Chapter 21 | Multimodal Corpora and Audiovisual Translation Studies

 

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Publication date: 13 September 2018
Copyright date 2019
Hardback ISBN: 9781138859524
E-book ISBN 9781315717166
You can order this volume on the Routledge website

 

 

 

 

 

This chapter explores different avenues to enhance multimodal corpora (MMC) for the purposes of AVT research. Until now, research on multimodality has been mostly restricted to face-to-face interaction, without much consideration of visual or acoustic elements in the surrounding situation. From the point of view of AVT and related research, however, it is necessary to consider a very large amount of visual and acoustic element of the situations represented in the objects to be translated. It has therefore been proposed to enhance the notion of multimodality (and MMC) in order to accommodate all translation relevant audiovisual products. Another kind of enhancement would involve shaping parallel corpus architectures. Unfortunately, multimodality and parallelism dramatically increase the complexity of corpora in a number of respects. In particular, annotation schemes may quickly become unmanageable and query interfaces too complicated. Future multimodal corpora for translation purposes will probably evolve into two types: small corpora for scholarly research, and larger ones for more general purposes. Larger corpora will be dependent on substantial progress in automatic annotation, and probably will have to restrict their annotation schemes to automatically identifiable features.

 

 

Marcello Soffritti is a Professor in German Linguistics and Translation at the Department of Interpreting and Translation of the University of Bologna. His current research focuses on multimedia translation, German for Special Purposes and language contact.

 

 

The Routledge Handbook of Audiovisual Translation Studies provides an authoritative and straightforward overview of the field through thirty-two specially commissioned chapters written by leading scholars in the field.

This state-of-the-art reference work is divided in four sections. The first part focuses on established and emerging audiovisual translation modalities, explores the changing contexts in which they have been and continue to be used, and examine how cultural and technological changes are directing their future trajectories. The second part explores the interface between audiovisual translation and a range of theoretical models that have proved particularly productive in steering research in audiovisual translation studies. Some of these models are associated with disciplines that have long intersected with audiovisual translation, while others are drawn from areas of knowledge that are only now beginning to make their presence felt in the audiovisual translation literature. The third part surveys a range of methodological approaches supporting traditional and innovative ways of interrogating audiovisual translation data. The final part addresses a range of themes pertaining to the place of audiovisual translation in society: these include the institutionalization, academization and technologization of audiovisual translation, as well as its role as a force for social change, both within and outside the industry. This Handbook gives audiovisual translation studies the voice it needs to make its presence felt within the Humanities research landscape.

 

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