Title
Subtitling short films to improve writing and translation skills
Conference name
9th International conference Media for all
City
Country
Spain
Modalities
Date
27/01/2021-29/01/2021
Abstract
Didactic subtitling, that is, subtitling as an active task used as a resource in foreign and second language learning, has been studied for almost two decades now. Different scholars have researched the benefits of didactic subtitling to enhance different linguistic and communicative skills, depending on the combination (interlingual or intralingual) and the direction (L2-L1, L2-L2 or L1-L2). This presentation will focus on a new contribution to this field of research by analysing the benefits of reverse subtitling (L1- L2) of complete short films to improve both writing and general translation skills.
The data analysed will be derived from a teaching innovation project carried out at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) under the name of SUBFILM: Subtitling short films to improve writing and translation skills: making short films accessible. Students were presented with the possibility of subtitling complete short films (and not just extracts) in groups and then having their work published and recognized in the online version of the corresponding short film. This concept of working to help make an audiovisual product accessible to foreign audiences brings about a key extra motivational element that will be discussed in the presentation.
In SUBFILM, five Spanish short films of different lengths available in YouTube that did not contain subtitles in English were selected, and a total number of 30 students were grouped in order to work on subtitling from Spanish into English. An ad-hoc subtitling editor was selected to facilitate the collaborative work and students had one month to subtitle the film within each group and two extra weeks for a peer review and assessment made between the groups.
Linguistic assessment tasks (translation and pre- and post- writing tasks), questionnaires (for sample description and feedback on perceived improvement), subtitling assessment rubrics and observation were the main data gathering instruments used in the project. The conclusions clearly point towards the benefits of the reverse subtitling of complete short films for the enhancement of foreign language competences in terms of not only translation skills and writing production, but also vocabulary and grammar proficiency in the foreign language.
This presentation will offer a general overview of the main methodological guidelines for didactic subtitling. It will also offer a summarized state of the art of this subfield of didactic audiovisual translation. Then, the SUBFILM project’s resources and procedures will be described in order to go on to analyse the main data obtained. Finally, the most relevant results will be offered, accompanied by a comparative discussion on how the conclusions gathered complement previous related research, as well as paving the way for new related research paths.
The data analysed will be derived from a teaching innovation project carried out at the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED) under the name of SUBFILM: Subtitling short films to improve writing and translation skills: making short films accessible. Students were presented with the possibility of subtitling complete short films (and not just extracts) in groups and then having their work published and recognized in the online version of the corresponding short film. This concept of working to help make an audiovisual product accessible to foreign audiences brings about a key extra motivational element that will be discussed in the presentation.
In SUBFILM, five Spanish short films of different lengths available in YouTube that did not contain subtitles in English were selected, and a total number of 30 students were grouped in order to work on subtitling from Spanish into English. An ad-hoc subtitling editor was selected to facilitate the collaborative work and students had one month to subtitle the film within each group and two extra weeks for a peer review and assessment made between the groups.
Linguistic assessment tasks (translation and pre- and post- writing tasks), questionnaires (for sample description and feedback on perceived improvement), subtitling assessment rubrics and observation were the main data gathering instruments used in the project. The conclusions clearly point towards the benefits of the reverse subtitling of complete short films for the enhancement of foreign language competences in terms of not only translation skills and writing production, but also vocabulary and grammar proficiency in the foreign language.
This presentation will offer a general overview of the main methodological guidelines for didactic subtitling. It will also offer a summarized state of the art of this subfield of didactic audiovisual translation. Then, the SUBFILM project’s resources and procedures will be described in order to go on to analyse the main data obtained. Finally, the most relevant results will be offered, accompanied by a comparative discussion on how the conclusions gathered complement previous related research, as well as paving the way for new related research paths.