Massidda Serenella. Audiovisual Translation in the Digital Age: The Italian Fansubbing Phenomenon

Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. — 133 p. — ISBN 978-1-137-47037-9A methodological overview of the multi-layered approach employed in the investigation of the theory and practices adopted by the Italian fansubbing communities is provided in this section. Much has been drawn from the systems theories related to translation, in particular from Toury’s Descriptive Translation Studies (1995) and Chesterman’s subsequent studies regarding norms (1997), with special reference to the notion of “expectancy norms”. In addition, the different approaches pertinent to the ideologies under examination within the field of Translation Studies, including the dichotomy between “domestication” and “foreignisation” examined by Schleiermacher (1813), Lewis’ “abusive fidelity” (1985), Venuti’s concept of the translator’s “visibility” (2008) and Nornes’s “abusive subtitling” (1999) have all concurred to clarify the orientation adopted by the fansubbing communities for their translations.Context and methodology
Reflections on theory
Web 2.0: A Marketing Ideology?
Digital labour and the age of prosumers
What is copyright?
Piracy or promotion? The history of fansubbing
The State of the Art of Italian AVT: Dubbing Vis-à-Vis Subtitling
A brief history of dubbing
The subtitling industry in Italy
Fansubbing
Co-creative labour: the organised fan industry
Origins of ItaSA and Subsfactory
The fansubbing machine
Subtitling and Fansubbing Standards: A Hybrid Proposal
General standards in professional subtitling
Subtitling codes of conduct
Fansubbing guidelines
The ItaSA method
Subsfactory’s modus operandi
Audience reception: the eye tracking system
A hybrid proposal
Origin of the Italian Fansubbing Phenomenon
Lost: from initial struggle to happy ending
Key features of fansubbing
Line length and characters per second
Text on screen and position of subtitles
Measurements and conversion
Interferences from dubbese
Mistranslations
Evolution of ItaSA and Subsfactory
Faithfulness in translation: pros and cons
Text compression and omission
Typographical conventions
Censorship and Humour in Californication
Sex, humour and foul language
Political correctness
Adaptation and mistranslation
Concluding remarks
Conclusions - A Step into the Future