What is Enhanced Subtitling (EnSub)?
Enhanced Subtitling (EnSub) is a research-informed, audience-centred subtitling practice that can be defined as follows:
An audiovisual translation practice that consists of adding written text onto an audiovisual product to create the necessary conditions for a new audience to identify and interpret what is expressed visually and aurally in the source audiovisual product.
For further detail, we can expand the definition to include the following:
The added text may be written in the same or a different language from the source dialogue and is positioned close to the natural areas of focus and direction of speaking for higher integration in the visual composition. It takes advantage of all the affordances made available by writing and the digital medium in which it appears (e.g. use of bold, italic, different colours and font sizes effect like fading or blurring) to translate the dialogue of the speaker(s), discursive elements that appear in the image (letters, inserts, graffiti, inscriptions, placards, and the like), other verbal information that is contained in the soundtrack (songs, off-screen voices) as well as key information expressed visually or aurally and deemed inaccessible to an audience that may not share the necessary socio-cultural knowledge. Meaning expressed via other modes that are not dialogue may be integrated into the target text as an extratitle that may appear independently or simultaneously with dialogue subtitles.
The three premises of Enhanced Subtitling
Access
If we have a multimodal text in which meaning is erected through different visual and auditory elements coming together, I argue that we cannot create the conditions for an audience in a different semiotic space to access such a text (and the meaning it is expressing) by translating only some of the auditory and visual elements. At times, the level of non-sharedness might come because the audience is deaf or hard of hearing and cannot access the auditory modes. Other times, the level of non-sharedness might come because the audience might not be able to recognise or interpret some of the auditory and visual elements.
Enhanced Subtitling finds creative ways to make the meaning expressed via visual and aural cultural specific elements to make them accessible to the target audience.
Enhanced Subtitling finds creative ways to make the meaning expressed via visual and aural cultural specific elements to make them accessible to the target audience.
Subtitles' placement
The very fact that subtitles appear inflexibly in the same place on the screen means that they necessarily reorganise viewing patterns by imposing a different axis between focal points and subtitles (Fox 2016). This new axis is most often divergent (or even the opposite) from the one planned in the source film, potentially interfering with the viewing experience or the ability to notice specific elements on screen. The inflexible placement of subtitles also means that subtitles will often appear on top of the focal point, disrupting or covering important visual elements.
Enhanced subtitling places subtitles close to the focal points and inline with the vectors of attention created in the source audiovisual product.
Enhanced subtitling places subtitles close to the focal points and inline with the vectors of attention created in the source audiovisual product.
Subtitles’ form
Understanding films as an inherently visual production, it was deemed important to add subtitles that followed as much as possible the visual composition of the film and avoided introducing a different aesthetic onto the film. Building on previous work on “integrated subtitles”, it is important to consider the form and timing in which subtitles are displayed on screen.
Enhanced subtitling utilises alternative options regarding the subtitles’ colour, font type, font size, effects such as fading and the rhythm in which subtitles appear on the screen.
Enhanced subtitling utilises alternative options regarding the subtitles’ colour, font type, font size, effects such as fading and the rhythm in which subtitles appear on the screen.