The Potential Impact of Drama Text Translation on Audiovisual Translation

This article aims to demonstrate some potential similarities between the translation of drama texts and of audiovisual (AV) material, in particular subtitling. The study shows that major similar elements of playwriting and audiovisual scripts, such as the immediacy and direct contact with the audience/spectator and the use of dialogue, despite the difference in emphasis in a play on the dialogue of the characters and scenery and in a film on the dialogue and media. Situational, social and/or cultural contexts are important and existent in both the playtext and in the audiovisual text (particularly audiovisual descriptions, i.e. providing description of the image, sound and dialogue). The two genres of translation (drama and audiovisual texts) seem to share certain features which in turn help in the selection of potential subtitlers. The paper proposes that a successful translator of drama is more likely to succeed in audiovisual translation because of above similarities. Analysing excerpts from the Arabic translations of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar both as playtext and as subtitled film, this study attempts to prove this premise or hypothesis, and its outcome can help to set up a potentially successful procedure for institutions and companies to train potential audiovisual translators who have previous experience in translating drama texts.