ISSN: 1579-9794

Hikma 24 (Número especial II) (2025), 1 - 4

ZABALBEASCOA, PATRICK. AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION.

LONDON & NEW YORK: ROUTLEDGE, 2025, 227 PP., ISBN 978-032-

56025-0.

After a dearth of didactic publications on audiovisual translation (AVT), early

2025 saw the publication of two textbooks on the topic: Introducing

Audiovisual Translation by Agnieszka Szarkowska and Anna Jankowska, and

the very succinctly titled Audiovisual Translation by Patrick Zabalbeascoa. It

is the latter that will be reviewed here. While it is true that there have been

textbooks for specific modes of AVT, perhaps most notably those on subtitling

by Jorge Díaz Cintas and Aline Remael (2007; 2021), and dubbing by Frederic

Chaume Varela (2012), those of us running university survey courses on AVT

and media accessibility have long awaited a textbook that deals with the whole

field. Before 2025, the closest thing was Audiovisual Translation: Theories,

Methods and Issues by Luis Pérez González (2014). While that is an excellent

book in many ways, it is somewhat dated now and is also on a rather

advanced level, so we are now very fortunate to have two very current

textbooks to choose from.

This new textbook by Patrick Zabalbeascoa (with co-authoring

contributions from Lydia Hayes) takes a holistic view on AVT. Instead of

breaking down the chapters according to audiovisual mode, for instance,

having a chapter for dubbing and one for subtitling, the book assumes that the

reader already has some basic knowledge of the field. After an introductory

chapter entitled “What is Audiovisual Translation?”, the chapters are

structured thematically. It is not until Chapter 4 that the different kinds of AVT

(and media accessibility, but that distinction is not made) are charted. The

book distinguishes between revoicing and captioning as superordinate

concepts, compares and contrasts them, and examines hybrid forms.

Generally, the book takes the perspective of multimodal communication and

audiovisual texts and emphasises the importance of orality in revoicing and

captioning. Orality is viewed from many vantage points: in speech, both

scripted and unscripted, as well as in writing, as the book discusses dubbese,

prefabricated orality, and more. The book problematises the concept of the

translation unit, which is arguably a more problematic issue in AVT than in

traditional monosemiotic translation. It finally settles on “conversation” as an

appropriate unit.

From Chapter 5 onwards, the chapter themes change focus from

those arguably associated with the source texts to themes that have to do with

translation and target texts. The book charts priorities and restrictions, which

are influenced by the source texts, the context, and more, and which set the

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Hikma 24 (Número especial II) (2025), 1 - 4

conditions for the target text. Chapters 6 and 8 deal with translation strategies

and problem-solving. Between these chapters, the book discusses continuity

and consistency and the importance of creating a coherent narrative, both

within texts and between them. The book ends with three chapters that

examine three types of translation problems: language variation, character

portrayal, and humour in translation.

As the book is a textbook, it contains exercises (called activities), lists

of further reading, and examples, some of the latter being very illustrative and

thought-provoking, such as the quote normally attributed to Bertrand Russell:

“War does not determine who is right. Only who is left.” (2025, p. 4). The

reader is then invited to ponder how to translate this while keeping all the

humourous ambiguities and the philosophical aspects.

The term audiovisual translation is often widely used synonymously

with the older term screen translation, but this book shows that the two

concepts are not the same. The author considers many kinds of texts and

translations, even when no screen is involved, as long as they exist in an audio

and/or visual setting. This means that the reader receives examples from

diverse modes such as VR glasses, social media memes, audio guides, and

more.

A very pedagogical trait of the book is that chapters tend to start with

a simple definition on the theme of the chapter, which is then problematised,

nuanced and relativised, sometimes very much so. The book is quite

semiotically philosophical, and contains many conceptualisations, flow charts,

lists and catalogues of concepts and features. Speaking of lists, I found that a

list of abbreviations would have been useful, particularly for the author’s own

creations, for example TSc and Trechs. The book reconceptualises many of

the traditional concepts, such as source text and target text, in new and more

nuanced ways, such as T0 for untranslated texts, T1 for source text 1, and T2

for target text 2, which gives great flexibility to think about various text

versions, but which may not be too intuitive. The same goes for the

aforementioned Trechs, which is short for “translation technique”, which is

what many other authors would call “translation strategy”, and these are not

based primarily on semantics, but on forms of rewording.

It soon becomes clear that the author(s) have a great penchant for

categorizing concepts and entities, and the one feature that really stands out

in the book is the very many lists. Many of these are based on the author’s

own way of conceptualizing the world, with trechs, texts, languages etc. being

referred to in a numerical fashion, rather than with traditional labels. For

instance, Trech0 refers to literal translation, which he sees as the default

strategy, and at the same time, not a strategy at all, hence the zero.

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Another pedagogical trait of the book is the frequent use of examples

from films and other audiovisual texts. These make the text more readable,

enjoyable, and easier to relate to, as long as the reader shares the same

audiovisual background as the author. For those of a younger generation, it

would perhaps be helpful if the author had contextualised and explained the

quotes used. Overall, some more contextualisation and discussion of the more

obscure references would be helpful across the board. There are concepts

and entities, such as the HispaTAV, that would have been more accessible to

the reader with more assistance from the author. However, the possibility of

searching for items online is always available, and the author respects and

expects that the readers can manage on their own.

It is not entirely clear who this expected self-reliant reader is, however.

The blurb on the back says it is intended for a broad readership, but it is clearly

a theoretical book, dealing more with theory and analysis than with the

practicalities of carrying out AVT. He does address the reader as a translator

once (p. 91), but I would still say that at the end of the day, it is not for teaching

how to do AVT, but rather to teach AVT concepts and ideas. The activities

(exercises) are also mainly about analysis and theory, not about translation.

The main strengths of the book is in the areas which the author has

researched himself in his long and distinguished career. Areas such as

multilingual translation, language variation, characterisation and the

translation of humour are given a great deal of space, and it is clearly here

that the book comes into its own. Therefore, if you are teaching (or taking) an

advanced theoretical AVT course focusing on these issues, this book would

probably be very useful for you.

In conclusion, I would recommend this text book for advanced

learners (and for advanced teaching) of AVT, particularly for more

philosophical discussions, and for users who are not afraid to go beyond the

book to find more details and clarifications. For learners on a more basic level,

there are other text books that are better suited to their needs.

REFERENCES

Chaume Varela, F. (2012). Audiovisual translation: Dubbing. St. Jerome.

Díaz Cintas, J., & Remael, A. (2007). Audiovisual translation: Subtitling. St.

Jerome.

Díaz Cintas, J., & Remael, A. (2021). Subtitling: Concepts and practices.

Routledge.

Pérez-González, L. (2014). Audiovisual translation: Theories, methods and

issues. Routledge.

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Szarkowska, A., & Jankowska, A. (2024). Introducing audiovisual translation.

Routledge.

[JAN PEDERSEN]