Translation for subtitling - Analysis of the subtitling into Italian of the Netflix television series "La casa de papel"
Bologna, Martina Bandini - For a translator, the complexity of audiovisual translation (AVT) lies in the fact of dealing with dynamic texts, which are constructed both through written and oral language, as well as verbal and non-verbal codes.
Therefore, images impose on translation not purely linguistic limitations - those of time and space - which must be complied with in order to guarantee a reliable product, well made and that transmits the message effectively in the target language. .
In fact, when subtitling a film or television series, each translator is obliged to make decisions that directly affect his text, but that have nothing to do with the criteria of the language.
For this reason, when the object of the translation is audiovisual in nature, it is always necessary to take into account not only linguistic, but also technical standards, which to a certain extent depend on the company that distributes the content. This was the objective of the research, written to present my Final Master's work at the University of Bologna (Faculty of Language, Society and Communication), that is, to analyze the translation for the subtitling of the first chapters of the television series Spanish of Netflix "La casa de papel", both from a linguistic and technical point of view, to evaluate the translation in a certain way and then see how the application of one or the other rules influence the perception of the program by the public.
In this article, written specifically for the purpose of publication on The Language Sector website, the work will be presented in a summarized and more general way, but it is available (including its bibliography) in full version for those who request it.
Schrijfassistent-NT2, a new Dutch writing aid software
Ghent (BE), Valentin Descamps - You learn Dutch, but you still have trouble writing without fail or in a beautiful Dutch well cared for?
Or are you a Dutch foreign language teacher and your students still need a boost to write correctly? Santa has thought of you!
The position of Spanish in the world in 2020
Antwerp - Lieve Vangehuchten - Spanish is the mother tongue of almost 489 million people. That's just under 4% more than in 2015. If we add the speakers of Spanish as a second or foreign language, we will reach a total of 585 million people, or 7.5% of the world's population.
With these figures, Spanish is the second most spoken mother tongue in the world, after Chinese (Mandarin).
Demographers predict that the number of native Spanish speakers will increase steadily over the next 50 years, even outside the countries where Spanish is an official language, although the predicted growth is less than in previous reports (706 million speakers by 2050 instead of 756 million).
Top Ten Pre-Editing Tips (for Even Better Machine Translations)
Share your news
Do you have news for your fellow language professionals in Europe?
The Language Sector website makes your article, opinion or other content (written in any European language) as accessible as possible to as many language professionals as possible in as many languages as possible.
With a limited number of relatively small interventions, you can substantially improve the accessibility of the machine-translated information in your post, article, opinion, or other content.
Here are the top ten tips for optimal pre-ediing from our home expert Valentin Descamps.
EU agency seeks interpreting services provider (tender, EUR 3.5 million)
EU agency will buy €3.5 million worth of interpreting services.
EU brings another €14 million in English translation work to the market (tender)
The Translation Centre for the Bodies of the European Union, Luxembourg, the Translation Centre for the European Union, Luxembourg, provides translation services to some 70 bodies of the European Union: agencies, agencies, centres, institutes, councils and committees, as well as to the Commission, the Council, the Court of Justice and the European Central Bank.
Is it time for social debate on language technology and citizen manipulation?
Can we really influence your voting behavior in elections with ads that fit your personality?
Yes we can. And we don't need a lot more than a hundred words of your pen, which we'll almost certainly find somewhere on social media.
You don't have to take our word for it, because there is now scientific evidence. Thanks to researchers from the University of Amsterdam and the personality profiler of the Antwerp language tech company Textgain (which you can test yourself).
Do you remember Cambridge Analytica?
Multilingualism: Brussels shifts gear up
Brussels, the capital of Belgium and of Europe, is the most cosmopolitan city in the world after Dubai. 62% of its inhabitants were born in another country or have a migration background, according to the International Organization for Migration.
More than 100 languages are spoken in Brussels. 8% of people in Brussels speak neither French, English nor Dutch. Nevertheless, 90% of brussels residents say they per cent view the city's multilingualism as positive. This is shown by the latest language barometer from language sociologist Rudi Janssens (Free University of Brussels), who has been analysing the language situation in Brussels for over 20 years. Language diversity and multilingualism are in the DNA of the city.
Since last year, Brussels has had a minister for the Promotion of Multilingualism with Sven Gatz. The coalition agreement (2019-2024) and the minister's policy plan set out clear ambitions: Brussels wants to revolutionise language teaching in order for brussels people to better master their languages, Brussels wants to put itself on the international map as a multilingual region, Brussels wants to set up an international centre of expertise on multilingualism.
Last Saturday, Brussels celebrated its own Day of Multilingualism for the first time. Sven Gatz presented the Council for Multilingualism to the public in the Brussels Parliament.
Be Talky, Be Brussels. What's stirring in Brussels?
The future of language education in Europe
Linguistic diversity is one of the great strengths of the European Union.
To foster the potential of linguistic diversity to support multilingual competences and help overcome its possible challenges, innovative policies and practices in language teaching must be implemented across classrooms, schools, regions and countries, taking into account pedagogical shifts and ongoing societal trends such as migration and the increasing mobility of individuals.
These novel language education practices need to overcome persisting language devaluation and isolation, deconstruct existing language hierarchies and apply an inclusive perspective of all languages both in education and in society.
In this context, a network of experts working on the social dimension of education and training (NESET) has published a report that explores emerging innovative approaches and strategies of language teaching in Europe supporting learners’ plurilingualism.
The report intends to inspire educators and policy makers to innovate and implement forward-looking policies and practices in language education.
Out now: The Cambridge World History of Lexicography
The Cambridge World History of Lexicography is the first survey of all the dictionaries which humans have made, it says on the backcover, which is somewhat misleading, because this book is a history of lexicography, not of dictionaries. And it is a story, not a bibliography.
So, the Cambridge World History of Lexicography tells the story of the making of lists of words and their equivalents or interpretations, from the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India, and the Greco-Roman world, to the contemporary speech communities of every inhabited continent. Their makers included poets and soldiers, saints and courtiers, a scribe in an ancient Egyptian 'house of life' and a Vietnamese queen. Their physical forms include Tamil palm-leaf manuscripts and the dictionary apps which are supporting endangered Australian languages.
Python for linguists (and other people who work with language data)
Programming is an extremely useful skill in many areas of linguistics and in other language-related fields.
In his latest book "Python for linguists" (Cambridge University Press) Michael Hammond provides an introduction to programming using Python for those with little to no experience of coding.
Python is one of the most popular and widely-used programming languages as it's also available for free and runs on any operating system.
Language technology and citizens against hate speech on the Internet
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks of a "tsunam of hate and xenophobia, scapegoating and scare-mongering" inside and outside the Internet and calls for an all-out effort to end hate speech globally.
In the international DeTACT project, universities, tech companies, NGOs and citizens in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands are cooperating to counter hate speech on the Internet.
The aim of the initiative is to show the population what resources it has to fight against polarization on the Internet.
Creative Multilingualism: A Manifesto
"Creative Multilingualism: A Manifesto" (Open Book Publishers) explores the mutually enriching relationship between multilingualism and creativity.
"Multilingualism is fundamental to the human condition. We are all in some way multilingual - both in terms of talent and in terms of our daily ‘language lives’. Languages play a key role as a creative force in our thought and emotions, our expression and social interaction, and our activity in the world - languages are a creative force in how we live," as editors Katrin Kohl and Wen-chin Ouyang say in their introduction.
"Creative Multilingualism" is a manifesto. It calls for change on two fronts: First, language needs to be understood as intrinsically diverse - as languages. The entitlement of individuals and cultural groups to express themselves in their distinctive language must be supported as a fundamental human right, and must be nurtured as vital to the sustainability of the natural and cultural world.
And second, creativity needs to be understood as intrinsically bound up with our capacity for linguistically diverse thought, expression and action. Languages are far more than communicative ‘tools’: they are creative. Language diversity and creativity are mutually enriching.
This book presents research on creative multilingualism conducted across disciplines, from the humanities through to the social and natural sciences. It is structured as a manifesto, comprising ten major statements which are explored through various case studies. These case studies encompass areas including the rich relationship between language diversity and diversity of identity, thought and expression; the interaction between language diversity and biodiversity; the ‘prismatic’ unfolding of meaning in translation; the benefits of linguistic creativity in a classroom-setting; and the ingenuity underpinning ‘conlangs’ (‘constructed languages’) such as Tolkien’s Quenya and Sindarin, designed to give imagined peoples a distinctive medium capable of expressing their cultural identity.
Who is this book for?
Written in an accessible style, "Creative Multilingualism: A Manifesto" will appeal to anyone interested in languages, language learning, cultural exchange, the role of language diversity in our everyday lives, and the untapped creative potential of multilingualism.
"This book is a manifesto promoting language diversity as a human advantage and human right. As such, it is addressed to policymakers, especially in the field of education, but also more broadly with respect to multilingualism in our societies. Diversity of languages needs to be supported as a rich source of creativity in the arts, and recognized for its vital importance in the sciences," Katrin Kohl and Wen-chin Ouyang add.
Narrative Economics - How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events
(blurb) In a world in which internet troll farms attempt to influence foreign elections, can we afford to ignore the power of viral stories to affect economies?
In this groundbreaking book, Nobel Prize–winning economist and New York Times bestselling author Robert Shiller offers a new way to think about the economy and economic change.
Using a rich array of historical examples and data, Shiller argues that studying popular stories that affect individual and collective economic behavior - what he calls “narrative economics” - has the potential to vastly improve our ability to predict, prepare for, and lessen the damage of financial crises, recessions, depressions, and other major economic events.
Can receptive multilingualism blow a new wind through language teaching?
Ghent – Lillofee Meersseman - The world today is more than ever a village, where many cultures and languages live together. How are we supposed to deal with this multilingualism? English opens many doors in our Western world, but if we want to go beyond, a single language is not enough. How can we communicate with each other without scorning linguistic diversity? Receptive multilingualism can offer us a new perspective.
Receptive multilingualism is a form of multilingual communication in which people understand each other without speaking the language of their interlocutor or writing the language of their correspondent. In other words, receptive multilingualism occurs when everyone continues to speak or write their own language (mother tongue or other language of their own choice) and understands what is said or read.
Why should we prefer receptive multilingualism to one common language such as English? And what about receptive multilingualism in education, in language education in particular? Can receptive multilingualism blow new wind through language teaching?