The Perception of Dubbing by Italian Audiences

Abstract

Screen translations, and especially those for the small screen, are consumed by millions of people in Europe, and of course all over the non-English speaking world, at every moment of the day.¹ In this respect, Italy is representative of the many nations which require evergrowing amounts of interlingual mediation for both big and small screen. As is well known, Italy is commonly labelled a ‘dubbing country’ which, together with Austria, France, Germany and Spain, has adopted a tradition of dubbing rather than subtitling, the preferred mode of screen translation in Greece, Portugal, Scandinavia and the UK. However, the situation in dubbing countries is rapidly changing as a choice between dubbing and subtitling is now available on satellite stations and, owing to the fact that subtitling is the more cost-effective choice of the two, for the colossal DVD market.² However, despite the fact that many younger people who are more proficient in English than their parents may well prefer subtitling to be more widely available, dubbing is bound to remain the chief form of linguistic mediation for some years. Perhaps it is worthwhile remembering that attitudes and preferences are largely an issue of habit and thus a person who has been used to almost a lifetime of dubbing is unlikely to be persuaded to change to a different mode of screen translation: ‘viewers are creatures of habit’ (Ivarsson, 1992: 66) and preferences depend on ‘what the audience is used to rather than rational arguments’ (ibid.: 20).