The role of the picture in teaching film translation

Abstract

The audiovisuality of culture provides new tools of reception and creation of cultural artefacts, including film translations. The picture becomes a part of the functional characteristics of the word. It semantically interacts with the verbal layer of the film. Beyond the film, it is a source of verification of culturally marked units and specification of the meanings of words used in film dialogues. Therefore, in all the stages of film translation a factor of importance is the ability to discern the “picture-word” semantic relations and use graphic information made available inter alia through internet search engines. The paper discusses model mechanisms of using visual information in teaching film translation within the curriculum of the translation specialisation. It shows how the use of visual information helps to reduce interpretative errors and maintain the brevity of the information transferred.