The Story behind Subtitles on Your Screens

⊙ By Nina Porzucki ⊙ 翻译：丁一

听力难度

英美发音 适合泛听语速：155词/分钟

学习指南针这一篇讲述电影字幕发展的文章原本是一个电台节目。全文分两个部分，前半部分介绍电影字幕的诞生，并强调了字幕翻译的专业性，为后半部分作铺垫，后半部分是重点，讲述字幕翻译在互联网时代的发展。文章内容并不复杂，听时只要把握这条主线就不会有太大的问题。

文章的关键词当然是subtitle，文中还有不少相关的衍生词：

subtitle n. 字幕 subtitle v. 翻译字幕

subtitler n. 字幕翻译者 sub v. 翻译字幕

subber n. 字幕翻译者

一年一度的奥斯卡盛典又到了，正忙着看获奖电影和提名电影的你是否留意过影片的字幕呢？你知道吗，其实外语电影字幕的诞生并不比电影本身晚多少，而默片的字幕还更早些。在当今的互联网时代，电影字幕也与许多事物一样，正发生着天翻地覆的变化。

In the beginning there was light, a little music and subtitles, technically called1)intertitles. I’m talking the beginnings of the 20th century, during the silent era of moviemaking, when an image really spoke a thousand words and intertitles were used2)sparinglyto explain action, and dialogue,and3)exposition.

And then, the4)talkiescame. But while Al Jolson’s voice in The Jazz Singer did away with the need for the intertitle to do all of that explaining, The Jazz Singer became the first film to need translating. In fact, it was the first film to officially use foreign language subtitles when it opened in Paris in 1929.

And in the 80-plus years since, subtitling has gone from a necessity to an art.John Miller(Subtitler): People aren’t supposed to notice subtitles, if we’re doing our job properly. The ideal situation is when they are not even aware that they’re reading subtitles.

John Miller makes a living as a subtitler in Paris, where he went to school to learn the art of subtitling. And he’s been at it for 20 years translating French films into English.

1) intertitle [ɪntзː（r）΄taɪt（ə）l] n. 间幕

2) sparingly [΄speərɪŋlɪ] adv. 节俭地，保守地

3) exposition [ekspəʊ΄zɪʃ（ə）n] n. 说明，讲解

4) talkie [΄tɔːkɪ] n. <口>有声电影

“People can read an average of 12 characters a second,” says Miller. And a subtitler has about two or more seconds to5)relayeverything being said to the audience and within those 24 characters, the subtitler not only has to translate what’s being said, but all of the complexities of everyday speech:6)puns, jokes, word play.Sometimes you get lucky and expressions easily translate from one language to another. But sometimes, says Miller, an expression gets lost in translation. This happens all the time.

So like I said, subititling is an art and a profession, but increasingly this art is7)undergoinganother8)evolution,or should I say revolution, of its own. Just like when sound came and turned moviemaking upside down, the9)digitizationof film and TV has10)upendedthe subtitling industry. Digital media has allowed people from around the world to access more content, more quickly. And more content means more subtitles, right?

Enter VIKI, just one of several online11)crowd-sourcedsubtitling platforms.Subtitlers submit translations for12)peerreview, the crowd13)evaluates the translations,voting things up and down.

VIKI14)licensedTV shows and movies from around the world—Korean dramas,Colombian soaps, Japanese15)anime—and then put them online so fans from around the world can subtitle them.

Razmig Hovaghimian(VIKI CEO): I got now into 200 languages, about 700 million words translated by fans—for free.

16)Catchthat? Subtitles translated for free. So just who are these fan subbers doing the work for free? They’re teachers, doctors,lawyers, grandmothers, people like you and me, says Razmig.

Patricia Pon: My name is Patricia Pon. I am an early17)retiree.

And a Cantonese speaker and the translator of more than 200,000 subtitles.

“Why?” I asked Patricia. Because she got fed up with bad translations.

Would a retiree translate a Hong Kong18)gangster 19)flickthe same way a teenager?Does it matter? No, according to Razmig,that’s the beauty of the crowd. Subtitles are20)vettedand21)editedby many. And then the content can quickly be consumed by many more. And these22)rapidtranslations have led the globalization of film and TV at23)hyperspeed in rather unexpected places.

Razmig: We had Egyptian movies that were doing great in24)Dutch. We have Korean movies that are doing25)phenomenal in Saudi Arabia.It’s actually our number one country for it.

While professional subtitler John Miller isn’t worried about being “crowded out” of his profession26)per se,he and his fellow English-language subtitlers in Paris have felt the squeeze from27)studios.

John:It is a professional job. You wouldn’t necessarily want to have crowd-sourced28)surgeons or crowd-sourced29)mechanics.While what we do isn’t life or death, I think it is to the30)detrimentof the films that they’re being done by people who, they’re certainly not professionals.

Certainly, Patricia Pon and her fan-subbing31)palsaren’t claiming to be professionals. And the subtitles you’ll be reading at your local art house theatre aren’t the crowd-sourced kind—at least not yet.

5) relay [riː΄leɪ] v. 传递，传达

6) pun [pʌn] n. 双关语

7) undergo [ʌndə΄ɡəʊ] v. 经历，遭受

8) evolution [evə΄luːʃ（ə）n] n. 进化，演化

9) digitization [ˌdɪdʒɪtaɪ΄zeɪʃən] n. [计]数字化

10) upend [ʌp΄end] v. 颠倒

11) crowd-sourced [΄kraʊdˌsɔːsd] adj. 众包的

12) peer [pɪə（r）] n. 同辈，同行

13) evaluate [ɪ΄væljʊeɪt] v. 评价，评估

14) license [΄laɪsəns] v. 许可，准许

15) anime [΄ænɪmeɪ] n. （日本）动画片

16) catch [kætʃ] v. 听到，理解

17) retiree [rɪˌtaɪə΄riː] n. 退休人员

18) gangster [΄ɡæŋstə] n. 黑帮分子

19) flick [flɪk] n. <口>电影

20) vet [vet] v. 审查，修正

21) edit [΄edɪt] v. 编辑，剪辑

22) rapid [΄ræpɪd] adj. 迅速的

23) hyper [΄haɪpə（r）] adj. 过度的

24) Dutch [dʌtʃ] n. 荷兰语

25) phenomenal [fɪ΄nɒmɪnəl] adj. 出众的

26) per se 本身，本质上

27) studio [΄stuːdɪəʊ] n. 电影制片厂

28) surgeon [΄sзːdʒ（ə）n] n. 外科医生

29) mechanic [mɪ΄kænɪk] n. 机械工，机修工

30) detriment [΄detrɪmənt] n. 损害，伤害，破坏

31) pal [pæl] n. 伙伴参考译文

一开始有了光，后来有一点点音乐和几行字幕，严格来说叫“间幕”——我讲的是20世纪初无声电影的时代。那个时候真的是一图胜千言，只有为数不多的间幕对片中人物动作、对话和内容作说明。

随后，有声电影出现了。尽管影片《爵士歌手》中阿尔·乔尔森的歌声使得作各种说明的间幕毫无用武之地，该片成了第一部需要翻译的电影。事实上，该片1929年在巴黎上映时，成了第一部正式使用外语字幕的影片。

在随后的80多年里，字幕从一种必需品发展成了一门艺术。

约翰·米勒（字幕翻译员）：如果我们的字幕翻译确实做得出色，观众是不该注意到字幕的。最理想的状态是观众并没有意识到自己在看字幕。

生活在巴黎的约翰·米勒以翻译字幕维生，他曾在巴黎上学，专门学习字幕翻译这门艺术，至今，把法语电影翻译成英语这活计，他已经干了20年了。

“人平均可以在一秒钟内读12个字，”米勒如是说。一个字幕翻译员要在大概两秒钟内把演员的台词传达给观众，而就在这24个字里，字幕翻译员不仅要把台词翻译出来，还要把日常对话中的复杂性体现出来，包括双关语、笑话、文字游戏等。有的时候，译员会很幸运地碰上可以轻易从一种语言译成另一种语言的词语。但米勒说，有时候，一个词组会在翻译时失去了本意。这种事经常发生。

所以正如我说，字幕翻译这个工作是一门艺术、一项专门技能。不过，这门艺术正经历着一场巨变，或者应该说是它自身的一场革命吧。正如当初有声电影的出现给电影业带来了一场天翻地覆的变化一样，电影和电视的数字化也正颠覆着字幕翻译这一行当。数字媒体让全世界的人可以更快地获得更多的内容，而更多的内容就意味着对更多字幕的需求，对吧？

维奇网站出现了，它只不过是多个采取在线众包字幕翻译模式的平台之一。字幕翻译员在此提交翻译稿供同行评估，网民对翻译进行点评，投支持或否决票。

维奇网站从世界各地获取电视节目和电影的授权——包括韩剧、哥伦比亚肥皂剧和日本动画片等——然后把它们放到网上，让全世界的粉丝为它们配字幕。

拉兹米格·霍瓦吉米安（维奇网总裁）：我们这儿现在已经有粉丝们用200种语言翻译的约七亿字的内容，全部是免费的。

听明白了吗？字幕翻译员是免费进行字幕翻译的。那免费干活的都是些什么人呢？拉兹米格说，他们是老师、医生、律师、众多奶奶外婆等，许许多多跟你我一样的人。

帕特里夏·鲍：我叫帕特里夏·鲍，我是一名提前退休人员。

她讲粤语，已经翻译了20万行字幕。

“你为什么这么做呢？”我问帕特里夏，因为她受够了那些翻得很烂的字幕。

一名退休人士与一个青少年会用同样的方式翻译一部香港黑帮电影吗？这种区别重要吗？按拉兹米格的说法，这并不重要，因为这正是众包的美妙之处。大家一起审查、修改字幕，然后内容迅速地被更多的人享用。这种快速翻译模式以极快的速度，给许多人们意想不到的地方送去了电影和电视节目的全球化。拉兹米格：有些埃及电影的荷兰语版很受欢迎，有些韩国电影在沙特阿拉伯取得惊人的成绩——在我们的网站上，沙特阿拉伯实际上是韩国电影最受欢迎的国家。

尽管像约翰·米勒这样的专业字幕翻译员并不担心自己被众包的翻译模式挤出市场，但他与其他在巴黎的英语字幕翻译员确实也感觉到了来自电影厂的压力。约翰：这是一项需要专业技能的工作。你不会愿意接受众包的外科医生或者机械工。尽管我们做的不是什么生死攸关的工作，但如果字幕翻译由一些显然没有专门技能的人来做，这就会给电影业带来损失。

毫无疑问，帕特里夏·鲍与她那些给字幕做翻译的伙伴们并不认为自己是专业的字幕翻译者。而你在本地电影院里看到的外国影片的字幕翻译肯定不是由众包模式完成的——至少目前还不是。