Subtitling serves two purposes: to translate the dialogue of foreign language films for secondary audiences (interlingual) and to transform the soundtrack of television programmes into written captions for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers (intralingual). While both practices have strong linguistic roots, often being compared to text translation and editing, this book reveals the complex influences arising from the audiovisual environment. Far from being simply a matter of linguistic equivalence, the authors show how the effectiveness of subtitles is crucially dependent upon the hidden semiotic relations between text and image; relations which affect the meaning of the visual-linguistic message and the way in which that message is ultimately received.

Focusing primarily on intralingual subtitling, The Semiotics of Subtitling adopts a holistic approach, combining linguistic theory with empirical eye-movement analysis in order to explore the full depth of the medium and the reading behaviour of viewers.

... provides a fress and highly welcomed approach to the study of intralingual subtitling. ... for hearing readers, one of the contributions of this book is that it encourages us to seek beyond the walls of our own existence, but for the deaf community in particular; de Linde and Kay's book represents a vital project. (Heidi Heikkinen and Dinda Gorlee, Target)