The Perception of Culture Through Subtitles

The main assumption of this thesis, on which hypotheses were formulated, is that Croatian TV-viewers receive most information about British and American culture through subtitles, since most foreign-language programmes are subtitled and since watching TV, i.e. reading subtitles, is more widespread than reading books and other forms of written word. The aim of the thesis is to elicit the relevance of subtitles for the perception of culture. The thesis will first give an overview of theoretical research in the field of AVT (audiovisual translation) and it will explore the main paradigms applied in the field of Translation Studies and their possible application in the study of interlingual subtitling. The thesis will then explore strategies used in subtitling which may influence perception and technical procedures used in subtitling, such as the use of templates, as well as the identity of Croatian as a language used in subtitling. The second part of the thesis is focused on the study of the perception of subtitles tested through the method of empirical research conducted on a sample of viewers of television programmes in Croatia. The survey includes an original questionnaire and watching of a set of video clips. The questionnaire is made of two parts with the aim of establishing the link between previous knowledge and the relevance of various other elements of a moving picture, such as acting and context, for the understanding of a subtitled content. The purpose of the thesis is also to explore the degree of relevance of subtitles on the perception of culture as opposed to other elements of a subtitled TV content.