Audiovisual Translation Studies

This chapter presents Audiovisual Translation (AVT) as a subfield of Translation Studies. It starts by offering a review of what is understood as AVT, and the different translation modes commonly understood under this umbrella term within an important historical perspective. The chapter then focus on two key issues – the multimodal nature of the audiovisual source text and the means of production and reception – that distinguish AVT from other translation areas, showing how disruptive AVT has been and still is for translation theory. Together with the review of current research and how key proposals have developed, this chapter offers new theoretical insights on key concepts and discusses future directions. In its final content section, the chapter refocus its attention on three specific research methods: a) descriptive approach and the use of corpora; b) experimental methods and the study of reception; and c) action research and the development of new practices. These are three central research methods in AVT, but they are also methods that have been introduced in Translation Studies via AVT, another illustration of how positively disruptive AVT has been to the wider discipline and how the innovation made possible by considering AVT as a subfield of Translation Studies was felt both at the theoretical and methodological levels.