Perspectives on Translation and Interpretation in Cameroon

Chapter Seven - An Assessment of the State of Subtitling in Cameroon: Past, Present and Future

7 An Assessment of the State of Subtitling in Cameroon: Past, Present and Future L.S. Ayonghe, J-L Kruger, J. Suh & E. Chia 1. Introduction The paper proposes to study subtitling in Cameroon from the perspectives of its past and its evolution. It also attempts to assess its status as an instrument for enhancing translation and language pedagogy in a complex bilingual, multilingual context that the country is. By its constitution, Cameroon is a bilingual country with French and English as its official languages. From birth, however, Cameroonians learn their mother tongues, that is, one or more of the 279 indigenous languages (IL) (Grimes, 2000) spoken in the country, and only learn one or both of the official languages in school. By law, all Cameroonians are expected to be bilingual in French and English. From this official standpoint, Cameroon could therefore be described as a bilingual and bicultural country. Gottlieb (2004: 15) defines subtitling as “the rendering in a different language of verbal messages in filmic media, in the shape of one or more lines of written text, presented on the screen in sync with the original verbal message”. He distinguishes between different forms of subtitling. From a linguistic viewpoint, there are intralingual (within one language) and interlingual (between two languages) subtitles whereas technically speaking, subtitles can be either open (not optional, i.e. shown with film) or closed (optional, i.e. shown via teletext or as a selection on digital versatile disk (DVD). The main aim of interlingual subtitling is to provide access to dialogue on the soundtrack that is in a language the viewer does not understand, or in text in a language the viewer does understand. Intralingual subtitling is mainly used for persons with a hearing impairment. It is also used to provide reading practice or to improve comprehension by speakers who have a limited proficiency in the 86 Perspectives on Translation and Interpretation in Cameroon source language. Intralingual subtitling is also used in second and foreign language teaching to improve comprehension and learning (Kruger et al., 2003: 15, 31-32). In adding written text to speech, subtitling earns its diasemiotic status. By contrast, the three isosemiotic types of screen translation such as dubbing, voice-over and commentary, all rely on voice replacement or revoicing (Baker, 1998; Baker et al., 1984). Blane (1996: 183-187) defines subtitling as a highly specialised cocontextualising force facilitating the self-access acquisition of receptive abilities in minority languages. According to him, a subtitle exists to assist the interpretation of another text (language that is functional, that is doing some job in some context). Closed captioning is the process by which audio portions of television programmes are transcribed into written words that appear on the television screen at the same time as the programme. Captions are similar to subtitles used for foreign language films, but differ in that they can be received only through the use of an electronic decoder or “black box”. In addition, live programmes such as the evening news and sporting events, can be simultaneously captioned (Spanos & Smith, 1990). Same Language Subtitling (SLS) refers to the idea of subtitling motion media programmes (television and film) in the “same” language as the audio (Kothari et al., 2002). The term subtitling is sometimes referred to as captioning. In Australia and the United States of America, same language /intralingual subtitling is called captioning and interlingual subtitling is called subtitling. This study is based on the European convention where subtitling is also known as captions. 1.1 The State of Subtitling in Cameroon Since subtitling is not an established mode used in Cameroon, it is not yet being used on television (TV) stations or in schools and tertiary institutions. Consequently, there is not much to talk about on the past of subtitling in the country. Presently, nothing is being done in relation to subtitling in this country. Close captioning technology was originally devised for the deaf and hearing impaired. However, in the United States of America, Europe, India and South Africa, there has been recent interest by reading and literacy specialists in the use of closed caption television (CCTV), with 87 Ayonghe, Kruger, Suh & Chia: An Assessment of the State of Subtitling in Cameroon hearing audiences as well. In these countries, a wide variety of public and commercial television programmes of potential use in reading instruction are closed captioned, including news, documentaries, dramas, movies and advertisements. Thus educators may choose from an abundant...