Non-Professional Translation

Abstract
This article examined the translation of taboo language in English language films subtitled into Persian by Iranian fansubbers. Based on the results, the fansubbers’ strategies towards taboo language translation were classified into maintaining, deleting, mitigating, substituting, and amplifying. Further analysis suggested that their approach was guided by the source culture norms rather than the target culture norms as evidenced by their attempts to keep as many taboos as possible irrespective of the disapproval of the recipient dominant conventions. Such an exercise appears to be a subversion and resistance to the hegemonic doctrine and conservative ideology advocated in the Iranian society and mass media.


ABSTRAIT
Le but de cette recherche est de vérifier la traduction de la langue taboue dans le fansubbing persan des films anglais. Les résultats indiquent que les stratégies de traduction se divisent en catégories suivantes: conservation, suppression, réduction, remplacement et ajout; en plus les stratégies que les traducteurs ont adoptées sont plus influencées par les coutumes de la culture source; car beaucoup de ses tabous, étant en contradiction avec les coutumes et les principes dominants de la société, se transmettent en langue cible. Un tel comportement se considère comme une résistance contre l'idéologie dominante de la société et des médias nationaux en Iran.

From fansubbing, fan-generated translation, to user-generated translation, from amateur translation to social translation, non-professional subtitling has come a long way since its humble beginning in the 1980s. The prevailing technological affordance enables and mobilises the digital generation to turn subtitling into a method of self-expression and mediation, and their activities have made translation a more social and visible activity than ever before.
This volume provides a comprehensive review of the current state of play of this user-generated subtitling phenomenon. It includes projects and research focusing on various aspects of non-professional subtitling, including the communities at work, the agents at play, the production conditions and the products. The perspectives in the book explore the role played by the agents involved in the emerging subtitling networks worldwide, and their impact on the communities is also discussed, based on empirical data generated from observations on active fansubbing communities. The collection demonstrates, from various viewpoints, the ways in which non-professional subtitling connects languages, cultures and communities in a global setting.

Papers and contributors

Monzó-Nebot, Esther and Melissa Wallace. 2020. "Research methods in public service interpreting and translation studies: Epistemologies of knowledge and ignorance." FITISPos International Journal 7: 15-30.
Aguilar Solano, Maria. 2020. "Triangulation and Trustworthiness —Advancing Research on Public Service Interpreting through Qualitative Case Study Methodologies." FITISPos International Journal 7: 31-52.
Herring, Rachel E. and Elisabet Tiselius. 2020. "Making the Most of Retrospective Process Tracing in Dialogue Interpreting Research." FITISPos International Journal 7: 53-71.
Lomeña Galiano, María. 2020. "Finding Hidden Populations in The Field of Translating and Interpreting: A Methodological Model for Improving Access to Non-Professional Translators and Interpreters Working in Public Service Settings." FITISPos International Journal 7: 72-91.
Mellinger, Christopher D. 2020. "Positionality in Public Service Interpreting Research." FITISPos International Journal 7: 92-109.
Vuori, Jaana and Sari Hokkanen. 2020. "Empirical Designs in PSIT Studies." FITISPos International Journal 7: 110-137.

The number of studies addressing non-professional or amateur subtitling or fansubbing has increasingly multiplied over the past years, underlying its relevance in the present world. This is partly because a growing number of audiences worldwide now watch TV series and films with subtitles by amateur subtitlers, which are freely shared online, and Iranian viewers are certainly included. In Iran, to get around the "cultural gate-keeping" policy advocated and strictly enforced by the state in the national media system, from the early 2010s onward, numerous Persian-language websites have embarked on a new initiative whereby original, especially American tv series and films are made available for download together with their Persian subtitles. Despite the upsurge of this phenomenon in the Iranian context, there is limited literature and research on Persian non-professional subtitling. To fill this knowledge gap, this article aims to examine and analyze the different practices that are closely associated with Persian amateur subtitling. This includes building a profile of Iranian amateur subtitlers, along with an account of their working process, followed by a description of fansubbed products. The data are gathered using an open-ended questionnaire with a criterion sample of Iranian non-professional subtitlers, a survey of Iran-based video and subtitle sharing websites, and a close examination of the common features found in fansubbed Persian products, including reading speed and fansubbers' experimentation with the original. El sistema de subtitulación aficionada iraní: Una investigación cualitativa Resumen La cantidad de estudios que abordan la subtitulación no profesional o aficionada, o fansubbing, se ha multi-plicado en los últimos años, lo que subraya su relevancia en el mundo actual. Esto se debe en parte a que un número creciente de espectadores en todo el mundo ahora ve series de televisión y películas con subtítulos compartidos en línea por subtituladores no profesionales e Irán no es una excepción. Desde principios de 2010 en adelante, en Irán, numerosos sitios web en lengua persa se han embarcado en una nueva iniciativa para 1 This article has its basis on the project "An Empirical Investigation into Persian Non-professional Subtitling", endorsed by the Faculty of Letters and Humanities at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad.

Although dubbing is the official and dominant modality of translating foreign films and television series in Iran, amateur subtitling has been increasingly used by the Iranian audience for audiovisual products that are not dubbed, or at least not soon enough or not without substantial 'cultural appropriation.' Given the increasing attention paid to viewers' reception in the domain of audiovisual translation, this study attempts to explore the reception of Iranian viewers of the non-professional subtitling into Persian. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were employed for the present research. Initially, the qualitative analysis of the focus groups conducted with consumers of such products suggested five main themes: translational, translatorial and technical expectations as well as the advantages and disadvantages. The quantitative analysis of the survey data confirmed the five themes in the second phase of the study.

Introduction
The current advancement of technology has significantly influenced various fields such as audiovisual translation. The emergence of fansub groups is among the most important effects of technological development in the translation world. Easy access to various types of ‎computers as well as free subtitling software programs have resulted in an increasing number of fansubs on a daily basis. A fansub is a non-professional subtitled version of an anime or movie, carried out collaboratively by an unpaid group of volunteers which will be available to users for free. Several reasons have been mentioned for fansubbing such as: providing translation for people who are not familiar with the source language, reluctance or failure‌‌ regarding the official and commercial subtitling in portraying cultural issues and unique features of ‎foreign products and also, introducing‏ ‏a cultural product that is not so well-known in other parts of the world.‎  Primary studies in this field have been conducted during the late 1990s; over time, the number of such studies have been increased and their various aspects have been discussed. A number of studies have been conducted during‎ the first decade of the current century, introducing specific features concerning this type of audiovisual translation and explaining the process, people involved, and technical requirements. Furthermore, some researchers have studied fansub from different perspectives such as: its distribution, comparison between the processes involved in fansubbing and professional subtitling, quality of translation, fansubbing norms, and political subtitling networks.

Method
The process of producing fansub for anime and other forms of animations, common challenges, and the applied equipment and facilities in Iran have been investigated in this qualitative phenomenological study. To achieve this purpose, a few number of active users in fansubbing field were selected through the snowball sampling technique. By conducting interviews, a set of descriptive information have been gathered regarding technical dimensions of the production process such as timing, typesetting, encoding, among others. The interviews, consisting of almost 20 questions (general and specialized), were conducted individually through either face-to-face or telephone conversations. The seven participants were anime fansubbers in Iranian online forums who took on different responsibilities such as anime translation, editing, timing. Their educational backgrounds were very different from each other and often irrelevant to translation. Their ages ranged from 18 to 30 years with an average of 23.7 years old. These seven participants including three men and four women, have been working in this field for 7 to 10 years. Moreover, using a sample selection of products with non-professional Persian subtitles, some of the mistakes in translations were presented and discussed.

Results
Based on the results of interviews, fansubbers carry out this process through several steps using‏ ‏various software and hardware equipment. These steps include: 1) original anime acquisition, 2) translation, 3) translation check, 4) timing, 5) typesetting and karaoke, 6) final edit 7) encoding, 8) quality control and 9) distribution of final product. Active fansubbers are usually members of the anime and manga fandom who are quite skilled in working with different software programs. Iranian fansubbers’ motivation is to provide top anime masterpieces with Persian subtitles for Persian speakers as soon as possible. In the past, due to the low age range of anime and manga fans, their activities in producing fansubs had also started in an early age; they have been studying in middle school or high school when they began their activities. During the last few years, growth in the age range of anime and manga fans has resulted in older fansubbers working in this field who often study different majors in universities. The majority of active fansubbers in translation and editing sections are older than those active in technical and software related areas. Various software programs are used for different parts of fansubbing process; some are more popular and more useful: a) original anime acquisition: a peer to peer program like Bittorrent or direct link; b) translation: a text editor such as Notepad or Microsoft Word and a video player software like KMPlayer is sufficient; c) timing: Sub Station Alpha has been mostly used in the past but currently, Aegisub, JacoSub and Sabbu are also widely used. However, it is worth mentioning that the timing stage is no longer necessary, because many official companies release English subtitles in softsub format for anime series; d) typesetting and karaoke: Aegisub software has all the requirements for typesetting. Though Sub Station Alpha also meets all of typesetters’ needs; e) final edit: Similar to the translation stage, a text editor and a video player software are needed; f) encoding: softwares such as Format Factory, Freemake Video Converter and Virtual Dub; g) distribution of final product: softwares like Bittorent.

Discussion and Conclusion
The results of this study reveal the non-professional dimensions of fansubbing process as a voluntary and collaborative activity and indicate that fansubbers are only involved in such a process because of personal interests. They do not have educational backgrounds in fansubbing field and their only intention is to translate their favorite works of anime for their Persian speaking friends who are not familiar with a foreign language. Fansubbers do not expect to make money form this profession and if someone were to do so by selling these products, the fansub community would regard such actions as improper and inappropriate. Due to the non-professional nature of producing this form of subtitling, the products’ quality are often too low and far from professional subtitling standards. Fansubbers usually decide to quit the fansubbing scene after a while; because fansubbing is a complicated and time-consuming task. Furthermore, fansub groups work for free and hence, the activity is not economically viable. However, we have to consider the fact that there is a wide range of audio visual productions including anime, animations, movies, TV series and even educational films with Persian fansub accessible for native Persian speakers. Certainly, Fansub is not a new phenomenon and has a long history in the world; it has been studied extensively in other countries yet in Iran, it seems to have passed unnoticed by our scholars and only a few have studied in this field.

This qualitative research set out to describe translation of video games into Persian from a non-professional translation lens. The study examined the translation and subtitling of cut-scenes in a fan-video recording of the game Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. These cut-scenes were non-professionally subtitled and uploaded on Aparat.com to share with other Persian-speaking gamers. Initially, the paper presents the key literature on game localization and describes the status quo video games in Iran and non-professional translation. In the next section, the collected data were presented and analyzed at two levels of macro and micro. The interview results of the macro-level revealed the subtitler’s background information, aims and motivations. At the micro-level, the non-professional Persian subtitles of a five-hour video recording were analyzed in terms of translator’s visibility and agency as well as technical and linguistic issues. The findings suggested that the aim of this novice subtitler for volunteering to render the cut-scenes into Persian was to improve his command of English language and to enjoy himself in gaming. In other words, he was seeking cultural in addition to symbolic capital. Other results suggested the visibility and presence of the subtitler in the translation through the frequent use of glosses and explanations. Analysis of the subtitles at textual and technical levels showed that in multiple cases the generally recommended regulations in terms of time and space related constraints were not respected and mistranslation of idioms was frequent.

Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS)
Volume 15, Issue 1
Special issue: The Ethics of Non-Professional Translation and Interpreting in Public Services and Legal Settings

Guest Editors: Esther Monzó-Nebot (Universitat Jaume I, Spain) and Melissa Wallace (University of Texas at San Antonio, United States)