Data Entry: Please note that the research database will be replaced by UNIverse by the end of October 2023. Please enter your data into the system https://universe-intern.unibas.ch. Thanks
Subtitles and cinematic meaning-making: Interlingual subtitles as textual agents
Journal
Multilingua
Volume
38
Number
5
Pages / Article-Number
529-546
Keywords
communication, film discourse, interlingual subtitles, participation frameworks, pragmatics of fiction
Abstract
This theoretical paper adopts the point of view of the audience of subtitled films and outlines a theory of subtitles as communicative agents within the participation structures of film reception. Based on examples from three Swiss fiction films - Heidi (2015), Heimatland (2015) and Der Goalie bin ig (2014) - the following communicative effects are found and illustrated: uniformity, authorisation, foregrounding, aestheticisation, foreignisation. These effects are conceptualised in terms of Constitutive Communication theory and textual agency (Cooren. 2004. Textual agency: How texts do things in organizational settings. Organization 11(3). 373-393. doi:10.1177/1350508404041998), which describe that by communicating with audiences, subtitles animate into being other participants in film discourse and contribute to what viewers take away in terms of characters, stories, the cultural aspects they represent and the source culture(s) from which the text is perceived to communicate.
