Abstract
M.A. (Applied Linguistics and Literary Theory)
Fan subtitling, or fansubbing, has become a new form of subtitling, in which fans, often with
little to no training, subtitle a film or series they enjoy, and then release the subtitles or a
subtitled version of the film on the internet for free download, often by other fans, who often
have an interest in the source language and culture and who may have an interest in using
subtitles as a language-learning device. Subtitles produced for this fan audience can differ
substantially from those created in a professional environment. For this reason, fansubs could
be seen as a new genre of subtitling, employing strategies that would be unacceptable in a
professional subtitled product aimed at general consumption. Professional subtitlers and
translators are encouraged to follow the norms or ‘best practice’ of their industry in order to
produce subtitles that are consistent, of a high quality and that have been made easy to
process through methods such as length reduction and domestication. Fansubbers have no
such imperatives imposed on their subtitles, being mostly self-taught and often judged by
their peers and viewers on the ‘authenticity’ of their translations, rather than by other
professionals and their standards. This creates an environment in which more creative
translation strategies and presentation become possible, in order to create a translation that
will be approved of by fans with a special interest in linguistic and cultural content. This need
for the appearance of faithfulness or authenticity seems to result in a more source-oriented
and complete translation approach, and a corpus-based investigation of French fansubs
appears to confirm this. This dissertation attempts to explore the differences found in the two
genres by analysing and comparing a translational corpus of professionally-produced and fanproduced
English subtitles of French films. The average length of the subtitles and instances
of discourse markers in the two sets of subtitles are compared in order to determine the
degree of reduction found in each type of subtitle, and from the source to target culture. The
translation strategies used in the two types of subtitling differ, with the fansub opting for a
more complete rendering of the source text dialogue and a more source-oriented approach,
which retains elements of spoken language found in the film dialogue. It appears that the
differences between the target texts may be influenced by very different contexts in which
they are produced, and possibly the differing needs and expectations of the audiences of the
two genres.