A Connected History of Audiovisual Translation

Elements for consideration

Yves Gambier: University of Turku and Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University

Haina Jin : Communication University of China

Article published in: Translation Spaces

Vol. 8:2 (2019) ► pp. 193–230

ABSTRACT

Why do we need a history of audiovisual translation? The elements of such a history cannot be tackled without any context, especially outside of a history of cinema, understood both as an art made of techniques and a business. And what kind of history do we need? We try here to define the conditions and resources for a connected and comparative history and deal with a few methodological challenges.

KEYWORDS: cinema innovation, case studies, comparative history, connected history, dubbing, methodology, subtitling

Published online: 05 November 2019

https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.19011.gam

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Yves Gambier is a professor emeritus from the University of Turku (Finland), School of Languages and Translation Studies. With more than 200 publications, his research has focused on socio-terminology and special discourse (since 1976), Translation Studies (since 1977), Discourse analysis (since 1978), bilingualism in Finland (since 1984), early bilingual education (since 1989), audiovisual translation (since 1991), training of translators and interpreters. He has coordinated different research projects (The most recent one: Subtitles and Language Learning, with a grant from the Life Long Learning programme, 2009-2012) and has been an active member of different European (Marie Curie) and Nordic (Ministry of Nordic Council) projects. He is also a member of the editorial boards of multiple journals such as Babel, Hermeneus, MonTI, Target, Terminology, Sendebar, Hermeneus, Synergies, TTR  and the co-éditor of Translation Studies Bibliography (TSB) and Handbook of Translation Studies (HTS) (both on line). He is also the general editor of Benjamins Translation Library and a member of several advisory boards  (Scandinavian University Studies in Humanities and Social Sciences, Traductologie).

Jin Haina is a professor in audiovisual translation at the Communication University of China. Her research interests include audiovisual translation, translation history, film history, and translated cinema. She is the principal investigator of two China National Social Science Foundation funded projects on audiovisual translation. She has published a monograph entitled Towards a History of Translating Chinese Films (1905–1949) and is now working on a sequel, which will cover the 110-year history of translating Chinese films into foreign languages. She is a curator for an upcoming exhibition on film translation at the China Film Museum (to be held in 2020). She has been part of the organizing committee for the Sino-Foreign Audiovisual Translation and Dubbing Cooperation Workshop for both the Beijing Film Festival and the Shanghai Film Festival since 2015. She is also on the advisory board of the Journal of Audiovisual Translation and the Language and Media Conference.