What happens when your audience is constantly reminded that your work is a translation, and your words are only a small part of a much bigger picture of meaning? This heightened level of transparency adds an interesting dimension when it comes to translating for subtitles.

Dr Jing Han is a Chief Subtitler at SBS TV, Australia’s extraordinary multilingual and multicultural public broadcasting service. Her paper on cross-lingual & cross-cultural communication in subtitling at the recent AUSIT Conference made us all reflect on how we facilitate the transfer of meaning between cultures. [Read more…]