Interlingual live subtitling: the crossroads between translation, interpreting and accessibility

Abstract

Whereas prototypical conceptions of translation and interpreting as two separate and distinct entities are still being upheld in different contexts, the professional reality shows a less clear-cut picture. Given the relentless advancement of technological innovation and the important role played by (media) accessibility in society, translation, interpreting and accessibility are in a state of flux, with increasingly blurring boundaries between them. Interpreting is not only concerned with spoken and signed modalities, but also with written target texts, which links it to audio–visual translation. In turn, audio–visual translation is no longer only about dubbing and subtitling films from one language to another. It now covers the provision of intra- and interlingual translation for live programmes and live events for users who have no access to the original version (be it for linguistic, sensory-related or other reasons). Speech-to-text interpreting (STTI), also referred to as live subtitling, is a communication-enabling service that allows the production of written access to live events or programmes for people with and without hearing loss. It thus brings together translation, interpreting and accessibility. The aim of this paper is to introduce STTI for readers who may not be familiar with it and to delve into interlingual live subtitling (ILS), and more specifically to explore the research carried out to date about this new technique, its professional development and the way in which it is being trained.