| 20→←20 | 21→
Chapter 3 The verbal component of the audiovisual text
The foregoing chapters have reported how DTS stress the importance of analysing real data. In this study, real data are obtained from the CoPP, which includes English transcripts of scripted dialogue, and Spanish subtitles. Both types of text, like any instance of language production, occur in context and are never presented in isolation, as they constitute partial elements of the whole audiovisual text. Therefore, it seems not possible to single out specific linguistic features of the texts without taking the picture and complete soundtrack into account.
Thus, while the parallel corpus under study is restricted to verbal elements, this chapter is firstly concerned with their contextualisation within the broader audiovisual text, which is vital for the qualitative study of the series’ syntax and lexicon. It further aims to provide an overview of the main findings regarding the linguistic characterisation of TV dialogue and subtitling to date.
The narratological nature of film and television material paves the way for Television Studies to borrow terms and concepts from Literary Studies. Typically, this borrowing implies the updating and adaptation of definitions to meet the needs of the newer discipline. This is the case with the notion of text. As explained by Tous-Rovirosa (2008), Rastier (2001) made a case for the widening of the traditional notion of linguistic text to embrace both the traditional idea of text and the audiovisual and multimedial text, in which verbal and nonverbal information are ←21 | 22→conveyed via the visual and audio channels. As Bartoll (2015) points out, however, scarce specific literature has been available about the nature of the audiovisual text until recently. Among the works available, important contributions have been actually made from the perspective of AVT.
When defining audiovisual texts, emphasis has been recurrently placed on the interplay of semiotic codes as well as on the challenges that they pose for professional translators (Delabastita 1989; Chaume 2004a; Zabalbeascoa 2008a). Scholars in AVT have described an essentially binary conception of codes in the audiovisual text, grouped into ‘codes belonging to the image, and codes belonging to the sound (words, music and noise)’ (Díaz-Cintas 2001: 182).
Chaume (2003; 2004a), in turn, proposes a model for the communication process in AVT, by establishing two types of narrative in the audiovisual text, that is, visual and acoustic, the latter including verbal elements such as dialogue or monologue, as well as paralinguistic information. His model is further developed by Zabalbeascoa (2008a), who assigns four components to the audiovisual text: (a) words heard, (b) words read, (c) instrumental music and special sound effects, and (d) the moving images and photography. These components fall into a twofold categorisation, according to their channel of communication – audio or visual – and their type of sign – verbal or nonverbal – as shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Four components of the audiovisual text (from Zabalbeascoa 2008a: 24)
| Audio | Visual | |
| Verbal | Words heard | Words read |
| Non-verbal | Instrumental music + special sound effects | Moving images Photography |
A crucial point made in the literature is that both the verbal and the nonverbal narratives are perceived at the same time by audiences via the audio and the visual channels. In this sense, Bartoll (2012) contributes to the definition of audiovisual text by explicitly foregrounding the dynamism that exists between the various channels of communication. Zabalbeascoa ←22 | 23→(1997) explains that AVT works as a system of priorities and restrictions in the pursuit of balance between iconic and verbal language. In addition, it is a fact that only the linguistic code within the audiovisual text can be altered by the translator (Romero-Fresco 2009a, 2012), and Díaz-Cintas (2001: 182) concedes: ‘one could argue that the most relevant signs to the translation are the verbal ones’.
What follows from this debate is that each of the CoPP episodes can be considered an audiovisual text in itself while, at the same time, being partial segments of larger audiovisual texts, that is, the season to which they belong, and the series. The compiled corpus comprises the verbal component of the schema presented in Table 2. Specifically, it is composed of words heard (ST, English dialogue) and words read (TT, Spanish subtitles), acknowledging that ‘subtitles are only a part of the audiovisual programme’ (Díaz-Cintas and Remael 2007: 110). The fact that audiences being exposed to subtitled material are presented with a double verbal component, in the form of source soundtrack and translation, has led experts to speak of the vulnerability of subtitling due to its nature as an overt type of translation (Díaz-Cintas 2003; Díaz-Cintas and Remael 2007; Bartoll 2012, 2015).
It must be noted that, even though it is desirable for audiovisual translators to have access to the picture while performing their task, deadlines and work conditions can make it difficult for this to be the case (Chaume 2003; Díaz-Cintas 2003; Matamala 2005; Díaz-Cintas and Remael 2007; Bartoll 2012). Subsequent sections focus on the features that have been attributed to the verbal component of the audiovisual text to date.
3.2. Verbal language within the audiovisual text
Screenwriters are aware of the different components at stake in an audiovisual text. Professional writers and scholars do not seem to agree on the central or complementary role of verbal language within audiovisual texts; their insights sometimes being based on the medium or type of product in which they specialise. Thus, for example, Guardini (1998: 91) ←23 | 24→regards language expression as crucial in the film and television genre of drama, in the same way as Rosselló (1997) considers the verbal dimension of dramatic plays as central.
The centrality of the verbal is also acknowledged by Linden (2010) with regards to textbetont
