Human-Computer Interaction in Diamesic Translation. Multilingual Live Subtitling

This paper aims at providing food for thought to all stakeholders in the fields of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and Diamesic Translation (DT). To do so, it first tries to shed light on the notion of DT, which is not particularly investigated internationally. This will allow to acquire a wider view and a clear understanding of the field covered, as well as of the activities falling under the same discipline, formerly belonging to different fields of study or professions. The focus will, then, move on an overview of HCI applied to interlingual live subtitling. The aim is to understand how much the role of technology can impact these practices in terms of accuracy. Finally, it will move from theory to practice. First the results of experimentation aimed at concretely investigating the best process to come to the production of interlingual live subtitles, in both qualitative and quantitative terms will be illustrated. Then, the most promising product in this field will be analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively: interlingual live subtitling by means of plain language and automatic translation. By doing so, the scope of hybridization in DT – involving areas formerly falling in other fields – will be evident as well as that of HCI in the field of DT.