Translation Quality Assessment (TQA) of Interlingual Auto-Subtitles

Nicholas (2009:1) defines a film, also known as motion picture, as ¿series of images that are projected onto a screen to create the illusion of motion¿. A film reflects society, both present and past. It is produced to entertain, communicate, a vehicle for culture transfer, educate, propaganda, etc. But when a film fails to communicate its intended message, one starts questioning such a production, (Lama, 2013:7). This study, therefore assesses the quality of the translated interlingual auto-subtitles of the film ¿Le Temoin de L¿Ombre¿ by Kouyembous Mireille. It reviews existing literature in the area, presents the corpus, describes and analyses the English subtitles of the film, based on Subtitling Standards by Fotios Karamitroglou, Subtitling codes by Jan Ivarsson and Mary Carroll, Subtitling principles by Diaz Cintas, Vermeer¿s Skopos Theory, etc. The recommendations should shed more light on this new and promising field which is however being downgraded by non-professionals. The work is of importance to professional translators, subtitles, aspiring students of audio-visual translation and anyone who is interested and/ involved in translation and audio-visual translation.