Importance and main relational aspects of Subtitling In Translation World

Generally subtitles are the textual versions of a dialog or commentary in films, television programs or in video games. These are usually displayed at the bottom of the screen of any electronic device. The importance of subtitles is extensively increasing day by day in translation world. The subtitles are found in many forms like a form of written translation of a dialog in a foreign language or a written representation of the dialog in the same language etc.

At present subtitling is become an important field of translation which includes dubbing, voiceover and audio description. Subtitle translation has become very popular and ultimately more important more than ever. Initially we use subtitles in movies only. But in this digital era, almost everything in audio and video format is subtitled. It helps to the deaf viewers who are hard-of-hearing to follow the dialog. It also helps the people who cannot understand the spoken dialogue.

The process of subtitling is to add text in the form of subtitles to a video which are timed to match the dialogue on the video. It is a complex process of adaptation of dialogues to a written text within a whole set of parameters including space limits, rhythm of speech, register and many more. As a result the content of the dialogue has to be cut down to fit in the subtitles. Sometimes the content has to be translated and the subtitles also have to be ‘spotted’ or timed carefully to match the dialogue. A best subtitling would depend on the appropriate changes in sentence, language structure and effective cuts. One must need to have a real art to create subtitles. So, it is necessary to take lots of training and practice to become an efficient subtitler.

The uses of subtitles are expanded in various fields like business, online marketing, advertisement, multimedia etc. Though subtitling and subtitle translation is very much hopeful field for a person it is facing some problems which are preventing the expansion of the market. Therefore it hinders new business opportunities to arise cost, time and quality.

Now we can say that subtitles are very much important part of translation world. As any linguist enhance its areas as subtitling and interpretation. These are interlinked with translation. Subtitling is not a new area. But it has become a very significant part of translation. So, recently subtitling and audio-visual translation have been recognized as the areas that could greatly get benefit from the introduction Statistical MT Techniques (SMT) followed by post-editing techniques to increase productivity and enhance the quality of the results. The future of subtitles is so much hopeful.