance was confirmed by the publisher in March 2013.
1.1.3 “The Process of Subtitling at Film Festivals: Death in Venice?”
International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, August 2013.
International Film Festivals are a specific form of multimodal translation where, like in stage performances, the AVT practices are highly dependent on the venue and technologies available. Therefore, these venues could also be considered for the implementation of the UAS system.
The aim of this paper is to study the features of the subtitling practice at international film festivals. It takes stock of audiovisual translation practices conducted at festivals to date and raises questions about new challenges inherent to the subtitling practice due to the turn of the film industry towards digitization.
Additionally, new platforms like the Internet and their effect on subtitling are presented and discussed in the context of new audiences demands such as accessibility. Secondly, the major problematic issues involved in the creation of subtitles for such events providing a critical analysis are analysed. Finally, questions related to the digitization of films and the implications for the subtitling practices will be addressed. The paper concludes with a look into future research.
This article was submitted in July 2013, and its acceptance was confirmed by the publisher in August 2013.
Additionally, the following pieces of research are attached as an annex:
1.1.4 “Lavoro in corso: Accessibility at the Venice Film Festival”.
This 20 minutes multilingual documentary is based on the past, present and future of the subtitling practice at the Venice Film Festival, which was founded in 1932 under the Mussolini’s dictatorship and is the oldest festival of its kind in the world. In 2012 the Venice Film Festival celebrated its 69th edition, but most importantly its 80th anniversary (1932-2012), which we considered as a remarkable date to create a 20 minutes documentary. It was recorded between August 29th and September 2nd, 2012. The aim was to provide an insight into the technological developments that have been introduced to the subtitling practice at this festival from the beginning.
Therefore, the participation of international professionals from the film industry in such an event was crucial in order to gather information about the creation, reception and perception of the subtitles at an International Film Festival from all angles: film industry, subtitling industry and audience. Within this context, interviews with the following professionals were carried out:
-‐ Federico Spoletti (Sub-Ti) General director of the company responsible for the subtitling at the Venice Film Festival.
-‐ Valentina Ajello (Sub-Ti) Subtitler at the Venice Film Festival.
-‐ Jaime Pena (Cahiers du cinema) Cinema critic -‐ David Martos (Canal Plus) Cinema critic
-‐ Alfonso del Amo (Filmoteca Española) Restoration and reproduction responsible.
-‐ Dom Elliot (Youtube and Google) UK product marketing manager.
-‐ David Victori (Filmmaker) winner of the Your Film Festival section at the Venice Film Festival.
-‐ Martin Samper (No hay banda) Producer and Director from Spain -‐ Interventions from the general audience attending the screenings.
Aiming to analyse the effect of digitization on the subtitling practice, the documentary presents a retrospective of the subtitling process at the Venice Film Festival. The subtitling company Sub-Ti has been used as a reference to outline
‘how’ the subtitling practice is delivered nowadays. In addition, new tendencies such as Internet platforms have been analysed in order to expose the new challenges that the subtitling practice could be facing in the future.
The documentary was screened in September 2013 at the 5th Media for All Conference held in Dubrovnik.
1.1.5 “Accessibilitat als mitjans de comunicació: el Reparlat”. Accaps Revista 46, January 2012.
This article was published in the Catalan language in the ACCAPS (Catalan Association for Deaf Parents and People) magazine.
Rendering real-time live events, such as conferences and meetings, accessible to deaf and hearing-impaired audiences is becoming increasingly possible in all countries, mainly thanks to the advances made in speech recognition technologies. But in the case of minority languages such as Catalan, no commercial speech recognition programme is still available in the market. Therefore, stenography-based technologies are used. However, nowadays the lack of professional stenographers is becoming an increasing problem. This restricted accessibility of information to Catalan-speaking deaf and hearing-impaired audiences is in part due to the lack of available technologies in minority languages.
The article describes the solutions proposed by the CaiaC research group to solve both linguistic and technological aspects of the problem. Firstly, it introduces speech recognition in the Catalan language developed in order to overcome the linguistic barriers. Secondly, it presents the solutions proposed to solve the technological barriers. Finally, it exposes the ongoing live captioning project implemented at the Aula Magna at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.
The system was presented in March 2013 at the 4th International Symposium on Live Subtitling held in Barcelona.
1.1.6 Review: “La subtitulació. Aspectes teòrics i pràctics”. Bartoll, Eduard (2012). JosTrans 18: Special issue on Terminology, Phraseology and Translation, July 2012.
This book offers an updated classification of subtitles from a multidimensional perspective. It consists of ten chapters and the structure is from general to specific, providing first an overview of the audiovisual text, its characteristics and different modalities. Then, it proposes a classification of subtitles and their application depending on the AV product. Additionally, the book also takes stock of the recent technologies that are opening up new fields of research into AVT and into subtitling in particular.
The main purpose of the book is to provide guidance for subtitling research and practice with a didactic approach.
This review was submitted in April 2012, and its acceptance was confirmed by the publisher in June 2012.
1.1.7 Review: “Qualitätsparameter beim Simultandolmetschen Interdisziplinäre Perspektiven”. Collados Aís A.; Iglesias Fernández, E.; Pradas Mecías E. M.; &
E.Stévaux (Eds.) . (2011). JosTrans 18: Special issue on Terminology, Phraseology and Translation, July 2012.
This book aims to describe quality assessment in simultaneous interpreting by using a multidisciplinary approach. Within this context, the parameters considered belong to different disciplines, such as Linguistics, Psychology, Foreign Language Studies, Speech Therapy and Media Studies.
Considering that simultaneous interpreting is closely related to the respeaking practice, this book could be also very useful for professionals, researchers, academics, as well as students related to the respeaking practice.
This review was submitted in April 2012, and its acceptance was confirmed by the publisher in June 2012.