Audiovisual translation in general and in Scandinavia

This article gives an overview of different modes of audiovisual translation (AVT). It surveys both intralingual and interlingual forms of AVT. Intralingual forms of AVT are forms of transfer of linguistic material within the same language, mainly for the use of people with hearing or sight disabilities. In these forms the language is not altered, but the semiotic code is, e.g. from spoken to written in subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing, or from visual to spoken as in audio description. In interlingual forms of AVT, translation proper takes place, as one natural language is substituted for (as in dubbing) or accompanied by (as in subtitling) a translation into another natural language. Furthermore, the article explores how the various forms of AVT are used in Scandinavia, which is ‘a bastion of subtitling’, and comes to the conclusion that even though subtitling is clearly predominant, the picture is complex and other forms of AVT co-exist with the prolific subtitles.