Review of Reception Studies and Audiovisual Translation (2018)

Luis Damián MORENO GARCÍA

Beijing Foreign Studies University

Reception Studies and Audiovisual Translation, edited by Elena Di Giovanni and Yves Gambier (2018) is part of the Benjamins Translation Library series. This book revolves around the reception of audiovisual and accessible media texts from the multidisciplinary perspectives of reception, film, translation, and cultural media studies.

The volume begins with an introduction by Elena Di Giovanni and Yves Gambier. It includes a map of the development of AVT over the past three decades, stating that reception is nowadays steadily coming to the fore in academic research. The publication is then split into four parts: 1) definition of reception studies, 2) methodologies used to cover reception, 3) reception research in different AVT modalities, and 4) reception of hybrid media by new audiences.

1. Defining reception studies

The first section includes three articles which discuss previous reception research mainly from disciplines outside translation and audiovisual translation studies, including media studies and film studies.

From media studies, Annette Hill initiates the discussion by addressing how three paradigms by Abercrombie and Longhurst (1998), namely “behavioural paradigm”, “active model of audiences”, and “spectacle-performance”, have evolved to include a mixture of methods and sites. Precisely, the researcher encourages others to “make the human side of audience research centre stage” (Hill, 2018, p. 18) through a multi-method, multi-dimensional approach that uses both qualitative and quantitative tools such as ratings, social media, interviews, big data, as well as visual, verbal, and aural elements.

This article mainly provides research on transnational audiences via a case study of an audiovisual collaborative project between Denmark and Sweden, in which qualitative data was obtained through interviews and observations of executives and fans in both physical and virtual environments. In the conclusion section, the concept of identity by Hall (1996) is suggested when performing reception research, considering changing audiences as “always moving towards a future self that is made up of past and present experiences” (Hill, 2018, p. 18).

Daniel Biltereyst and Philippe Meers review different strands within cinema and film reception studies, including exhibition, reception, social composition and discourses, and cinema-going as social practice. The review begins with a historical perspective that goes back to the beginning of the 20thcentury and reaches present times. From 1960 onwards, with the advent of film studies as an academic discipline, some central contributions have been the following: the concepts of “viewer agency” and “identity” from cultural studies, the conception of the “male gaze” cinema from feminist film theory, the empiricallyoriented historical turn brought by new film history and new cinema history, the proposition of a rational viewer as active meaning maker with mental sets or schemata by cognitive film theory, and the politicaleconomic work on film audiences, including audience control and surveillance. The main conclusions found by the authors are that audiences are still considered social media users and that reception studies presents a broader spectrum of methods and research objects. As a conclusion, the authors encourage bottom-up perspectives on audiences’ audiovisual experiences so as to provide novel insights.

Yves Gambier reviews reception in Translation Studies literature. He states that translation has always been considered “social”, but reading and readers were first taken into consideration by Nida (1964), who measured the quality of a translation according to the reader’s response, followed by scholars such as Lefevere (1992) with the acceptance or rejection of literary texts, Chesterman (1993) dealing with expectancy and production norms, or Scott (2012), covering the translator’s perceptual reading experience. Reception has been a key element especially from the perspectives of Skopos theory, which considers translations adequate according to the readership intended (Reiss & Vermeer, 2014), relevance theory, which deals with the functional needs and cultural expectations of the target reader (Gutt, 2000), and polysystem theory, which covers supra-individual reception of translated texts and its canonization (Even-Zohar, 1990).

Gambier also proposes hermeneutic and aesthetic concepts such as “hermeneutic circle” (to know new things you have to know parts of them), “horizon of knowledge” (fusion of horizons when comprehending), “horizon of expectations” (cultural norms that shape our understanding), “textual gap” (inferable data from the schematic structure), as well as ideal reader (the director’s intended reader), implied reader (the translator’s intended reader), and empirical reader (the real reader) to help develop reception studies in AVT.

Gambier recommends Chaume’s (2004) scheme of semiotic codes to classify different audiovisual genres and draws our attention towards the myriad of variables caused by different viewers, emphasizing the deaf and hard of hearing, and the blind. He stresses the frequently forgotten subtypes inside these basic classifications and the fact that technology can solve the needs of these audiences through subtitling and dubbing variations. He also guides us towards new formats and types of AV genres while highlighting the importance of accessibility.

The scholar continues by dividing reception into three types, namely response or perceptual decoding, reaction or readability, and repercussion or attitudinal issues, also providing some advice when performing empirical research in AVT reception. When probing viewers, researchers may resort to surveys, questionnaires, interviews, group discussions, experimental methods, and controlled experimental procedures. When focusing on translators, scholars could opt for observation, interviewing, TAP, and eye tracking; and when looking into the output, corpus and content analysis are recommended.

Once some related concepts such as language policy, censorship, self-censorship, and translation quality are presented, Gambier indicates some of the future trends, including user-centred translation and cross-pollinations with other disciplines such as Internet studies and Web science.

2. Methodology in reception studies and audiovisual translation

The second section contains 4 articles and addresses key methodologies in viewer-oriented research, including multi-method research, triangulation, pragmatics and discourse approaches.

Tiina Tuominen follows Gambier’s classification on audiovisual translations, namely response, reaction, and repercussion, to deal with multi-method research on reception. She divides the exploration of viewers’ understandings and attitudes into reaction and repercussion-level studies.

In the reaction part, the author delves into specific studies that have used questionnaires and interviews to analyse viewers’ interpretations of and attitudes towards translated content as a whole, and those only covering specific aspects of the text, such as humour and cultural references.

The repercussion part includes a review of research covering attitudes and approaches towards translated audiovisual products in general, with no specific viewing/reading experiences. It is stated that reaction studies help understand “how viewers relate to subtitled programmes and make sense of them”, while repercussion studies provide an “understanding of the role of audiovisual translations in society, media and culture” (Tuominen, 2018, p. 77).

After exploring the significance and limitations of questionnaires in reception research, the scholar covers new research methods. She proposes focus groups to obtain contextualised, qualitative information through group interaction, the concept of “usability” to consider the translation as a tool to be used, and user-centred translation to explore the feelings and experiences of viewers, besides their textual reception.

In the last section, the author recommends collaborative research designs, larger projects involving greater numbers of participants, as well as innovative approaches that take into account different variables such as translation quality, audiovisual genre, or technology in order to bypass the limitations of individual studies.

Jan-Louis Krugeri and Stephen Doherty propose triangulation, a technique used to cross-validate data from different sources, to investigate the cognitive processing of audiovisual translation products through physiological, psychometric, and performance measures. These measures include self-report questionnaires (cognitive effort), attitudinal data (preferences and reception), performance measures (comprehension or recall tests), and online measures (eye tracking measures, heart rate). The authors focus on methods relating to immersion, cognitive load, and attention allocation and divide these into two categories, offline and online. Offline measures include those of comprehension, recalling and learning, cognitive load and immersion. Online measures include eye tracking (there is a comprehensive overview of researchers that have used eye tracking in AVT research) and electroencephalography. Finally, the authors contend that more interdisciplinary research combining tightly-controlled experimental research with real-world, ecologically-valid studies is needed.

Roberto A. Valdeón explores pragmatic, discourse, and multimodal approaches to AVT as he believes these kinds of interactions could prove beneficial for reception studies. The section covering discourse analysis provides extensive sources on corpus linguistics, translation universals, language errors, multilingual scripts and single multimodal products, in different languages or language pairs.

The pragmatics section includes studies that resort to approaches from authors such as Grice, Searle, Sperber and Wilson, or Fowler to study relationships between characters (Greenall, 2009; Guillot, 2010), pragmatic and multimodal elements (Desilla, 2014), and humor (Antonini, 2005). Other approaches touched upon are imagology, as well as critical or socio-cognitive methods.

Multimodality, even though it may lead to sketchy or incomplete analyses due to its complexity, may prove useful to study the different layers (linguistic, visual, music, camera effects) of audiovisual texts, an approach that has already been used to study voice pitch, voice quality, humour, and linguistic landscapes. The author points out future areas of research such as opera and news texts, the interplay between verbal and visual elements, and the interaction between the various agents involved in translation, also mentioning that reception studies on screen humour are still scant.

Zanotti reviews translation as performance starting with the role of the lecturer in silent films, to the oral commentary for Soviet films during the 1920s and 1930s and the live commentary in Belgian Congo after World War II. The researcher considers the viewers as creatures of habit. She discusses a few cases: 1) The reception of Hollywood movies faced challenges in France, until dubbing techniques in the early 1930s were introduced; 2) Dubbing was chosen because of the high degree of illiteracy in Italy, among other factors; 3) Dubbing was initially not accepted by the audience in Germany, but a process of “habituation” slowly took place; 4) In the case of the U.S. and the UK, these countries avoided dubbing foreign films, and considered them as a different market, showing how translation can shape the reception of foreign-language films. The author points out that finding reliable sources in historical reception research may turn problematic. She recommends press reviews, box-office figures, trade journals, industry and press surveys, industry internal reports, and diplomatic correspondence. She also proposes oral history methods, interviews with viewers and translators, written memories of previous translators, viewers’ comments and letters to the editor, and web responses (reviews, commentaries, and debates), among other sources.

Areas of future research recommended by Zannoti are the role of AVT in the circulation and reception of foreign-language films, the reception of translated films and television programmes by target audiences and critics, historical patterns of reception still traceable, and the possible direction of reception by translators. She states that a multi-method approach will help the researcher see the combination and interrelation of contextual factors such as marketing and distribution strategies, exhibition practices, critical discourse, and cultural-political decisions. The article finishes by developing greater awareness of the role of AVT in film and genre reception and popularity, stating that audiovisual translation in historical reception studies is central and parallel to promotion, exhibition, and consumption.

3. AVT modalities and reception studies

The third section studies the needs, priorities, and preferences of the end-viewers from different AVT modalities, including dubbing, interlingual subtitling, live subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and audio-description.

Elena Di Giovanni addresses approaches, tools, and methods which can be used for reception-centred dubbing research. Her literature review covers research published over the past 15 years and starts with an overview of Western studies research from 2002. The author states that not many non-Western studies are available in English, only mentioning Ugochukwu (2013) on Nigerian films and Ameri, Khoshsaligheh, and Khazaee Farid (2015) on reception of dubbing in Iran. She points out that all previous studies have been largely of a descriptive and comparative nature and affirms that these could gain strength by adding comprehension and appreciation methodologies covering press and viewers.

When dealing with methodologies and tools for dubbing research, Di Giovanni asserts that quantitative research on the consumption of translated audiovisual texts is undeniably difficult to perform. On the other hand, qualitative research suffers from lower credibility, but the tools and methods available are multifarious. The author recommends starting with a clear-cut definition of research questions and hypotheses, as well as sound sampling procedures and well-identified target groups.

Di Giovanni considers effects and audience two perspectives worth researching. The first one centres on what media does to individuals and vice versa and is quantified according to consumption parameters such as attention spans and memory. The study of the audience can be performed by age, gender, education, type and extent of knowledge, and type of engagement classifications among other classifications. The author mentions that future studies could involve researching the effects of violent content on the public of original and dubbed content. In addition, Di Giovanni points out that no study has so far focused primarily on memory reconstruction of original and dubbed audiovisual texts.

Kristijan Nikolić deals with research related to interlingual subtitling with English as the main source language of audiovisual media. He raises the concerns that reception studies can be time-consuming and costly and that the ideal viewer is an imaginary construct. Even though translation scholars are benefiting from theoretical and methodological contributions of other disciplines and are embracing technologies such as eye tracking, the author believes there is some struggling with the interpretation of the raw data. Getting a representative sample of viewers is another challenge, not to mention the relativity of results that vary due to the age, the knowledge of source language and viewing habits, among other variables.

Nikolić suggests that areas worth researching are viewers’ perception of reductions, subtitle position, subtitle colour, the vulnerability of subtitles, the tempo of appearance or disappearance, ideal reading speed, learning foreign cultures through interlingual subtitles, and picture-subtitle interactions. Also, even though some authors such as d’Ydewalle and Van de Poel (1999) and Borghetti and Letorla (2014) assessed that watching subtitles with the original audio and creating subtitles may improve language learning, the author considers that lengthier, cross-national, more comprehensive studies are required to obtain solid evidence on this issue.

Pablo Romero-Fresco covers the captioning or subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing (SDH). Ventures started in the 1950s in the United States and reached Europe in the late 70s, but the author states that these professional developments were preceded or accompanied by reception research. In the 1970s some studies provided first evidence supporting the use of captions over other forms of accessibility. US TV in the 1980s led to the first large-scale research studies on user habits and preferences and the educational value of captions. In 1990s, research focused on an increasing number of variables and user preferences (age, timing, speed, use of colour and displacement, complexity, re-reading, quality). The 2000s welcomed eye-tracking studies and the development of more variables (programme genre, the degree of hearing loss, emotive captions, caption rate, reduction, hearing status and reading level, block subtitles versus scrolling subtitles). Most research adopted a descriptive and, to a lesser extent, cultural approach. From 2010, there have been a higher number of experimental studies with clear-cut objects of study, more professional use of eye-tracking, and some studies on live SDH mode of display and subtitle speed. The author asks for a closer collaboration between researchers working on captions in the US and those working on SDH elsewhere and highlights positive borrowing from other disciplines.

Elena Di Giovanni addresses audio description (AD) for the blind and partially sighted (B&PS). The first regular AD service was provided in Spanish cinemas in the 1940s and from the 1970s audio description began to appear in several countries, with particular emphasis in North America. Advocacy efforts towards expanded provision and quality improvement of AD, such as the World Blind Union (WBU) started taking place. The author stresses the distinction between in-presence and remote studies that can be performed online. The latter can be done by email, on social media, by post or over the phone, but presents higher numbers of dropouts. Another essential distinction is the difference between studies conducted with the blind and partially sighted only or those combined with sighted individuals.

Di Giovanni presents four research strands. In the first “what-to-describe strand”, reception studies are the most numerous, focusing on what visual information should be transformed into aural information. The second, “psychology-based type”, has covered the notion of presence, the impact of sound effects in the film on presence ratings, AD style and creativity. The third, “alternative routes”, includes the use of text-to-speech technologies as a replacement for studio recording and speech-to-text and text-to-speech technologies and their reception. The fourth one, the “inclusive strand”, comprises the reception of AD as part of wider entertainment experiences, and considers audio description an element of museum accessibility and education. The author finally calls for fine-tuning methodologies, adapting research tools and fostering collaboration and true interdisciplinarity.

4. Hybrid media and new audiences

The fourth section is comprised of four articles which focus on new content, new platforms and new audiences, including media interpreting, game localization, mobile content translation, and fansubbing.

Franz Pöchhacker provides a fourfold typology of media interpreting divided into two main lines of work, media users’ expectations, and assessments and studies of media accessibility for deaf viewers through signed language interpreting. Research on media interpreting can be classified in terms of the medium (radio, television, webcasting) and the mode (whether or not content is produced and aired live). Another classification may be “primary”, audiovisual products accessible through interpreting, and a complex one involving interactions mediated by an interpreter with an on-site audience. Simultaneous interpreting made its first appearance in the 1960s for live coverage of events broadcast to a worldwide audience, followed by sign language interpreting and interpreting on TV talk shows. However, the author considers the status of media interpreting within AVT to be doubtful.

Research has covered quality-related expectations of conference interpreting, media accessibility and comprehension, quality criteria and assessment (laypersons vs. interpreting students, different voices and linguistic varieties), and preferences and comprehension. Through this literature review, the researcher finds that signing for deaf viewers is not standardized and that no agreement on the BSL variety best suited for use on television has been made. One difficulty analysed has been manipulating verbal or nonverbal parameters of the interpreter’s output while controlling other variables. The author states that further empirical research on deaf viewers’ media interpreting-related attitudes and preferences, as well as actual communicative use of signed broadcasts, may be of great importance. Another potential object of study is studio audiences of talk-show-type programs involving foreign-language speakers.

Carmen Mangiron covers reception studies in the area of game localization, which originated in the late 1970s with Japanese video games. The first study on reception was an empirical study about a localised Japanese game (O’Hagan, 2009), followed by articles on player emotion and reception of humour through eye tracking, heart rate and galvanic skin response (GSR), facial expression recording, webcam utterances, and post-task interviews (O’Hagan, 2016; O’Hagan & Mangiron, 2013). The author states that bigger sample sizes, more actors, and a more balanced profile in terms of gender, gaming habits, and cultural backgrounds may provide better results when replicated. Player experience, reception of subtitles, game accessibility, and users’ opinions on quality have been covered in the literature, but Mangiron states that quality is a subjective element. Studies on players’ preferences include Geurts (2015), where Dutch gamers preferred playing games in Dutch or English and provided their own opinions, and Fernández Costales (2016), through an online questionnaire about video game translation, dealing with language preferences and users’ habits. Results obtained were a favouring of foreignizing strategies and the use of English to visit websites or watch official videos. Ellefsen’s (2016) quantitative study of language preferences in video games of French-speaking players in France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Canada revealed a tendency to favour subtitles over dubbing.

Mangiron suggests that future research avenues include the relationship between the prevalent AVT mode in a territory and players’ preference for full localization, quality of professional versus fan translations, and game accessibility, always benefitting from taking into account different game types and genres. Using methods such as game studies research tools and electroencephalography to measure cognitive load, engagement, and immersion while playing localized games may lead to more multifarious, experimental, and complex research.

Alberto Fernández-Costales discusses the reception of translated audiovisual contents consumed, received, and appreciated in mobile devices focusing on product and audience. Firstly, Fernández-Costales tries to define mobile products by resorting to the concepts of ubiquity and immediacy. Secondly, the author acknowledges that the concept of “audience” is now more diversified, heterogeneous, and global than ever and that modern viewing patterns are evolving. Audiovisual mobile content, which can be split into audiovisual mobile content and content adapted for portable devices, started being offered in 2004. However, he points out that studies are still scant, providing as possible reasons that smartphones were launched in 2008 and that this type of research is time-consuming and costly, especially as mobile content is dynamic and constantly updated. Nowadays, supranational audiences are getting access to all sorts of products through the Internet, offering new paths and opportunities for research. Therefore, the author considers this article primarily as a guide for future research.

Fernández-Costales states that sociolinguistics of translation can provide a better understanding of users’ language preferences, language reception, language attitudes, multilingualism, language diversity, censorship, and power relations. In this context, related disciplines such as applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, educational psychology, and media studies can contribute productive frameworks and methodologies. The researcher lists new topics for future research, such as the tactile dimension replacing other user-machine interactions, voice-commands or dictation tools for device control, formal language replaced by new ways of communication, or new literacies and the impact of non-verbal elements. Focusing on video-on-demand, future research could investigate whether users prefer dubbing to subtitling in short content, user satisfaction, translation quality, original versus translated versions of mobile contents, the relation between the length of videos and AVT mode, AVT differences according to factors such as age, etc. In the apps localization area, studies could explore how users utilize apps and their interactions (voice, tactile and written). In news and the media, some topics to consider may include which information is translated into which languages, editing of newspaper websites and their translation, power structures in translation, and the possible manipulation of information (or its translated versions). Finally, the author encourages a combination of research modalities and tools from related disciplines (media studies, linguistics, psychology, education).

David Orrego-Carmona studies non-professional subtitles, believing that fan communities shape how audiovisual content is being watched nowadays. The watching trend for younger generations is moving towards video-on-demand (VOD) services and their expectations towards content are increasing. Orrego-Carmona believes that consumers are transforming into producers and that piracy has proven to be crucial for the configuration of global audiences and the creation of international networks of viewers. He believes it is safe to assume that the number of downloads of pirated TV shows is actually higher than the number of official views. Unauthorized channels of distribution are also more malleable than those of official media. The author states that piracy networks pre-date official distribution channels in most aspects which are characteristic of online video consumption. Piracy is now even dictating what traditional media should do to accommodate to new audiences.

Orrego-Carmona complains about a reductionist take on fansubbing that limits its contents to only anime and points to the lack of attention to the social implications of non-professional subtitling. The assumption that non-professional subtitling is, by nature, source-oriented is also inaccurate according to this scholar. Likewise, the main motivation behind fansubbing being passion towards content is considered debatable, as in every online community only a minority is actively engaged in the production of any type of content. Thus, the author states that TS is in dire need of broadening the knowledge in this subfield, as certain aspects of non-professional subtitling do not fit into previous models of understanding translation. Binge-watching and quick online access to content have altered the definition of quality, as “good translations” are now the ones available as soon as possible, something hardly reconcilable with professional understandings.

Orrego-Carmona proposes international plurilingual online questionnaires and agreements with non-professional subtitling communities to obtain data about users’ viewings habits and their use of subtitles. This will let researchers trace the flows of the subtitles, quantify their circulation, learn about their popularity and use, identify the languages involved and the types of material more or less likely to be translated, and test new hypotheses about translation. Finally, the author reminds us that lurkers are still missing in the academic discussion as well as the exchange between mainstream industries and grassroots movements.

5. Personal views

This edited volume, collaboratively written by experts coming from diverse disciplines, offers an extensive literature review and a vast amount of methodologies related to the reception of translated audiovisual content. It proves particularly useful for students and scholars from specialties such as translation, film studies, and media studies in search of a comprehensive and structured overview of previous research, in addition to future research paths.

The methodology section may prove very convenient to researchers as it offers various case studies that can be replicated with different variables or further improved. Even though there is some degree of repetition in the methods pointed out in different articles, the researcher may benefit from countless examples of applied methodology into diverse topics comprising multifarious variations.

The section dealing with different AVT modalities is stimulating for researchers who wish to focus on one single subtype, while the last section explores new directions that may be further reconnoitred by the readers of this monograph.

As a reminder to novice readers, this thought-provoking work might prove a bit daunting due to the tremendous amount of knowledge and extensive number of references included. However, it represents a meaningful contribution to ongoing discussions in AVT reception as it points towards unexplored topics, methodology limitations, and new multifaceted research methods.

All in all, the significance of such a thorough review of the reception literature is indisputable, and future researchers will surely benefit from the new research topics and multimodal, interdisciplinary approaches offered in this volume. In fact, most articles of this monograph finish by directing the researchers’ attention to the need and importance of further interdisciplinary cooperation between translation scholars and those from other disciplines. We hope this edited volume may work as a fuse for new researchers of different fields to join forces, while assisting them in their gathering of previous research, allowing them to avoid already-covered research topics and providing them with new trails for future exploration.