Session

For over two decades, there has been a flood of publications in Translation Studies labelled ‘multimedia translation’, ‘multidimensional translation’, ‘audiovisual translation’, ‘screen translation’ etc. These have sometimes treated film translation research as a kind of super-science, whose rampant, overwhelming interdisciplinarity seems to contradict any scientific methodology. In this course, we therefore want to attempt to do what Translation Studies have curiously failed to do so far with regard to film translation and film dubbing in particular, namely to focus on film dubbing as sui generis type of translation. We will jointly try to sketch an empirically-based theory of film dubbing as a specific type of translation, from which we will also derive concrete instructions for the practice of film dubbing.

First, we will introduce the Innsbruck approach to ‘film translation research in the narrow sense’. Then, we will answer the question posed by Guido Marc Pruys (1997) as to how film dubbing research can be put on a truly scientific basis. Prototypical problems of film dubbing from a wide range of multilingual sample material (Innsbruck film database MultiTransInn) will be selected and analysed. We will develop possible solutions following a ‘problem type – solution type’ pattern. Solutions are then summarised as recommended strategies, motivated through translation theory and generalised.

The course is aimed at anyone with a general interest in translation and translation studies (both from a theoretical or practical point of view), prospective and experienced translators, students of translation studies and philology, and of course also anyone directly involved in the theory and practice of film translation. The course is also intended as a lifelong training event for people working in the dubbing industry and all those involved in the process and product of film dubbing.