Iranian Amateur Subtitling Apparatus: A Qualitative Investigation

Abstract

The number of studies addressing non-professional or amateur subtitling or fansubbing has increasingly multiplied over the past years, underlying its relevance in the present world. This is partly because a growing number of audiences worldwide now watch TV series and films with subtitles by amateur subtitlers, which are freely shared online, and Iranian viewers are certainly included. In Iran, to get around the “cultural gate-keeping” policy advocated and strictly enforced by the state in the national media system, from the early 2010s onward, numerous Persian-language websites have embarked on a new initiative whereby original, especially American tv series and films are made available for download together with their Persian subtitles. Despite the upsurge of this phenomenon in the Iranian context, there is limited literature and research on Persian non-professional subtitling. To fill this knowledge gap, this article aims to examine and analyze the different practices that are closely associated with Persian amateur subtitling. This includes building a profile of Iranian amateur subtitlers, along with an account of their working process, followed by a description of fansubbed products. The data are gathered using an open-ended questionnaire with a criterion sample of Iranian non-professional subtitlers, a survey of Iran-based video and subtitle sharing websites, and a close examination of the common features found in fansubbed Persian products, including reading speed and fansubbers’ experimentation with the original.El sistema de subtitulación aficionada iraní: Una investigación cualitativaResumenLa cantidad de estudios que abordan la subtitulación no profesional o aficionada, o fansubbing, se ha multiplicado en los últimos años, lo que subraya su relevancia en el mundo actual. Esto se debe en parte a que un número creciente de espectadores en todo el mundo ahora ve series de televisión y películas con subtítulos compartidos en línea por subtituladores no profesionales e Irán no es una excepción. Desde principios de 2010 en adelante, en Irán, numerosos sitios web en lengua persa se han embarcado en una nueva iniciativa para sortear la política de "filtrado cultural" —defendida y dirigida estrictamente por el Estado en el sistema de medios de comunicación nacional—, en la cual series y películas, especialmente estadounidenses, se comparten para descargar con subtítulos en persa. A pesar del aumento de este fenómeno en el contexto iraní, existe poca literatura e investigación sobre la subtitulación persa no profesional. Para llenar este vacío, este artículo busca examinar y analizar las diferentes prácticas estrechamente asociadas a la subtitulación persa. Esto incluye construir un perfil de los subtituladores no profesionales iraníes, junto a una descripción de su proceso de trabajo, seguida de una descripción de los productos subtitulados por aficionados. Los datos se recopilan mediante un cuestionario abierto con una muestra de criterios tomados de los subtituladores no profesionales iraníes, una revisión de los sitios web para compartir subtítulos y videos en Irán, y un examen detallado de las características comunes a los productos subtitulados por aficionados a la lengua persa, incluyendo la velocidad de lectura y la experimentación de los subtituladores aficionados con el original.Palabras clave: subtitulación no profesional, subtitulación aficionada, subtituladores aficionados, subtitulación persa, IránFecha de recepción: 30/04/2019Fecha de aceptación: 30/06/2019¿Cómo citar este artículo?Ameri, S. y Khoshsaligheh, M. (2019). Iranian Amateur Subtitling Apparatus: A Qualitative Investigation. Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción, 12(2), 433-453. doi: 10.27533/udea.mut.v12n2a08

Online collaboration and identity work in a brony fandom: Constructing a dialogic space in a fan translation project

“…These findings differ from those of fansubbing and scanlation communities (Ameri and Khoshsaligheh, 2019; Valero-Porras and Cassany, 2016; Zhang and Cassany, 2016), in which the roles of the fan translators were typically hierarchical and narrowly-focused on a specific task. The fansubbers were able to correct each other, but due to the hierarchy, there were rarely discussions between them.…”

“…The organization during fan translation in various studies has been identified as being hierarchical and distributed-every participant having certain ascribed roles (i.e., transcriber, translator or editor) and certain workloads with high commitment and quality standards (Ameri and Khoshsaligheh, 2019;Aragão, 2016;D ıaz-Cintas and Muñoz Sa´nchez, 2006;Saadat, 2017;Valero-Porras and Cassany, 2016;Zhang and Cassany, 2016). The learning in these communities was rarely described through mentorship or feedback, but more so through individual practices of sophisticated audio-visual comprehension in case of fansubbing (Liu and de Seta, 2014;Zhang and Cassany, 2019) or reading comprehension development through multimodal cues in case of scanlation (Valero-Porras and Cassany, 2016).…”

Insights into Iranian younger audience of Persian amateur subtitling: a reception study

“…Despite this shortcoming, no remuneration, little or no training, no respect for the standards of professional practice and copyright infringement have been the noted hallmarks of non-professional subtitling (Antonini, Cirillo, Rossato, & Torresi, 2017). The definition made by Antonini et al (2017), to some extent, matches the Iranian cases; however, Ameri and Khoshsaligheh (2019) report that Iranian non-professional subtitlers are, at times, translation students or graduates and they are paid-although substantially little-for their work by the piracy film websites. Additionally, their work is not supervised by any Iranian authorities, as this is an underground and unauthorized activity, aiming to "circumvent windowed release strategies and other forms of geoblocking" (Dwyer, 2019: 441).…”

Dubbing Viewers in Cyberspaces: A Netnographic Investigation of the Attitudesof a Persian-language Online Community

“…However, these conflicting findings can be justified by the fact that Iran is not a subtitling country and official subtitling for fiction content is almost non-existent, and aside from the exposure of the younger generation to subtitling, the Iranian audiences are not typically accustomed to reading subtitles and may prefer the convenience of listening to dubbed versions. Also, what is watched by the Iranians is the product of amateur subtitlers who are not obliged to comply with the subtitling standards (Ameri & Khoshsaligheh, 2019). Yet, this should be stressed that the members of this community appeared not to be lay viewers as they do not simply watch the programs for the sake of sheer passing of time but they usually critically consider the program from varied perspectives.…”