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INCALCATERRA-MCLOUGHLIN, LAURA; LERTOLA, JENNIFER AND

TALAVÁN, NOA. AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION IN APPLIED

LINGUISTICS. AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA, JOHN BENJAMINS

PUBLISHING COMPANY, 2020, 207 PP., ISBN 978-90- 272-0755-5

Beyond the descriptive and professional-related studies based on

audiovisual translation (AVT) that have been conducted in the last few

decades, we are witnessing an increase in publications devoted to AVT and

its multiple uses as a pedagogical tool in foreign language learning (FLL). AVT

and its didactic methodologies have gained a more than established status in

academia and AVT tasks have become a trend across syllabi in language

teaching. The volume under review, edited by Laura Incalcaterra McLoughlin,

Jennifer Lertola and Noa Talaván, has likely been inspired by previous

publications in the field and expounds AVT from an active and practical

perspective. It provides the reader with a number of case studies conducted

at an international level, whose findings/methodologies can be extrapolated

to different language combinations and levels, and some of which explore

education/skill development within professional settings.

In the first chapter, Ragni reviews the literature of didactic subtitling. By

paying special attention to the integration of task-based approaches, she

highlights the criteria according to which didactic subtitling can be considered

a communicative act. The author also addresses the role of the subtitling task

in the learning process, and advocates the integration of didactic subtitling and

form-focused instruction with task-based learning and teaching. By doing so,

she brings to the fore the importance of this combination which enables us to

move from the theoretical to the practical use of didactic subtitling, suggesting

further research is carried out in order to shed more light on this area.

The second chapter, by Herrero and Escobar, explores the combination

of film literacy education along with audio description (AD) as a language

teaching approach in higher education. The authors discuss the importance

of using audiovisual (AV) texts for language learning and teaching by

highlighting the essential cohesion between language and culture. AD, in

particular, allows students to improve their visual, linguistic and cultural

knowledge by following a project-based learning approach, as explained by

Herrero and Escobar. This framework centres its attention on the data

gathered by the Film in Language Teaching Association (FILTA) through

workshops, seminars and training events, although the chapter does not look

into concrete results obtained through this model. Ultimately, they present and

defend a model based on film literacy and AD in foreign-language (L2)

acquisition.

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In the third chapter, Frumuselu explores the students’ internal

mechanisms that are activated when the visual, auditory and textual channels

interact, i.e. when students are exposed to audiovisual content, in general,

and subtitled products, in particular. In her study, she relies on three theories:

cognitive load theory, cognitive theory of multimedia learning, and cognitive

affective theory of learning with media. By presenting two empirical studies,

Frumuselu illustrates and argues the didactic benefits of employing activities

surrounding intralingual and interligual subtitles for the purposes of learning

informal/colloquial English in a higher education setting.

The ClipFlair project is described by Sokoli in the fourth chapter. She

emphasises the use of video materials in the FLL context and the enormous

potential that the platform ClipFlair offers to its users. Not only does the

platform offer a broad spectrum of AVT activities, mainly based on the most

well-known modes such as subtitling and dubbing, but it also deals with other

AV skills—understood as the practice of oral and written production combined

with video—such as AV writing, captioning, AV speaking, and revoicing. The

significance of this European project is evidenced by its research outputs

insofar as number of publications are concerned, as well as by surveys

answered by participants and the very use of the platform itself, which still

accepts the uploading of materials although its funding period officially ended

in 2014.

The fifth chapter, by Sánchez-Requena, is devoted to intralingual

dubbing as a didactic tool for the improvement of speaking skills. The author

depicts a very detailed project in which participants of Spanish as a foreign

language were exposed to intralingual dubbing tasks. She highlights the

positive result of the participants’ improvement in fluency, intonation and

pronunciation thanks to this AVT mode and through a mixed method using

quantitative and qualitative data. She ultimately suggests such activities

should be implemented at different stages in A-level syllabi for students of

Spanish.

Navarrete’s chapter centres on AD in FLL. She carried out a pilot

experiment with university students of Spanish as an L2 and reports on how

AD can improve their L2 oral production skills. At the end of the chapter, she

reflects on the fruitful findings of her study; however, she also offers a series

of recommendations, based on the limitations of her study, so that further

replicas may render more reliable results.

The seventh chapter, concerning subtitling for the d/Deaf and hard-of-

hearing (SDH) audiences in video games, is dealt with by Costal. After

discussing the subtleties of video games, the language used in these

audiovisual products, and SDH conventions, the author presents a corpus

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composed of nine video games in order to categorise subtitling patterns in

terms of errors and a good practice guide. He then identifies a preliminary

norm to describe conventions of SDH in video games. The author’s

prescriptive approach supports the establishment of standards for SDH in

video games and the proposal could benefit the industry as well as

professionals and scholars.

In the eight chapter, Reviers presents a corpus-based research project

on the language in 39 Dutch films released in Flanders and the Netherlands

with AD. By conducting this thorough and detailed study, she discusses how

AD in Dutch resorts to a distinct type of language. Among its features, the

reader can observe that the language has salient lexico-grammatical features,

is idiosyncratic at all levels of analysis, parts of speech are influenced more

by AD than by the text genre, lexical repetition occurs, and high/low values of

grammatical categories (few past tenses and many proper names for

example) can be observed. She concludes her chapter by stating that this

project can give a snapshot of professional AD practices in the Low Countries,

which could be utilised for the development of guidelines, as well as for

providing universities with training for audio describers.

Audiovisual Translation in Applied Linguistics positions itself as a fresh,

up-to-date and comprehensive volume for different readers from an array of

backgrounds: from researchers and teachers willing to be informed on some

of the latest studies which concern AVT within its didactic dimension in FLL,

the state of the art of AVT within its professional scope, and new teaching

models, to those simply curious about the topics covered. Not only does the

volume present theoretical and practical approaches, generally, but some of

the studies and models presented therein can be replicated in other

educational contexts. It is unquestionable that more traditional methodologies

in FLL are lagging behind and yielding to more attractive and active task-

oriented methodologies in which the learner is a direct protagonist in his/her

learning process. To this end, AVT modes have been harnessed as

pedagogical instruments due to the facility with which they can be used by the

teaching community.

It would have been enriching for the reader if the methodologies

discussed in the fields of AVT and FLL extended beyond European frontiers.

Gaining knowledge on other practices that are currently being implemented,

for example, in Asia—where the languages spoken differ drastically from

those of Europe—would have provided this book with a more holistic picture

of the types of studies currently being carried out in these fields.

In a nutshell, this volume comprises a carefully selected compilation of

high-quality chapters which clearly define the current and ample possibilities

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in the fields of AVT and FLL, demonstrated in the first six chapters, as well as

questions surrounding professionally oriented AVT, which are discussed in

the last two chapters. The latter perspective will be of particular use and

interest to novel industry practitioners and academic experts in AVT alike.

[JOSÉ JAVIER ÁVILA-CABRERA]