A Relevance-Theoretic Approach to Decision-Making in Subtitling, 1st ed. 2020

This book aims to investigate the process of decision-making in subtitling of feature films and entertainment series. The author uses Relevance Theory (Sperber and Wilson,1986) to argue that the technical, linguistic and translational constraints at work in subtitling result in a curtailed target text, and illustrates this argument by invoking examples drawn from the English-Polish subtitles of films and television series available through the subscription service Netflix. After introducing the current state of research on audiovisual translation within and outside the framework of translation studies, he presents the core concepts underpinning Relevance Theory and explains how it can be used to construct a model of the process of subtitling. This book will be of interest to students and scholars working in the fields of translation studies, audiovisual translation studies, and communication studies.

Łukasz Bogucki is Full Professor and Head of the Institute of English Studies and Department of Translation Studies and Language Pedagogy at the University of Łódź, Poland. He has been involved in researching and teaching translation since 1993 and audiovisual translation since 2001, making him one of the pioneers of this dynamic sub-discipline within Translation Studies.

Provides a critical study of recent approaches to Relevance Theory from a linguistic and communicative angle

Bridges the divide between translation theory and practice by taking a fresh look at subtitling from a language perspective

Positions captioning (subtitling) within its context on the broader scale of audiovisual translation