The study undertaken sets out to explore if there is any difference in English comprehension when viewing TV-programs with or without subtitles, in the classroom. The research which has been executed prior to ours shows that lots of people spend more time watching television than they do reading books in their native language. Still, there is more research in reading than in the field of television and comprehension. Furthermore, there are very few studies in the area of subtitling. Media use in today’s society is unavoidable and we believe that future teachers should use television as an educational tool and incorporate multimedia in lesson plans in an effective way. It is our belief that the visual and oral input of television with subtitles can aid students in their ability to memorize and comprehend the content.The research was carried out in the south of Sweden with a class of ninth graders. Firstly, we tested their vocabulary skills through a word knowledge test. Secondly, we proceeded to divide the class into two groups. These groups later saw the same episode of an American TV series. One group saw the show with subtitles, and the other one without. After the show they answered questionnaires on the content of the program and later on six students were selected to be interviewed. These target students were questioned on their thoughts and attitudes towards subtitles, as well as tested on their ability to analyze the content of the show. Although no definite answers can be given from this degree paper, we came to some conclusions. The students’ attitudes towards subtitles differed. Four out of six students were negative towards the usage of subtitles in an educational setting, because they felt more challenged to comprehend the plot without them. The two remaining were positive to subtitles and would use them at all times as support to aid them in their English comprehension.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of DVDs in enhancing student vocabulary development in second-language contexts. To this end the study sought students’ perceptions of DVD subtitles and their level of vocabulary knowledge. It also examined the extent to which watching a DVD with or without intralingual subtitles can improve students’ vocabulary recognition and recall. The literature review included a discussion on the variables operant in second-language acquisition; the use of visual media on vocabulary learning; and the effects of subtitling practices as a didactic tool for vocabulary recall and recognition. The study adopted a mixed-method approach and data were collected through a survey and openended questionnaire; a Vocabulary Levels Test; a Vocabulary Knowledge Scale Test; and vocabulary intervention activities. The findings indicate that DVDs can enhance students’ vocabulary in second-language teaching and learning contexts. More importantly the study confirms audio-visual images create greater sensory input that is, “words associated with actual objects or imagery techniques, are learned more easily than those without” (Chun and Plass, 1996:183). / English Studies / M.A. (TESOL)

Syftet med denna studie var att utifrån olika kvalitetsnormer jämföra och analysera skillnader mellan professionella undertextares undertexter och amatörers undertexter. Dialogen från fyra filmer parades med motsvarande undertexter av professionella undertextare så väl som av amatörer, varpå skillnader registrerades, viktades samt analyserades. Resultaten visar att det föreligger signifikanta skillnader mellan undertexter av professionella undertextare och amatörer på ett flertal punkter, som till exempel struktur och semantik, reduktion och expansion, antal tecken, antal ord, exponeringstid samt antal undertextenheter. Genomgående så översätter amatörerna originaldialogen mer ord-för-ord än vad de professionella undertextarna gör, samtidigt som de professionella undertextarna stryker stora delar av dialogen, vilket innebär att tittare som använder amatörundertexter får betydligt mer text att läsa, vilket i sin tur innebär att mindre tid ägnas åt filmernas bildmässiga innehåll.

This study is an analysis of the process of creating subtitles for the National Geographic documentary Fight Science: Mixed Martial Arts. The difficulties encountered during this project have included the translation of subject-specific terminology, the handling of source-text mistakes and the process of deciding how to condense the spoken dialogue when writing the subtitles. By studying these issues, certain conclusion can be drawn about the difficulties encountered when creating subtitles and translating texts with subject-specific terminology. The study is primarily based on the theories of Runo Ingo (2007), Vinay & Darbelnet (1977) and Chesterman & Wagner (2002). To find appropriate translations for subject-specific terminology, it is important to understand which translation device should be used (for example a loan or literal translation) through the examination of parallel texts and it is important that the translator be familiar with this terminology. How to properly handle mistakes in the source material depends greatly on the situation, the text concerned and the translator’s judgment. Decisions about which information can be omitted can be based on the information’s importance to the overall understanding of the show or the implicit nature of the information. The science of translation can be considered vague, but there exist theories and principles to aid translators when making such touch decisions as those encountered during this project.

This master thesis deals with audiovisual translation with an emphasis on subtitles. In particular, it concentrates on the widespread phenomenon of amateur interlingual subtitling (fansubbing) using the Swedish feature movie Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in) as material. In the theoretical part, the specifics of film subtitling are addressed: the most frequently used subtitling strategies and proceedings and the differences between professional and amateur subtitling in the single stages of the subtitling process - production, distribution and reception of subtitles and also translators' motivation and working conditions. In the empirical part, an analysis of Swedish audiovisual material is carried out, followed by an analysis of the respective professional and amateur-produced subtitles. The focus is on applied subtitling strategies, transfer of culture-specific items and marked speech, but also formal features of both subtitle types are discussed. In the course of the analysis, the current subtitling norms are taken into consideration, as well as the different socio-cultural context and distinctions between the Czech and the Swedish language. In the conclusion, the quality of the researched subtitles is assessed.

The goal of diploma project was to implement parallel corpus manager, which can align parallel texts in different languages and insert them into corpus, where several more processing functions are provided. Program provides possibilities of automatic text alignment and its interactive editing. These aligned texts are then inserted into corpus. Program can work with multiple corpora, parallel corpus is allways identified by a couple of languages. In corpus, there are possibilities to search by many categories, view and edit particular selections, lemmatize and morphologically tag given texts, sort selections, import and export data, in many ways edit corpus for further easy navigation and add new expressions to managed dictionaries. Particular chapters describe introduction to corpus problematics, theory of aligning parallel texts, morphological text tagging and lemmatization, external tools used in program, most common subtitle formats and implementation solution of particular problems.

The content of this work is the design and implementation of HW supported by SW for viewing subtitles into the movie, which translates from the projection equipment on 16 mm film, synchronizing subtitles with the movie, at the same time the work also addresses the issues of principle changes the distance of the canvas. Subtitles are loaded by using the SD card slot control by using the control, which is used to display graphics monochrome buttons that are also used for setting the device and its modifications.

[pt] Este estudo possui um duplo objetivo: investigar a construção lingüística de algumas situações de humor do filme Deconstructing Harry (EUA, 1997, Woody Allen), traduzido, no Brasil, como Desconstruindo Harry; e analisar as estratégias lingüísticas adotadas nessas situações de humor em duas traduções do filme, no formato de legendas: uma para o cinema e outra para VHS. A análise se fundamentou nos Estudos Descritivos da Tradução, em especial nos pressupostos de Gideon Toury (1995); na teoria do humor de Victor Raskin (1985), complementada pelas ideias de Sigmund Freud (1905) e Henri Bergson (1900) sobre o tema; e em alguns estudos realizados na área da tradução audiovisual. Aplicando a metodologia descritiva a um corpus selecionado, o trabalho busca associar teoria e prática no campo dos Estudos da Tradução. O estudo levou às seguintes constatações: (i) o humor que prevalece no filme é situacional e sexual, e os recursos linguísticos mais freqüentemente empregados são termos de duplo sentido, palavrões e referentes culturais específicos; (ii) a estratégia tradutória mais utilizada, em ambas as traduções, foi a manutenção dos scripts semânticos do original, seguida pela estratégia de neutralização de um dos scripts; e (iii) a maioria dos referentes culturais específicos mencionados no filme foi mantida como no original, denotando a preferência por uma estratégia tradutória mais estrangeirizadora. / [en] This study has a dual objective: firstly, to investigate the linguistic construction of some humorous situations in the movie Deconstructing Harry (USA, 1997, Woody Allen), translated in Brazil as Desconstruindo Harry, and, secondly, to review the linguistic strategies adopted in these humorous situations in two different translations for subtitles of the movie; one for the cinema and the other for video. The analysis is informed by Descriptive Translation Studies, particularly on Gideon Toury’s premises (1995) and Victor Raskin’s theory of humour (1985), complemented by the ideas of Sigmund Freud (1905) and Henri Bergson (1900) on the topic; and on some studies conducted in the field of audiovisual translation. Applying descriptive methodology to a selected corpus, the work attempts to associate theory and practice in the field of Translation Studies. The study resulted in the following findings: (i) the predominant humor in the movie is situational and sexual and the most commonly used linguistic resources are double entendres, swear words and specific cultural references; (ii) the most favored translation strategy in both versions was to maintain the original semantic scripts, followed by the strategy of neutralizing one of the scripts; and (iii) most of the specific cultural references cited in the movie were left as in the original, indicating the preference for a more foreignizing translation strategy.

Denna kandidatuppsats består av en längre översättning i form av en undertextning från nederländska till svenska, samt en kommentar till översättningen. Källtexten utgörs av inslaget De online fabeltjesfuik (ordagrant ’fabelryssjan’) ur det nederländska satiriska nyhetsprogrammet Zondag met Lubach. I kommentarsdelen beskrivs den teoretiska bakgrunden bakom den översättningsprincip och rangordning av översättningsprioriteringar som styrt undertextningsarbetet. Därefter behandlas ett urval av översättningsproblem samt strategierna för att lösa dem, med ett särskilt fokus på kulturella referenser och humor. Det största problemet utgörs dock i slutändan av översättningsformens egna begränsningar när det kommer till tid och utrymme, vilka styr alla andra översättningsval. / This bachelor’s essay consists of a longer translation in the form of Dutch-to-Swedish subtitles, including a section commenting on the translation. The source text is made up of the segment De online fabeltjesfuik (literally ‘the fable fyke’) from the Dutch satirical news show Zondag met Lubach. The comment section describes the theoretical background behind the translation principle and the translation priorities which have guided the subtitling. Then a sample of translation problems along with the strategies used to solve them are presented, focusing on cultural references and humour. The largest issue remains the inherent limitations of subtitling as pertains to time and space, which influence all other translation choices made.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of Same-Language Subtitles (SLS) on the subject-specific comprehension and the academic literacy levels of EAL students on the Vaal Triangle Campus of North-West University (NWU). Essentially, the study aimed to determine whether exposing students studying through English as an Additional Language (EAL) to subtitled lectures (live or recorded lectures) would help improve their comprehension of the academic content as well as their receptive academic literacy skills, compared to students who were not exposed to subtitled lectures. This study stems from the identification of an academic performance-related issue on the Vaal Triangle Campus of NWU. Indeed, campus statistics show that the throughput rate of EAL students remains low, and that these students‟ academic literacy levels are inadequate. In other words, EAL students on this campus are underachieving and seem to have difficulties in mastering academic English. Based on various studies that showed SLS to be a valuable tool in terms of learning and academic literacy, this study proposed to introduce SLS (both live via respeaking and offline) in the university classroom as a learning aid, thus optimising the time students spend in lectures. Very little information was available in South Africa on the impact of SLS on the subject-specific comprehension of EAL students in a tertiary academic context. Furthermore, it had been anticipated that a certain number of technical constraints were likely to be encountered during the empirical investigation. These two factors made it difficult to predict what other factors could influence the outcome of the study. As a result, the study was based on the principle of Action Research, a research method characterised by the fact that the research is carried out in as many cycles as may be necessary in order to achieve the optimal conditions for a specific intervention. Three cycles were necessary to reach the optimal design of the present study so that a confident conclusion could be made regarding the impact of SLS on comprehension and academic literacy. For each cycle, the intervention was carried out over an academic semester. In the first cycle, a test group composed of EAL first-year Economics students was exposed to live SLS via respeaking during class, while a control group (also composed of EAL first-year Economics students) attended the same class at a different time, without SLS. In the second cycle, the live SLS via respeaking were replaced with offline SLS. The intervention was taken out of the regular classes and was carried out in the context of practical revision classes scheduled specifically for the purpose of the intervention. The test group viewed subtitled videos of lectures, while the control group viewed videos without subtitles. After each viewing, all participants were required to complete a short comprehension test. This cycle was also conducted in first-year Economics. The basic design of the third cycle was similar to that of the second cycle, but for the fact that the intervention took place in the context of a Psychology module, which, unlike the Economics module, was taught without the lecturer making use of slides. After these three research cycles were completed, it could be concluded that offline SLS indeed have a positive impact on the subject-specific comprehension and the receptive academic literacy skills of EAL students in a tertiary academic context. This conclusion was supported by the following findings: 1. The first research cycle pointed towards a slight, but statistically insignificant benefit in terms of both comprehension and academic literacy. However, at this stage of the empirical investigation, the technical constraints made it difficult to draw a precise conclusion in that respect. 2. In the second research cycle, the SLS seem to have had a significant impact on the receptive academic literacy skills of the test group, compared to the control group. However, no such impact could be noted in terms of subject-specific comprehension. This was attributed to the presence of a confounding variable, namely slides used during the lectures. This once more made it impossible to draw a confident conclusion regarding the impact of SLS on comprehension. 3. The third research cycle made a more confident conclusion regarding the impact of SLS on subject-specific comprehension possible. Indeed, the results of the statistical analyses show that the test group performed significantly better in their semester test (covering the work done in all the recorded lectures) than the control group, which was not exposed to any videos at all. On the basis of these findings, it was concluded that SLS in their offline form have a positive impact on the subject-specific comprehension and the receptive academic literacy skills of EAL students in a tertiary academic context, specifically if the students are given sufficient time to get used to the mode. This study seems to indicate that the benefits of SLS for comprehension can be recorded provided that students are exposed to the intervention over a longer period of time. However, there may be further scope for refinement as far as this study is concerned. It is therefore important that the topic be investigated further. / MA, Language Practice, North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2012