The reception of subtitled colloquial language in Catalan: an eye-tracking exploratory study

Abstract

Usually, colloquial oral features in audiovisual fiction disappear when the oral language is transferred into written text by means of interlingual subtitles. Expressive devices and colloquial items are often omitted for the sake of condensation; standard forms generally substitute non-standard units; and grammatical mistakes are often corrected. However, not all the agents involved in the subtitling industry tackle this issue in the same way. For instance, at the Catalan Television (TVC), there has been an internal debate concerning the use of non-standard forms in subtitles, particularly concerning colloquial pronominal clitics. Moving away from this debate, by using eye- tracking technologies and questionnaires, this exploratory study aims to investigate whether using non-standard colloquial pronominal clitics instead of standard pronominal clitics alters the reception of the audiovisual product, and whether this approach is effective in transmitting the colloquial flavour of the dialogues