The days of English as the hegemonic language of cinema are slowly disappearing. Nowadays, filmmakers from different film industries are gradually embracing a multilingual shoot where languages coexist and play a key role within a film’s diegesis. This polyglot reality has brought up interesting questions and issues for the discipline of Translation Studies, where translation has been traditionally understood more in terms of going from one source language into one target language. Within the field of Audiovisual Translation (AVT), studies have concentrated on films where the presence of foreign languages is either sporadic or secondary and, as such, foreign languages have been mostly relegated to purely linguistic approaches. Interestingly, films in which foreign languages constantly reoccur or have a primary function have been hitherto widely disregarded, despite presenting the most complex scenario. Similarly, although researchers increasingly stress the relevance of film language on translational solutions, multimodal approaches to multilingualism in films remain scant. In light of this, this thesis designs a descriptive and multimodal methodology to investigate the issue of multilingualism at every stage of the dubbing process and to explore the effect of dubbing on both the plot and characterisation of polyglot films. This methodology is further complemented by para-textual information and semi-structured interviews to obtain a global perspective of the translation of the multilingual aspect. To this end, this thesis examines four polyglot films in which it is difficult to determine a predominant language. By investigating those with recurring use of languages, this project accounts for the most complex films in terms of language quantity and interplay to transcend textual restrictions and incorporate further issues surrounding translation as both process and product. This examination of original polyglot films brings to light the relevance of intermediate translations for the dubbing process as these are the foundations of the ‘rough’ translation on which the whole process relies. In turn, the macrostructure analysis unveils the use of a plethora of AVT modalities when dealing with foreign languages. Similarly, it suggests that decisions at this level depend on a complex interplay of factors of diverse natures such as filmmakers’ requests, screening habits, financial means, and film features. At the micro-textual level, a thorough list of translation techniques is compiled and their application is measured in relation to the influence of signifying codes. Additionally, a close linguistic examination of dialogue reveals a tendency towards standardisation, although certain nuances are sometimes enforced by character synchrony or added optionally to minor characters. Throughout these analyses, it becomes evident that all dubbing agents manipulate some aspects of multilingualism. Ultimately, this study suggests that dubbing affects polyglot films by hiding certain linguistic connotations and by providing different information to domestic and target audiences.

Eric Louw, Jesper Stömbäck, and W. Lance Bennett call the trend in late-20th century political journalism "mediatisation", where the televisualisation of Western elections favours episodic, dramatic, fragmented, and event-driven reporting. This "hype-ocracy" results in narrow and shallow frames that entertain rather than enlighten. This thesis, titled "Desperately Seeking Depth", examines this trend in both international and local news about South African elections. While scholarship of Western elections on TV news is blossoming, analyses of news coverage of South African elections is sparse. There is particularly little analysis of the visual dimensions of TV news coverage, which remains a methodological challenge for media and communication scholars. This thesis draws together a comprehensive analysis of South Africa's general elections on international and local television news over two decades. It develops an innovative, multimodal analysis method dedicated to television news and adds meaningful data to the overall study of South African media and politics, and international communication. It combines analysis of previous studies of each election with the original analysis of over 150 news broadcasts to uncover the news narratives about the South African general elections between 1994 and 2014. This thesis demonstrates the difference between global and local journalism about South African elections. Restricted by mediatised news values that favour episodic reporting, Western journalists present entangled, contradictory narratives over the years. The fixation on 1994's violent-turned-miracle election narrative ignored the complexities of the new democracy, while an increasingly detached approach in covering the 2009 and 2014 ANC victories left journalists perplexed and unable to explore deeper narratives. Meanwhile, South African channels become progressively more hesitant to investigate controversial topics or criticise the ruling party. Avoidance of important issues such as the 1994 election violence, the AIDS crisis in 2004, and Zuma's Nkandla fiasco in 2014 results in narrow reporting that limits the substantive information available during the election periods. All channels to some extent seek narratives that attempt to explain and explore South Africa's complex democracy, but these narratives are often contradictory. The decline in journalists' engagement with political leaders and citizens means that the full picture of the elections is reduced to a few easily digestible frames that confirm neoliberal news values. This thesis offers a new model for the analysis of TV news coverage of elections that can provide the basis for future studies. "Desperately Seeking Depth" ultimately uncovers a picture of news industry that, both locally and globally, works as an echo chamber of sound bites that focused on elite voices.