TEXT

Thesis statement: An attempt to understand sub-titles as  a relevant cultural text which operates inside the context of another text but transcends as an aid for the audience to create individual texts in own their living contexts.

Explaining 'Context'

It is generally understood that a ‘context’ is the circumstance in which an event occurs. The setting of an incident or the demonstration of a philosophy needs a context in place. All arts are representations or interpretations of contexts. Arts in itself can be called a text and in its context becomes a comprehensive entity.

The relationship between a text and a context is different in case of multiple arts and art forms. In the textual or literary tradition the contexts represented have to be rebuilt in the immediate imagination of the reader to understand and appreciate the work. This dynamic space of re-generation is controlled only by the textual inputs from the author which manipulates the reader to think and contextualise in the intended manner. In case of auditory arts the music, rhythm and stylised language helps the author define a context which the listener will interpret. All these notions of differential interpretations by the audience is based on Stanley Fish’s ideas which says text is interpreted differently in a class by each of its students. This notion budding from the Reader-response theory’s of 1980’s helps us understand text as already constrained or informed by situation or context.

Visual Arts in which technological reproduction is a part, has a curious text-context relationship. Films in its most advanced form as a text, has its contexts represented through text, audio, visual and feel. Though the dimension of feeling is manipulated through a combination of visual illusions the interpretation of the context is highly influenced by this ‘feel’. Thus the context of a film is a result of the human need for immediacy and thus the most exposed context in all arts. Exposed contexts give limited space for imagination and re-interpretation in real-time. This is because film and music uses mechanical aids for its exposition and the speed of reception by an audience is fully controlled by the author’s intentions. Also film engages most senses leaving no room for interpretative thinking. Thus film has the most pre-defined context in it that all other arts.

A curious part of films today is its subtitles which becomes another relevant text inside the context of a film text. 

Closed captioning or sub-titling

Closed-caption, subtitle are two names for the process of displaying text on a television, video screen, films or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information to individuals who wish to access it. Closed captions typically show a transcription of the audio portion of a program as it occurs, sometimes including translations or non-speech elements.

This idea is an old one starting with what we now call intertitles which were texts, drawn or printed on paper, filmed or photographed and placed between sequences of the film. We recognise them from most old films including Chaplin and Faust. It was first seen in 1903 as descriptive titles in Edwin S. Porter's Uncle Tom's Cabin invented by cartoonist J. Stuart Blackton”(“A short technical history of subtitles in Europe” 1).

In 1909 the name sub-title began to be used in parallel to the newspaper subtitles. Earlest attempts to place text on moving images Porter's College Chums (1907), the French films Judex (1916) or Mireille (1922).

In fact, the very first “subtitles” in the modern sense saw the light of day already during the silent film era. It is recoded that 1909 M. N. Topp registered a patent for a “device for the rapid showing of titles for moving pictures other than those on the film strip. ” (“A short technical history of subtitles in Europe” 1).

Today sub-titling is a booming industry where it reigns over dubbing, to project foreign language films internationally. Also they have moved away from traditional translations to cultural translations which cater well for the multiple international audiences. It is of great interest of the academia regarding the dynamics in the reception of subtitles. Initially this interest was generated as a part of subtitles capabilities as a teaching tool in second language acquisition. “Close-captioned TV helps in learning a second language” is an article which was published in Journal of Reading, which discusses about a study conducted by National Captioning Institute (NCI) and funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, Philadelphia which shows that by viewing closed-captioned television, students learning English as a second language (ESL) can "dramatically" improve their language skills.

Understanding this phenomenon is easy because the idea that a film provides the audience a text in a well defined context makes the audience relate the sub-titles easily to both the context and the text. Contexts which are visually revealed gives better association for the viewer with all the other texts inside including the words spoken, the emotions conveyed and even the situations. This possibility is also taken up by the cognitive researchers in audio-visual handicap areas too.

In countries like India where illiteracy is a big problem subtitling serves a different purpose of educating in the first language itself. Brij Kothari wrote in Economic and Political Weekly that “Same language subtitling (SLS) is a technique that holds enormous potential to create such a reading environment, far beyond what text already exists on television. Simply, it suggests subtitling motion media programmes in the same language as the audio”.

Closed captioning as a cultural text

It is a general assumption that an artistic representation blossoms into its fuller meaning within its original context intended. That may be the reason why many indigenous art forms need acute and lengthy translations for the foreign audience to understand. As an example, in the case of Kathakali an art form of Kerala when presented before a foreign audience needs great elaboration of the story, plot and context, prior to the performance and doubts are to be cleared after it. Films in all its technical complexities are enjoyed by many cultures. It is mainly due to the insertion of subtitles inside the frame of the movie. This is typically done for a foreign audience who might not know the language, culture, symbols, physical conditions and time-space nuances of what the film depicts. Thus the subtitle has to take up the role of a cultural translation.

Such translations have to take into consideration equivalences from the source culture to the target culture. Words like ‘pranayam’ or a love relationship being used in the case of Indian films often comes with platonic overtones while a western relationship is different culturally. The explanation of indigenous sounds heard like chanting of mantra also helps the target audience to relate to the culture.

There are many more areas including morality, symbolism, religion etc to be discussed under this.

In short sub-title is a relevant cultural text which operates inside the context of another text but transcends as an aid for the audience to create individual texts in own their living contexts.

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