A arte de legendar: um estudo descritivo sobre as legendas nas séries Friends e Friends From College

Abstract

Audiovisual Translation is one of the thriving branches of Translation Studies, as it is attributed to its connection with technology. As a result of technology evolution, such as digital platforms, films or series have a worldwide reach, which creates the need for audiovisual translation work. Among these options there is the Netflix streaming platform. Frequent contact with systems, such as these platforms, that allow us to pause, rejoin, and re•watch entertainment shows anytime, makes viewers analyze subtitles more critically and demand higher quality work. Therefore, the purpose of this work is to make a descriptive study from two comical series present on the Netflix streaming platform, Friends and Friends from college, in order to investigate whether the subtitlers’ choices, which are often considered subtitle ‘mistakes’ by the lay public, are linked to the restrictions imposed by the subtitling rules in Brazil or to translation choices. For analysis purposes we use as theoretical framework, Cintas (2009, 2012), Gambier and Gottlieb (2001), Gottlieb (2004), Araújo (2016) and Alvarenga (1998). These authors present a history of subtitling and technical aspects involved in the process. The methodology consists of analyzing the subtitles, from two episodes of the first and second seasons of the series, pointing out linguistic inconsistencies that induce the viewer’s evaluation as subtitling errors. Therefore, it is expected by this work to demystify the public criticism of subtitles errors and that the subtitlers, frequently undervalued and criticized for their choices, come to be recognized by the general public.