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Abstract
Surtitling is a complementary communication system that renders the verbal utterances taking place on stage into a written format and makes this accessible to members of the audience. Beyond the decisions of the professionals involved in the surtitling process, many of the characteristics related to surtitling content and its format are determined by a number of paralinguistic aspects. In this context, the effectiveness of both the surtitling process and the end result will depend on the following: the facilities for accessible services within the building where live performances take place; the development of technological innovations included in live performances; and the specifications of the surtitling technologies used.
Central to the study detailed by this paper are the technical aspects related to the existing surtitling systems used in different live performances in scenic art venues. After a short introduction, dealing with the main features of stage performances, such as music, drama, stage, translation and surtitling practice, Section 2 examines the different indoor and outdoor spaces where live performances take place. In Section 3, new live performance spaces are presented. In Section 4, the surtitling practices of stage performances are outlined. In Section 5, commercially available software programmes are analysed, following the specifications for each genre. Section 6 concludes with a reflection on the multiple accessibility solutions that the latest developments in technology could offer to live performances.
Notes on contributor
Estella Oncins is a UAB PhD candidate holding a scholarship from CAIAC (Centre for Ambient Intelligence in Catalonia), a research centre within the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She has been working as a freelance translator, subtitler, surtitler, and respeaker for different Spanish televisions and conferences. Since 2011 she has been involved in audio describing the operas at Barcelona Liceo Opera House and is the head of Media Access at UAB for live events.
Notes
1. This research is supported by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Finance and Competivity, no. FFI2012-39056-C02-01, Subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing and audio description: new formats, and also by the Catalan Government funds 2009SGR700.
4. Arnáiz-Uzquiza (Citation2012), in her classification of parameters for the SDH (subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing), introduces the category ‘extralinguistic information’, referring to the representation of all non-verbal sound information provided in the audiovisual text. In this category she provides the following parameters: character identification, paralinguistic information, sound effects and music. In the case of opera, the dimension of music would be excluded, because it represents an inherent element of the performance. But in the case of stage performances, all four parameters should be considered within the process of the surtitles.
5. In an interview with Tabitha Allum (Chief Executive at Stagetext), she clarifies that the term ‘captions’ is used for surtitles in the same language as the performance (intralingual surtitles), addressed to hearing-impaired people, whereas the term ‘surtitles’ is used for surtitles in another language than the performance (interlingual surtitles). However, Stagetext sometimes provides interlingual surtitling for foreign plays. This fact shows the lack of agreement between organizations, practioners and researchers for the use of a standard terminology regarding intralingual and interlingual accessibility services.
9. Actions at the international level, like the European Disability Strategy or the United Nations convention on the Right of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), have imposed new regulations regarding accessibility to the member countries of these institutions.
10. Describes three main strategies used to identify individual speakers in SDH: positioning the subtitles under the speaker; using labels with the name of the speaker before the subtitles; and assigning a different colour to each speaker. The first strategy could hardly be generally used in surtitling because of the physical constrains of the surtitling screen; the second strategy is used by the organization Stagetext, because intralingual captions are provided; the third strategy is considered by Pereira the most effective, because viewers are used to it. The colours generally used in SDH for television are: yellow for the main character, green for the second, cyan for the third, magenta for the fourth, and white for the rest. Therefore, the introduction of colours for character identification implemented in hand-held devices could improve the reception of hearing-impaired audiences.