Fansubbing

Drawing upon the notion of ‘paratextual agency’ (Paloposki, “Limits of Freedom” 191), the current study investigated the agency of the Iranian fansubbers. To do so, a corpus of 20 Persian fansubs of Hollywood movies released during the last decade was selected randomly. The study was carried out in two steps. Firstly, translators’ notes were categorized based on their content, frequency, and percentage of each category. Secondly, these notes were analyzed to scrutinize the agency of the Iranian fansubbers. The findings of the study reveal that notes added on the part of the Iranian fansubbers can be categorized into narrative-related notes, locations, famous figures, organizations, medical information, allusions, and transliteration. The study illustrates that by providing such notes to the audience, Iranian fansubbers move beyond the conventional role of subtitler and a mere linguistic conveyor of the movies and take the responsibility of teachers, researchers, cultural representatives, and intermediary agents. The study concludes that fansubbing in Iran is concerned with elucidating culture-bound items of the movies to make them more understandable for the audience. The conclusions of this study can open up prospective avenues for the sociologically-oriented approaches to audiovisual translation, with an eye on the agency and status of fansubbers

Audiovisual translation has been the subject of substantial scholarly inquiry, with fansubbing being recognized as a unique mode within this field. Fansubbing involves translating and subtitling of foreign videos such as films into another language by fans, rather than by licensed translators. Performing a kind of play labor, fansubbers typically do not receive monetary remuneration for their efforts. Instead, they are motivated by their fandom’s satisfaction, gaining visibility and receiving likes. The concept of visibility has been subject to varying interpretations, with the first and most prominent example being Venuti's notions of visibility and invisibility. The advent of digital platforms provided translators with an opportunity to establish a digital presence and voice, which has opened up new avenues for enhancing the notion of translator's visibility. Adopting a quantitative strand of research, this study examines a corpus of 200 K-pop (Korean pop) music video subtitles translated by Iranian fansubbers, focusing on different aspects of translator's visibility across textual, paratextual, and extratextual domains. As per the study results, fansubbers exhibit a higher degree of visibility in the paratextual domain (47%), followed by the textual domain (26%) and the extratextual domain (17%). The most commonly employed strategy for enhancing visibility was mentioning social media ID before or after the subtitle content. Many other strategies were overlooked by fansubbers, either due to a lack of awareness or restrictions imposed by superiors. Different aspects of visibility identified in this study donate valuable insights for subtitlers seeking to enhance their visibility and engagement with respective communities.

This study aims to examine the representation of the Iranian Self in Persian movies through English fansubtitles, exploring how the subtitling process shapes the socio-cultural image presented to non-Iranian audiences. To this end, eleven award-winning Persian films produced by prominent Iranian filmmakers Asghar Farhadi, Majid Majidi, and Abbas Kiarostami and their English subtitles were analyzed using an integrated framework specifically developed for this research. Image-representative elements in the films were identified according to the framework, and the translation strategies employed in the English subtitles for rendering these image-representative elements were examined. The effects of these strategies on the representation of the image were then categorized into five observed outcomes: intensification of the image, weakening of the image, positive recasting of the image, preservation of the image, and omission of the image. The findings indicate that universally recognized elements were generally preserved in fansubs, while elements associated with Iranian religious or legal contexts were more frequently omitted or weakened, potentially diminishing the representation of these culturally distinct aspects for non-Iranian audience. This study highlights the importance of cultural sensitivity and accuracy in audiovisual translation, offering valuable insights for fostering cross-cultural understanding and enhancing the portrayal of cultural identity in translated media.