Scientific article
English

How subtitling professionals perceive changes in working conditions. An email interview study in German-speaking countries

ContributorsKünzli, Alexanderorcid
First online date2022-11-01
Abstract

The job of a subtitler is undergoing significant changes. This study investigates subtitling professionals’ perceptions of the effects these changes are having on their working conditions. With this aim in mind, an email interview study was conducted with nineteen freelance subtitling professionals producing German-language subtitles. Overall themes in the subtitlers’ accounts were disillusion with recent trends in the subtitling profession (the precarization of the subtitling profession, acceleration of production processes, virtualization of collaboration), concerns about quality (unavailable or low-quality working materials, market entry of unskilled subtitlers, replacement of established local subtitling guidelines by international ones, machine translation), but also opportunities (predictability, solidarity among subtitling professionals). Suggestions for future directions concern longitudinal studies to evaluate the effects changes in professional subtitling practice have on working conditions over time with follow-up surveys to collect subtitlers’ opinions on how the problems identified could best be tackled.

Keywords
  • Subtitling professionals
  • German-speaking subtitling practice
  • Working conditions
  • Email interviewing
  • Thematic analysis.
Citation (ISO format)
KÜNZLI, Alexander. How subtitling professionals perceive changes in working conditions. An email interview study in German-speaking countries. In: Translation and Interpreting Studies, 2022. doi: 10.1075/tis.20107.kun
Main files (1)
Article (Accepted version)
accessLevelRestricted
Identifiers
Additional URL for this publicationhttps://benjamins.com/catalog/tis.20107.kun
Journal ISSN1932-2798
269views
11downloads

Technical informations

Creation01/11/2022 04:33:00
First validation01/11/2022 04:33:00
Update time16/03/2023 08:38:42
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