Note: This blog post was originally written in Japanese for our Japanese website. We used our machine translation platforms to translate it and post-edit the content in English. The original Japanese post can be found here.
Just like document translation, subtitle translation is also produced for a variety of purposes and not just for films. For example, it has become common to see videos with subtitle translations recently for the purpose of promotion and marketing by companies and organizations. This kind of translation can also be categorized as advertising translation. In this post, we will discuss about the characteristics of advertising translation and subtitle translation, and the necessary elements when combining the two.
In advertising translation, the media are diverse including advertising documents and radio commercial audio, in addition to the promotional and marketing-oriented videos mentioned above. They are also classified as operative texts and have distinctive purposes such as appealing to the recipient and eliciting a desired response afterwards (such as purchasing behavior). For this reason, emphasis is often placed not only on trueness to the source language but also on appropriateness. Furthermore, expressiveness is also important to arouse the interest of the recipient of the advertisement. Therefore, the translation work required will include elements such as localization or rewriting.
Subtitle translation, too, has a feature that is significantly different from general document translation. For example, in Japanese subtitle translation, there is a character limit of four characters per second. Furthermore, the translation must be done with care to avoid any inconsistencies with audio and video information. Therefore, subtitle translation requires that the overall communicative intent of the speech be understood and translated. Subtitle translation work deals with these constraints and characteristics using techniques such as repetition, addition, omission, transformation, and substitution. However, subtitle translation for business content often contains proper nouns that cannot be omitted, such as product and service names. Therefore, translation agencies like us will adjust the number of characters while taking into consideration readability according to the case, purpose, and customer's requests.
In this approach to subtitle translation for advertising, the following three points tend to be emphasized, because a multimodal approach that complexly combines elements such as video, music, and color is necessary.
Analysis of different elements in a text
What you need to analyze is not just linguistic signs, but also environmental signs, such as the positioning of the text in relation to other texts that takes the reader into consideration. In addition, non-linguistic signs that include music and background noise are elements to think about.
Localization (changing content to suit a specific region)
For example, in the game Pokémon, the character names are different between the Japanese and English versions. This is because the characters are named to be approachable for each region. When requesting work to translation agencies, let them know in advance if there is any standard translations so they can smoothly handle the localization you requested.
Linking audiovisual elements
It is necessary to translate in accordance with the audio and video. This also relates to the choice of translation techniques such as repetition, addition, omission, transformation, and substitution, as mentioned above. Depending on the situation, it is necessary to handle the translation flexibly, rather than translating too faithfully to the original text.
These three elements are quite creative and difficult to achieve with machine translation alone. Not only translation knowledge but also marketing knowledge is important, so it is required to pay close attention when translating.
This post has provided a brief explanation of the characteristics of advertising translation and subtitle translation, as well as the composite nature of subtitle translation for advertisement. The three elements mentioned in this article are key points common to all video translations for promotional and marketing content often released by companies and organizations. To produce a translation that captures these points firmly, the quality of the video and text prior to translation is also extremely important. In particular, the distinctive purpose of advertising translation, "to appeal to the recipient," is likely to be considered equally important at the pre-translation stage.
Kawamura International provides not only video translation but also audio transcription, digital content translation, and localization services. We will propose the most suitable service according to your needs, such as reducing translation costs, shortening delivery times, and supporting a variety of file formats. Please feel free to contact us.
Munday, J. (2021). Introduction to Translation Studies (K. Torikai, Trans.). (9th ed.). Misuzu Shobo. (Original work published 2001)
Baker, M., & Saldanha, G. (2013). Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (F. Fujinami, Ed. & Trans.). (1st ed.). Kenkyusha. (Original work published 1998)