Representation and subtitling of linguistic varieties in Egyptian films

In film, the communicative meanings associated with linguistic varieties in dialogue fulfil different diegetic functions, such as character portrayal. Consequently, the subtitling of linguistic varieties has received considerable critical attention with regard to audiovisual translation in different language pairs. However, existing studies on this topic have focused solely on the verbal mode, at the expense of non-verbal modes. Few discussions consider the impact of these strategies on diegetic functions constructed by the linguistic varieties within the context of intermodal relations established between different modes in the film. In addition, few studies have focused on the subtitling of linguistic varieties in Egyptian films into English.

Therefore, this study aims to investigate the linguistic varieties used in Egyptian comedies and their English subtitles by compiling a corpus. It will also develop a new multimodal analytical framework to account for all the modes that contribute to the construction of meaning in the films. It will then combine this multimodal theoretical framework with a corpus approach. The results of the analysis of the source texts show that there are four categories of linguistic varieties: the ‘standard social’, ‘standard social-specific’, ‘non-standard regional’ and ‘sub-standard social’ varieties.

The findings also reveal that the preservation strategy of centralisation is the most common strategy used in the English subtitling. The findings of the analysis also show that the most regular intermodal relations identified in the source texts (STs) are intermodal relations of ‘confirmation’ and,to a lesser extent, intermodal relations of ‘contradiction’. The use of the ‘standard’ variety in the target texts (TTs) establishes more intermodal relations of ‘contradiction’ in comparison to the STs. The use of the ‘non-standard colloquial’ variety modifies the STs’ intermodal relations of ‘confirmation’ while the use of the ‘sub-standard social’ variety preserves the STs’ intermodal relations of ‘confirmation’.

The new and innovative analytical framework proposed in this study provides a valuable tool to combine a multimodal theoretical framework with corpus analysis for the multimodal study of subtitling in general and the subtitling of linguistic varieties in audiovisual products in particular.