The Translator

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Film Subtitles from a Cross-cultural Pragmatics

Perspective

Marie-Noëlle Guillot

To cite this article: Marie-Noëlle Guillot (2010) Film Subtitles from a Cross-cultural Pragmatics
Perspective, The Translator, 16:1, 67-92, DOI: 10.1080/13556509.2010.10799294

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The Translator. Volume 16, Number 1 (2010), 67-92

Film Subtitles from a Cross-cultural

Pragmatics Perspective
Issues of Linguistic and Cultural Representation

Marie-Noëlle Guillot
University of East Anglia, UK

Abstract. This article deals with the question of linguistic and

cultural representation in film subtitles from a cross-cultural
pragmatics perspective, in relation to issues of cultural stereotyp-
ing and cross-cultural understanding. The argument is based on a
case study of the French film Sur mes lèvres (Audiard 2001) and
its version with English subtitles (Read My Lips), and focuses on
the particularly problematic issue of the representation of the T/V
system of pronominal address. It is underpinned by two research
hypotheses, namely that subtitles (i) produce their own systems of
multi-modal textual representation and activate their own modes
of textual interpretation, and thus (ii) may have a greater capac-
ity to alert audiences to linguistic and cultural specificities across
languages and to promote intercultural sensitivity than they are
given credit for when the text is taken at face value.

Keywords. Cross-cultural pragmatics, Cultural representations, Linguistic

representations, Subtitling, T/V pronominal address, Theory of Mode.

Subtitling is one of the main means by which foreign films, an important

source of exposure to different cultures, are made linguistically accessible
to audiences from different linguistic and cultural communities. It raises a
range of cross-cultural issues relating, from the point of view of language
itself, to two main aspects: culture-specific references/items (CSIs), and
pragmatic differences in language use and conversational practices. Much
of the research on cross-cultural transfer in screen translation has focused
on the first, i.e. on documenting issues associated with culture-specific items,
and strategies to deal with them (Aixelá 1996, Gottlieb 2009, Pedersen 2007,
Petit 2009, Ramière 2006, among others). In contrast, work on language-
related pragmatic differences has been more limited. There are exceptions:


My grateful thanks to the referees of the article for their most helpful suggestions.

ISSN 1355-6509 © St Jerome Publishing Manchester

68 Film Subtitles from a Cross-cultural Pragmatics Perspective

Baumgarten (2003) and Bruti (2006), for example, have shown that film
subtitles can highlight linguistic and pragmatic differences in interactional
discourse practices across languages and, earlier, Hatim and Mason (1997)
demonstrated that cross-linguistic differences affect the depiction of, and
response to, characters and interpersonal relationships in subtitled versions
of films (see also Remael 2003). Recent work on dubbing from a systemic
functional linguistics perspective likewise reveals discrepancies in the por-
trayal of the interpersonal dimension: in a study of the sequential negotiation
of interpersonal meaning over stretches of dialogue, Pérez-González identifies
mismatches in the depiction of interpersonal dynamics and highlights their
critical impact on the naturalness of the translated text and their implications
for dubbing practices (Pérez-González 2007). The implicit questions that these
studies raise about the linguistic and cultural representations conveyed and
their impact on audience response have, however, hardly been addressed: what
picture is put across of linguistic and communicative practices in the original
language and what perceptions of the foreign culture may thus be promoted
is yet to be explored.
In cross-cultural pragmatics, studies of communicative practices and
preferences across languages and cultures have highlighted the relevance of
these questions: they draw attention to misunderstandings and tensions that
arise between linguistic/cultural groups as a result of different expectations
relating to norms of interaction and of pragmatic misperceptions, with social
interaction, educational exchanges and the workplace being the contexts best
represented in research to date (Bargiela 2009, Crawshaw et al. 2002-2006,
Spencer-Oatey 2008, among others). But the discourse of subtitling has re-
ceived limited attention, a real shortcoming given its potential influence on
ever-growing numbers of DVD consumers.
Film dialogue itself is fabricated discourse, shaped by the demands of the
medium and the fact that it is designed for an overhearing audience: it provides
contrived versions of interpersonal exchanges. Like dialogue in fiction gener-
ally, it nonetheless affords insights into native speakers’ sense of their own
practices (Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2005:312-37) in many different contexts. For
foreign viewers, film dialogue functions as a window on language practices
in other linguistic communities and on cultural specificities conveyed through
language; it may therefore promote understanding or reinforce unhelpful mis-
understandings or stereotypes, depending on responses to what is projected in
target texts. In subtitles, what is projected is modulated by different factors:
the specificities of the languages involved (greater or lesser directness, for


Film dialogue, like fictional dialogue generally, overtly portrays the interaction of the
fictional characters but ultimately and covertly addresses the audience, i.e. is thus, according
to Vanoye (1985), organized along a ‘horizontal’ and ‘vertical’ dimension. Pérez-González
(2007:2-12) offers a review of the idiosyncrasies of fictional or ‘artefactual’ discourse (after
Burton 1980) in his appraisal of naturalness in film dialogue and its dubbed version. See
also Remael (2004).
Marie-Noëlle Guillot 69

example, manifest, among other things, in the (non-)use of mitigating features

in face threatening acts, choice of modals or of modes of address, sequential
aspects), but also, and critically, the inter-semiotic shift from speech to writing
and the space, time and synchronization constraints that make subtitles such
a distinctive type of text, especially compared to dubbing.
This paper uses the example of the French thriller Sur mes lèvres (Audiard
2001; henceforth SML) to explore issues associated with the linguistic repre-
sentations of discourse practices in film subtitles and the views they promote
across languages and cultures, with particular reference to the representation
of T/V pronouns of address in the English subtitles. The case study draws on
Fowler’s cognitively-driven Theory of Mode (1991, 2000) to assess how the
pragmatic complexities of the socio-cultural and interpersonal factors that
govern the use of T/V pronouns of address, in the film and in French gener-
ally, may be conveyed in a language, like English, with a different system of
pronominal address, and in text as peculiarly idiosyncratic as film subtitles.
The study is underpinned by two research hypotheses: (i) that subtitles pro-
duce their own systems of multi-modal textual representation and activate
their own modes of textual interpretation; and (ii) that they may thus have a
greater capacity to alert audiences to linguistic and cultural specificities across
languages and to promote intercultural sensitivity than they are given credit
for when the text is taken at face value.
I begin by considering aspects of subtitling in relation to the Theory of
Mode and the system of T/V pronominal address in French. The representa-
tion of this pronominal system in the dialogue of SML and in the subtitles in
English is then explored. The concluding discussion confirms the potential of
subtitles to sensitize viewers to features of the source language and culture. It
also raises fundamental questions about audience reception, some of which
have to be addressed in future studies. The analysis of subtitles can offer
insight into some of the ways in which textual representations may promote
certain types of response from audiences, as I will attempt to demonstrate, but
concrete evidence of what specific meanings are actually conveyed by subtitles
will ultimately have to come from audience response studies.

1. Aspects of subtitling and the Theory of Mode

Subtitling, the translation practice of presenting in writing a text intended to

recount the original dialogue of speakers, usually at the bottom of a screen, is
a distinctive form of textual re-instantiation: it involves an intersemiotic shift
from speech to writing and is governed by space, time and (speech unit/sub-
title) synchronization constraints which cannot but impact linguistic choices
(De Linde and Kay 1999, Díaz Cintas and Remael 2007, Gambier 2001, 2003,
Pérez-González 2009). Interlingual subtitles do not, for example, normally
exceed two lines of text on the screen at any one time and a set number of
characters per line: 35 to 40 depending on sources (Díaz Cintaz and Remael
70 Film Subtitles from a Cross-cultural Pragmatics Perspective

2007:84, Pérez González 2009:15). Text reduction and adaptation is thus

often necessary. The short display time of subtitles and the consequent need
to enhance readibility similarly affects language choices. Limits on viewers’
short memory and the added pressure of responding to other (visual and aural)
signals are additional factors that need to be taken into account and that shape
the form and content of subtitles.
The limitations imposed on the text of subtitles by factors such as these
render the dual interlingual and oral-to-written shift, and the transpositions
involved (e.g. of registers, phonostylistic features, connotations, culture-
specific features), more challenging. Subtitles can hardly be expected, at least
linguistically, to fully match the source dialogue, itself constrained by narra-
tive and filmic considerations and only partly reflecting naturally occurring
interactions, as noted above. It has therefore been noted that subtitles often
foster linguistic and cultural standardization (Fawcett 2003, Díaz Cintas 2005,
Pérez-González 2009). Yet the expressive and pragmatic effects of subtitles
are perhaps subtler and more complex than one might suppose, and part of
that complexity lies in their very stylization, i.e. streamlining to a bare essen-
tial: there is arguably a danger in taking this stylization at face value, when
concealed within it are cues and triggers which activate particular patterns of
association and productive modes of interpretation. This is the assumption,
derived from Fowler’s Theory of Mode, that underpins the discussion of rep-
resentations in this case study.
The Theory of Mode, first outlined in Fowler’s work on discourse in the
press (1991) and later extended to written advertising (2000), is designed to
account for multimodality in written texts that produce the illusion of oral-
ity, i.e. are encoded and interpreted as if they were speech. The theory relies
on a localized notion of multimodality, restricted to text alone: it attempts to
account for the interplay of factors that may, within the text itself, promote
the encoding of written text as speech. Its main feature is that it integrates a
cognitive dimension, i.e. involves considering not just features of text, but the
interaction between text features and readers’ perceptions. For Fowler, a text
can be multimodal in the sense that the oral can exist in the written (and vice
versa). The co-presence of speech and writing within the same text is strictly
speaking impossible, however, since the two modes use different channels
(oral and visual) and constitute very different phenomena. Yet everyone is
able to recognize the oral in the written, and vice versa. Fowler’s solution to
this conundrum is to theorize oral and written not as types of text or structure,
but as categories of experience. As Fowler reminds us, our communicative
competence (in Hymes’ 1972 sense) integrates a knowledge of the modes and
registers of communication, if only passively. This knowledge, according to
Fowler, is activated by cues or triggers, i.e. individual linguistic features of
text such as words and other types of expression as well as syntactic or mor-
phological details (see list and examples in Fowler 2000:34). All it takes is
for a reader to encounter sufficient cues for a mental model of an appropriate
Marie-Noëlle Guillot 71

mode or register to be activated: a few cues of orality in a written text are thus
enough for the text to be experienced and responded to as speech. As Fowler
contends, “orality is experienced in the mind” (ibid.:32).
There are other broader accounts of multimodality that are not strictly
linguistic (e.g. Ventola et al. 2004) and compelling arguments for dealing with
audiovisual transfer within multimodal frameworks that pay due attention
to the interaction of the different sign systems involved (Baumgarten 2005,
Taylor 2003), but Fowler’s theory provides a useful heuristic for dealing with
aspects of subtitling at the level of text itself, a necessary step in considering
the interaction of subtitles with other semiotic resources. The theory’s cogni-
tive dimension and interest in perceptual response in its approach to text make
it not only distinctive, but also particularly effective for assessing features of
stylized text like subtitles on their own terms. I used it in earlier work to argue
that the loss of orality often decried in subtitling is relative (Guillot 2007), and
later to demonstrate the expressive potential of punctuation for subtitling (Guil-
lot 2008). It can be extended to other areas of linguistic representation, with
the important proviso that responses to text are contingent on the integrated,
non-random interplay of relevant cues. As I will attempt to demonstrate, this
is a particularly critical point, which underscores the need to approach the
text from a macro perspective and to recognize the limitations of fragmented,
micro-level analyses of individual subtitles or parts of them – as also noted in
Hatim and Mason (1997), and more recently by Pérez-González (2007) in his
work on the sequential configuration of dialogue from a systemic functional
perspective (see also Remael 2004). This issue will be taken up in section 3,
following an overview of the pronominal system of second-person address
in French.

2. T/V pronominal address in French and in Sur mes lèvres

Systems of pronominal address are linguistic entities that mediate and index the
nature of relationships, circumstances and social identities (Morford 1997:5)
and are governed by complex socio-linguistic and pragmatic rules. The tu/vous
system of second-person singular pronominal address in French (henceforth
T/V) is flagged in the literature as particularly difficult to account for, and to
grasp by non-native speakers (Gardner-Chloros 1991, 2007, Hughson 2003,
Morford 1997, Peeters and Ramière 2009).
Morford (1997), a standard reference in studies of the T/V system in


For reasons of space, the analysis in this paper will focus on the text of subtitles and
make only passing reference to the input of visual semiosis, critical though the latter is in
modulating the meanings conveyed.

See also Clyne et al. (2004) and Schüpach et al. (2007), who address the issue from a
contrastive perspective, and Dewaele (2004), Dewaele and Wourm (2002) and Liddicoat
(2006), who address it from an interlanguage perspective.
72 Film Subtitles from a Cross-cultural Pragmatics Perspective

French, traces the enduring complexity of the system to the co-existence of

two orders of indexical relations. The first order relates to the capacity of the
system to index, or point to, the relative formality of contexts and situations,
and to degrees of deference and/or intimacy between interlocutors. The sec-
ond relates to the system’s capacity to signal certain aspects of interlocutors’
individual identities within the wider social order, i.e. social attributes like
status, refinement, political or other orientations. Morford’s account departs
from Brown and Gilman’s classic 1960 semantic account of T/V systems in
several European languages in terms of power and solidarity, deemed too
static to capture the multiple social meanings generated by these systems. Her
discussion highlights other key features of T/V uses, which are central to the
analysis of their representation in SML:

• single uses of T or V are not meaningful in and of themselves: their mean-

ing depends on the emergent understanding of the particular contextual
dimensions that develops in the course of social interaction;
• while T and V as social markers presuppose a contextual dimension (i.e.
draw attention to features of the context), they also have the capacity
to transform the context; this usually involves a shift from one form to
the other (usually T to V) or an unexpected use, and assumes that the
change is ratified by the interlocutor. Shifts to tu in French thus index a
reassessment of the context or of the relationship between interlocutors;
they are normally a sign of emerging friendship or affinity, though may
also signal sudden hostility.

The contextual dimensions involved in modulating T/V use are multiple

and include socio-cultural variables such as age, gender, authority, social,
economic and/or kinship status and group membership, as well as interactional
variables such as the nature of the situation, discourse topic and emotional
tone (Morford 1997:14). Uses of T/V are characterized by broad patterns of
symmetry/asymmetry which can be summarized as follows for French:

• symmetrical vous is normally the starting point in public interactions

between adults who do not know one another well or who see one another
rarely. It is also used as a mark of deference or respect, or to maintain
distance, e.g. between neighbours, in professional environments among
colleagues or clients, etc.;
• the right to initiate a shift is normally the prerogative of those in a
relatively superior position in terms of age, kinship status or role, for
example;
• shifts from one form to another normally occur only once, usually from
symmetrical vous or asymmetrical tu to symmetrical tu; shifts back are
normally deemed offensive, although there can be periods of uncertainty
when speakers are observed to alternate between forms or to avoid
their use until they have established their respective preferences or
expectations.
Marie-Noëlle Guillot 73

Morford and others also note that native speakers of French are sensitive
to the indexical value of tu/vous and use the forms strategically – for example,
to maintain distance or promote intimacy – or modulate their uses according
to complex criteria; assessing the extent to which French speakers still do so,
despite the general belief that symmetrical T uses had been gaining ground,
was what motivated Morford to undertake her study in the first instance. In
short, a great deal of pragmatic and sociocultural information is encoded in
the system.
In SML, uses of tu and vous by the two main characters, Carla Behm and
Paul Angéli, are in line with these general principles, but also stand out in
terms of the range of variation they exhibit. This variation fulfils important
narrative functions. It also reveals French native speakers’ sensitivity to the
indexical value of T/V uses in the management of interpersonal relationships.
The question that arises is to what extent the linguistic and pragmatic infor-
mation conveyed by film dialogue about native speaker practices may (i) be
conveyed in the subtitles, and (ii) fulfil, in the subtitles, a similar sensitizing
function to features of the French language for foreign audiences.

2.1 T/V pronominal address in the dialogue of Sur mes lèvres

SML features two main characters in their mid twenties, Carla Behm and
Paul Angéli, whose relationship and personal development is a main theme
in the film. Carla is a capable but frustrated young woman, both in her work
at the Sédim architectural practice, where her skills are exploited by her male
colleagues but not recognized, and in her sedate middle class personal life.
She lives alone and longs for a romantic relationship. She is deaf and wears a
hearing aid, but is able to lip read. Only a few intimates are aware of this, but
she discloses it to Paul early on in the film. Paul is a petty criminal on proba-
tion after a spell in prison. He is given a menial job at the Sédim as Carla’s
assistant, but soon falls back into bad habits and sets about appropriating the
proceeds of a robbery from an unscrupulous nightclub owner for whom he is
forced to work without pay to settle a debt. The success of his scheme hinges
on Carla’s ability to lip read, and she becomes his reluctant accomplice.
Carla and Paul become bound together in a mutually exploitative relation-
ship, the evolution of which is punctuated by the T/V shifts in their exchanges
and underscored by the structure of the film. The dependency is practical and
emotional for Carla, and practical for Paul: Carla coldly uses Paul’s criminal
skills to improve her professional prospects but has also become dependent
on him to fill her emotional void, albeit covertly; Paul’s criminal plans are
entirely dependent on Carla’s lip-reading skills, but he is otherwise aloof and
callous with her. Dramatic events at the end of the film give their relationship
a new turn: manipulation and mutual dependence give way to the respect and
emotional involvement that Carla had longed for all along, symbolized by
74 Film Subtitles from a Cross-cultural Pragmatics Perspective

the only use of symmetrical tu in the film that indexes a truly symmetrical
relationship between them.
Prior to this denouement, the film is structured into two main parts, reflect-
ing the shifts in the relationship between Carla and Paul. In the first, set around
the Sédim, Paul has become Carla’s instrument after jeopardizing his position
by making ill-judged sexual advances to her, and Carla uses his criminal know-
how to boost her status (e.g. makes him steal a colleague’s dossier so that she
can handle it herself). In the second, set around Paul’s work at the nightclub
and his criminal plans, Carla has become Paul’s instrument: she has been left
distraught by Paul’s giving up his position at the Sédim to cope with his night
job, and agrees to lip-read for him, on condition that he gets back to work at the
Sédim during the day. In both parts, the ascendancy of the dominant character
is kept in check by dependency on the other: in using Paul, Carla gives him a
hold on her; Paul, without Carla, could not put his plan into action.
Language in the film both reflects the socio-cultural status of the characters
and inflects the power relationship between them. Paul’s control of register is
limited: his normal register is the non-standard register of his petty criminal
milieu, where tu is a standard form of pronominal address. Clumsy attempts to
elevate his register in early scenes in the film only serve to expose his socially
marked linguistic limitations (e.g. in his job interview and early office encoun-
ters with Carla). Carla, in contrast, has a sophisticated control of registers, in
line with her socio-cultural and professional status, and uses it strategically
throughout the film. Her default register is neutral and her shifts to non-stand-
ard uses are marked. Like T/V shifts, shifts in register have strategic functions
in the film, and are used complementarily with pronominal shifts.
Vous is the form of address used in Carla and Paul’s first encounter. It is
the expected mode of address for unacquainted individuals, i.e. it is a first
order symmetrical form of address. By the end of the film, the first order
symmetrical V form has given way to symmetrical T, marking the shift from
an asymmetrical work relationship to a symmetrical intimate relationship. In
between, however, there are altogether nine scenes that feature shifts between
the two forms, most initiated by Paul (in two of the four Carla/Paul scenes
with shifts in the first part, and four of the five Carla/Paul scenes with shifts
in the second). Most are asymmetrical unilateral shifts, with two exceptions:
in each of the two main parts, a twist in the last scene triggers a temporary
symmetrical use of tu. The relationship indexed at this stage remains asym-
metrical, however, and marks a shift in the balance of power (from Carla to
Paul in the first part and from Paul to Carla in the second). The various shifts
are plotted in Tables 1a (overall pattern), 1b (shifts in the first part of the film)
and 1c (shifts in the second part). These shifts are prompted by different factors
and index different orders of relation. They are also nuanced by changes in
register and all in all give a complex picture of T/V uses. Their main features
in the two main parts are outlined in the relevant tables. Textual examples are
provided in the discussion of subtitles in section 3. Tables 2 and 3 detail the
Marie-Noëlle Guillot 75

transcripts of dialogue and accompanying subtitles in the two scenes used as

examples.

Part I
First scene symmetrical V/asymmetrical relationship – ascendancy Carla
Last scene symmetrical T/asymmetrical relationship – ascendancy Paul
Part II
First scene symmetrical V/asymmetrical relationship – ascendancy Paul
Last scene symmetrical T/asymmetrical relationship – ascendancy Carla
Denouement symmetrical T/symmetrical relationship
(last scene)

Table 1a: SML overall structure in relation to Paul/Carla T/V shifts

Part I - Paul/Carla scenes with T/V shifts (4 in all – 2 Paul, 2 Carla)

Start of Part I First order symmetrical vous

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1st scene with shift

(1) Carla rejects Paul’s Paul – shift to tu [second order]

sexual advances [momentary]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Intervening Carla/Paul scenes – symmetrical V
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2nd scene with shift

(2) Birthday party Carla – shift to tu [first order]

[pretend]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Intervening Carla/Paul scenes – symmetrical V
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3rd scene with shift

(3) Paul has been beaten up Paul – shift to tu [second order]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Intervening Carla/Paul scenes – asymmetrical T (Paul)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4th scene with shift (last scene in Part I)

(4) Paul tells Carla he has to Carla – shift to tu [first order]

leave the Sédim

End of Part I Symmetrical T, asymmetrical relationship

Table 1b: Patterns of T/V shifts in Carla/Paul scenes in Part I of SML

76 Film Subtitles from a Cross-cultural Pragmatics Perspective

Part II - Paul/Carla scenes with T/V shifts (5 in all – 4 Paul , 1 Carla)

Start of Part II Resumes with first order symmetrical vous

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1st scene (start of Part II)

(5) Paul gets back in touch Paul – shift to vous [first order]
(with ulterior motives)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Intervening Carla/Paul scenes – symmetrical V
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2nd scene with shift

(6) Roof top op. gang’s flat Paul – multiple [first order,
Paul enlists Carla’s help vous/tu shifts, lapses second]
ending in vous
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Intervening Carla/Paul scenes – no pronouns of address
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3rd scene with shift

(7) Tense exchange on the Paul – shift to tu [second order]

train back from the night club
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Intervening Carla/Paul scenes – asymmetrical T (Paul)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4th scene with shift

(8) Carla has been molested Paul – shift to tu [second order]

but Paul is anxious that she
should proceed with spying
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Intervening Carla/Paul scenes – presumed asymmetrical T (Paul) [no pron.
address from Carla]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5th scene with shift

(9) Carla confronts Paul Carla – shift to tu [hybrid first/

with his plan to leave without her second order]
End of the last scene in Part II Symmetrical tu, asymmetrical relationship

SML final scene Symmetrical tu, symmetrical relationship

Table 1c: Patterns of T/V shifts in Carla/Paul scenes in Part II of SML

Marie-Noëlle Guillot 77

Paul’s shifts to tu in his interactions with Carla in the first part of the film
are second order types of shift, i.e. shifts indexing his social status – see (1)
and (3) in Table 1b: they are prompted not by a change in Paul’s professional
and personal relationship with Carla, but by his reverting under stress to his
default linguistic modus operandi, i.e. non-standard language and T form of
address.
In (1), Paul has mistaken Carla’s solicitude for sexual interest, makes sexual
advances to her, is rejected and feels wrong-footed. In his anger, he lapses
into his default non-standard register and tu, in a shift that denotes defensive
hostility rather than intimacy, and is out of line with standard practices (shifts
to T are normally the prerogative of those in a position of power, as explained
above). In (3), the shift is triggered by urgency and trauma: the criminal world
has caught up with Paul, he is beaten up in the Sédim’s men’s toilets and ap-
peals to Carla for help, reverting to his default linguistic practices and, as in
(1), exposing the social distance between him and Carla. In (1), the shift has
made him vulnerable and he reverts to the second person plural form of ad-
dress as Carla leaves the scene with a second person plural imperative verb,
but no adjustment to his register, i.e.

ST: attendez merde

[wait2nd person plural shit!]
Subtitle: Wait, damn it!

In (3), he abandons any kind of linguistic pretence: from then on until the last
scene of the first part, he uses tu and his default non-standard register with
Carla.
Carla’s shifts in this first part are first order types: they index contextual
informality and intimacy – see (2) and (4) in Table 1b. But this observation
needs to be qualified. In (2), the shift is a pretend shift, intended to flaunt inti-
macy with Paul at a party to which Carla has invited him, to give her friends
the impression that she has a boyfriend. She asks him to say tu to her (“on se
tutoie”, i.e. let’s say tu to each other), but the form is used only once in the
scene, by Carla, at a point when she can be overheard by her friends. In (4),
the shift exposes Carla’s covert emotional dependency on Paul: it is prompted
by emotional panic when Paul explains that he has to give up his Sédim job to
work for the night-club owner. It reveals Carla’s covert personal involvement
and is critical in shifting the balance of ascendancy to Paul. At this point, i.e.
in the last scene in this part, the use of tu has become symmetrical. But Paul’s
second order tu and non-standard register have nothing to do with intimacy
(as shown below), and the relationship indexed is asymmetrical. While index-
ing different orders of relation and types of relationship, these shifts share an
important feature: apart from the pretend shift in (2), they are involuntary, yet
are critical in inflecting the relationship between the two characters. Shifts
78 Film Subtitles from a Cross-cultural Pragmatics Perspective

in the second part, in contrast, are tactical, and build on the realization of the
strategic value of pronominal address experienced in the first part.
Paul’s shifts in the second part – (5) to (8) in Table 1c – are a mix of tactical
first order shifts and lapses into involuntary second order type shifts. The main
feature of his mode of pronominal address is a calculated shift back to vous
to address Carla and endeavour to match her register in some of the scenes,
overtly as a mark of friendly deference (first order), but covertly because he
needs something from her (e.g. to get her to come to the night club with him,
purportedly on a date, or to lip-read for him). His control of register and of
forms of address is (still) limited, however: he lapses back into his default
non-standard register and default tu when impatience, irritation or anger get the
better of him, in second order type shifts reminiscent of Part I occurrences.
Carla’s only shift in this part, in the last scene – see (9) in Table 1c – is a
calculated hybrid first/second order type shift that she uses to blackmail Paul
(she has found the money and uses the advantage that this gives her to confront
him with his surreptitious plan to escape abroad on his own, had he put his
hand on the money himself). Her use of tu in the line in which she challenges
Paul, i.e. “Après tu t’en vas c’est ça?” (literally: afterwards youT form go that’s
it?; T3:9), indexes hostility/anger/distance (rather than intimacy) and sets the
tone for the blackmail: it is a signal to Paul that she is now operating on his
terms (i.e. in petty criminal mode), with no room for negotiation or emotional
manipulation. It linguistically indexes her power over him, now regained and
at its height at this point. The terseness of her retorts and her subsequent use
of the colloquial fric for ‘money’ (T3:13) – a marked use for her that triggers
the sense of a shift in register – amplify the effect.
Taken together, T/V uses in the film provide a complex picture of the
system, of factors that govern the system, directly or indirectly, and of the
value of these factors in indexing or inflecting relationships, as discussed by
Morford (1997) and others. From a cinematic and vertical point of view, T/V
uses and shifts in their use have key structural and narrative functions in the
film. Together with shifts in register, they underpin both the development of the
relationship between the two characters and shifts in patterns of ascendancy.
They also chart the characters’ personal development: Paul’s developing con-
trol of language is an index of his developing social awareness and broadening
of horizons; Carla’s manipulation of language to control situations is an index
of her growing assertiveness (even in scenes with no T/V shifts). At the end of
the film, they are able to relate on mutually shared terms, as symbolized by the
only symmetrical use of the T form that indexes a symmetrical relationship.
From a linguistic point of view, T/V uses in the film, as a distillation of types
of use and features that are perceived to inflect them, offer a bird’s eye view


T3 identifies the table in which the example is found, i.e. Table 3 in this instance, and 9
is the number of the line in which it occurs; this notation will be used throughout.
Marie-Noëlle Guillot 79

of a system that is notoriously difficult to account for, whether by linguists

or non-linguists.
For subtitles, the question is how these functions – structural and narrative
and, more specifically here, linguistic display – may be reflected in the text,
particularly in a language like English, with no T/V differentiation.

3. Representations of T/V in the English subtitles of dialogue

between Carla and Paul

In the subtitles, the change in the characters’ attitude and relationship indexed
by T/V shifts in the source text is signposted explicitly on one occasion, for
the make-believe shift:

ST: on se tutoie hein

[let’s say tu to each other, ok?]
Subtitle: Let’s act like we’re friends.

In all other cases, such shifts are conveyed primarily through register, form
and punctuation cues; more specifically, they are replaced with shifts to non-
standard language, text reduction, manipulation of pragmatic features such
as directness in face-threatening acts, and play on the expressive value of
punctuation, all of which combine to activate particular modes of interpreta-
tion. In the interplay of cues, textual features such as terseness, directness and
markedness which reflect space/time constraints in subtitling play an important
role and emphasize the textual triggers that activate the perception of changes
in the protagonists’ relationship. Examples from the last scene of each of the
two main parts are discussed below against the background of the Theory of
Mode. The transcript and subtitles of these two scenes, shown as (4) and (9)
in Tables 1b and 1c, are detailed in Tables 2 and 3.
Between them, the different types of cues are on the whole sufficient to
fulfil the same narrative and structural functions as T/V shifts in the ST, as
the discussion of selected examples below will attempt to demonstrate. The
question of their impact as regards the more complex issue of linguistic and
cultural representations is taken up in the final part of this section.

3.1 Example 1: Last scene in Part I

This scene (Table 2) is where Carla’s shift to tu reveals her emotional turmoil
as Paul tells her that he is leaving the Sédim; the shift exposes her emotional
dependency (T2:24). Earlier in the same scene, she had been angry and dis-
tant, having had to lie for Paul to the probation officer about his being late
for work.
80 Film Subtitles from a Cross-cultural Pragmatics Perspective

SML Subtitles
1 C Qu’est-ce que vous avez foutu Where the hell were you?
2 je vous ai appelé dix fois.
3 P Je suis allé le voir. – I went to see him.
4 C Qui ça? – Who?
5 P Ben Marchand, the type de Marchand, the nightclub owner.
6 la boîte là à Meudon. …
[P explains that he has to work for
the nightclub to pay his debt]
7 C Et vous avez dit quoi? What did you say?
8 P Qu’est-ce que tu veux que je lui dise? What could I say?
9 C oh là là mais comment vous allez
10 faire ? How will you cope?
11 P Quoi?
12 C Ben pour travailler ici et là-bas. Working here and there?
13 P ah non ben là je peux plus là I can’t. I thought you realized.
14 je croyais que tu avais compris
15 je peux pas faire les deux. I can’t do both.
16 Je peux p(l)us bosser ici c’est tout. I have to leave here.
17 P Ça va. De toute façon ici, ça Besides, it isn’t working out.
18 marche pas tu vois.
19 C Qu’est-ce qui marche pas? – What isn’t?
20 P ben moi ici, ça va (?) – Me, here.
21 C’est pas pour moi. It’s not my thing.
22 C Mais non, mais pas du tout mais That’s not true !
23 moi je trouve que ça va très bien It’s working well.
24 au contraire regarde tu tu t’
25 débrouilles très bien [P eh eh eh]6. You’re doing fine
26 Pis tu fais beaucoup de progrès and making progress.
27 P Eh non non, ça va, ça se passe pas I’m not.
28 bien du tout
29 j’ t’ai dit de toute façon ça I told you I don’t give a shit.
30 m’intéresse pas j’m’en bas les
31 couilles. Voilà. Ok. Et pis de toute
32 façon c’est pas la peine d’insister Don’t sweat it. I have no choice.
33 tu sais quoi? On n’ a pas le choix.
34 C Tu l’as dit à Masson? Have you told Masson?
35 P Non je l’ai pas dit à Masson No.
36 … [explanation] He’d freak out …
37 Tu vas lui écrire une lettre … You write him a letter
38 [explains what] tell him I wasn’t up to it.
39 He won’t be surprised.

6
Non-committal acknowledgment token from P, though anticipating his response in 27.
Marie-Noëlle Guillot 81

40 Par contre euh pour le studio. On the other hand…

41 ça serait bien si je pouvais le If I could stay in the studio
42 garder encore un petit peu … for a while …
43 Could I keep the keys for a couple
44 more weeks? [one subtitle line]
45 C oui bon. Je vais en réunion là. I have a meeting. Wait here.
46 Tu m’attends.

Table 2: Example 1 – Last scene in Part I: Paul tells Carla that he has to work
at the night club (second person address form in the ST in bold; T/V shift
underlined)

In the subtitles, the line that cues a change in Carla’s attitude is the excla-
mation “That’s not true!” (T2:22), i.e. her response to Paul after he tells her he
feels ill-suited for the job and implicitly uses this to justify giving it up (T2:17,
20-21)). As an exclamation, the refutation reveals partiality. Its specific value
as a trigger indicating that a shift has occurred and what it stands for (i.e. the
laying bare of Carla’s covert feelings) is set, as will be shown below, by a
combination of other features: punctuation/form in Carla’s lines just before,
register contrasts in Carla and Paul’s lines before and after and translational
features of subtitles (omissions, levelling of ST features, message reduction
and formal simplicity). Carla’s “That’s not true!” is the culmination of a
build-up, underscored by form/punctuation, that flags her mounting panic
in the subtitles of her lines up to this point. The subtitles for lines 9-12 (Table
2) stand out in this respect. They are presented as two separate but consecu-
tive questions from Carla to Paul, as against a question (from Carla) and a
Paul/Carla question/answer adjacency pair in the ST:

(1) (T2:9-12) Subtitles

C Oh là là mais comment vous allez faire? How will you cope?

[Oh là là but how you are going to do?]
P Quoi?
[What?]
C Ben pour travailler ici et là-bas. Working here and there?
[Well to work here and there.]

The query could have been presented as one single fact-eliciting question, in
one or two subtitle lines: “How will you cope (//) working here and there”.
Split in two, it produces a syntactic fragmentation that mirrors the paratactic
construction of speech online and reflects Carla’s mental processes: as the
questions occur to her, so they are uttered, giving a sense of her growing
realization of the implications of Paul’s news and cueing the emotional panic
82 Film Subtitles from a Cross-cultural Pragmatics Perspective

that is taking hold of her. The deletion of Paul’s turn – “Quoi?” (What?;
T2:11) – and resulting juxtaposition of Carla’s turns also mean that, unlike
in the ST, Carla’s responses to Paul in the scene up to “That’s not true!” are
all questions (T2:4, 7, 10, 12, 19), all short – four words at most, as though
words were failing her: their form heightens the sense of her being caught off
guard and of her mounting distress, and sets the scene for the interpretation
of her “That’s not true!” exclamation as impulsive emotion.
Punctuation in these lines is significant on other counts. Like question
marks, exclamation marks are interactive markers. They invite a sharing of
experience and promote rapport, whether positive or negative (Catach 1994).
But unlike question marks in non-rhetorical questions, they do not necessarily
call for an answer. Carla’s “That’s not true!” is an invitation for Paul to concur
with her; it cancels out the anger/distance set by register at the beginning of
the scene (see below), but gives him no room to agree or disagree. In Carla’s
subsequent lines, there is a shift to full stops and a build-up of short declara-
tives: “It’s working well. // You’re doing fine // and making progress.”//). In
contrast with question and exclamation marks, full stops have no interpersonal
dimension, they are the mark of statement, inhibit exchange and negotiation,
make assertions incontrovertible (Catach 1994). Carla’s short statements of
fact, here again mirroring her train of thought, reflect her effort to summon
arguments that will pre-empt disagreement and work as a justification and
implicit plea for Paul to stay. Their terseness and the sense of urgency con-
veyed also give the measure of Carla’s despair; they confirm the strength of the
covert emotional dependence which, in the ST, the shift to tu is instrumental
in revealing.
Register contrasts in the subtitles of the scene work in two different ways
in establishing the value of Carla’s exclamation: overtly for Carla’s lines, and
covertly for Paul’s. In Carla’s lines, the contrast is between the opening subtitle,
“Where the hell were you?”, and both what precedes it in the previous scene
(unmarked utterances expressing her support for Paul in front of the proba-
tion officer) and what follows it, i.e. the lines just discussed (T2:9-12). The
register in this opening line is marked for her. It indexes anger, and produces
distance: it is out of line with her default register as Paul’s hierarchical superior
in a work context, and is sanctioned not by intimacy but by her hold on Paul
and the reluctant connivance between them; it is an example of how she uses
register to browbeat Paul.
The contrast with subsequent unmarked lines (“Who?” // ”What did you
say?” // “How will you cope? // Working here and there?” // “What isn’t?”;
T2:4, 7, 12, 19) heralds the shift from anger/distance to the anxiety/emotional
panic that culminates in her exclamation “That’s not true!” (and in the shift to
tu in the ST). Carla’s barrage of probing questions at this point itself reflects
the unsettling impact of Paul’s elliptic explanation for his lateness – “I went
to see him.” (T2:3). Together with the contrast in register, it cancels out the
Marie-Noëlle Guillot 83

distance of the colloquial opening and sets the scene for Carla’s “That’s not
true!” to be interpreted as emotionally charged, thus as a shift in attitude and
not as an angry reaction.
Register contrasts in the subtitles of Paul’s lines confirm the value of Carla’s
“That’s not true!” retrospectively. The main contrast is evident in the lines
before and after the exclamation, i.e.

(2) I can’t. I thought you realized. // I can’t do both. // I have to leave here. //
(T2:12, 15-16)
and

(3) I’m not. [i.e. making progress] // I told you I don’t give a shit. // Don’t
sweat it. I have no choice. [i.e. but leave] // (T2:27, 29, 32)

In (2) the neutral register contrasts with Paul’s default non-standard register
and is marked for him: the unmarked language used here, i.e. contextually
appropriate language matching up to Carla’s normal work register, and the
mitigated form of the response come across as a concession; they both tone
down the impact of Paul’s news and pre-empt objections. In (3) the shift
back to a non-standard register corresponds to Paul’s rejection of Carla’s
covert plea for him to stay and produces distance and hostility: (3) has the
same perlocutionary intent as (2), but is formally more direct and more brutal
in its impact, and gives the sense that Carla has brought the exchange onto
unwelcome grounds. It implicitly confirms the value of the exclamation and
related features as cueing a change in Carla’s attitude and making overt her
covert emotional motives.
There is a further register shift at the end of the scene and a return to mitiga-
tion, which together entrench the contrast just discussed and confirm its impact.
This is evident in Paul’s uncharacteristically moderated request for a personal
favour: “On the other hand…// If I could stay in the studio// for a while…//
Could I keep the keys for a couple more weeks?”// (T2:40-44). The register is
again neutral and cancels out the distance cued with (3) above and maintained
up to this point. The change of attitude is also flagged by a contrast in form.
Just before this exchange, Paul had made a first request (for Carla to write to
the probation officer on his behalf): “You write him a letter // tell him I wasn’t
up to it. // He won’t be surprised.”// (T2:37-39). The absence of mitigating
features in this first request is striking and magnifies their presence in the
second request, where Paul imposes on Carla to a greater extent (postpone-
ment, conditional form of the question, use of modals): it makes Paul’s earlier
terseness stand out all the more. It also demonstrates the strategic function of
pragmatic features in the interplay of cues that guide interpretation.
In all these examples, the impact of the features shown to trigger or pro-
mote particular modes of experience is compounded by features of subtitling,
84 Film Subtitles from a Cross-cultural Pragmatics Perspective

including omissions, levelling of ST features and message reduction/formal

simplicity.
There are two particularly significant instances of omission in the subtitles
for this scene. One is the omission, just after Carla’s opening line “Where
the hell were you?”, of “je vous ai appelé dix fois” (I called you ten times;
T2:2), a follow up in the ST to “Qu’est-ce que vous avez foutu” (what have
you been up to?; T2:1). Foutu is vulgar in French, and the marked colloquial
register of the line fulfils a similar function in the ST as it does in the subtitle,
i.e. it cues anger and distance. This, however, is amplified in the subtitles by
the absence of the second part of the ST utterance: the omission produces a
terseness which sharpens contrasts and accentuates the markedness of the
register, hence the resulting distance.
The second example is the omission of one of Paul’s turns, namely, “Quoi?”
(What?; T2:11), already discussed above: it is the absence of this turn that
results in the juxtaposition of Carla’s questions and is thus instrumental in
setting the value of the exclamation that exposes her covert feelings.
Examples of levelling7 in the scene include the neutralization of the ST
colloquial verbs bosser (to work) in Paul’s “je peux plus bosser ici” (I can’t
workcolloq here anymore; T2:16) and marcher (work out, fam.) in “ça marche
pas” (literally: it walks notfam., i.e. it’s not working out; T2:17-18), subtitled
as ‘I have to leave here’ and ‘it isn’t working out’, respectively. Critically,
these lines occur in between the lines that show a contrast in Paul’s register
(standard/non-standard). The absence of the colloquial terms in the interven-
ing subtitles has the effect of keeping the register contrast sharper, and is thus
more effective in triggering particular modes of experience. The ST itself can
rely on other features to do so, notably speech performative features.
A different but related type of example is the shift from Paul’s inclusive
pronoun on (one, equivalent to we) in “On n’a pas le choix” (onewe neg. has
not the choice; T2:33) to the first person I in the subtitle “I have no choice”.
at the end of his colloquial rejection of Carla’s plea. The on used by Paul
here works as a mitigating feature, but is also an advanced sign that the rela-
tionship will become symmetrical in the end. The use of ‘we’ in the subtitle
would have fulfilled the same narrative function, but would have blurred the
distance-inducing register contrast between these two critical sets of subtitles
and reduced its impact.
Levelling of offensive or non-standard tokens is customary in subtitling, to
tone down the impact that the permanence of the written mode would impart
to such tokens in subtitles (Goris 1993, Lambert 1990). The first example
discussed above shows that it can also have other, strategic functions; the
second is a reminder that subtitling imposes necessary trade-offs between
different types of priorities.

7
Levelling refers to the toning down of register variations and non-standard tokens.
Marie-Noëlle Guillot 85

Message reduction is a standard by-product of space, time and readabil-

ity constraints in subtitling, with more or less deleterious effects. Reduction
strategies normally apply to features considered less critical for conveying the
conceptual meaning of the ST (e.g. repetition, speech redundancies, pragmatic
markers such as mitigating features) but their deletion or modulation has been
shown to affect the interpersonal dynamics depicted (Hatim and Mason 1997)
or to distort the sociolinguistic and pragmatic meanings conveyed by the ST
(Blini and Matte Bon 1996, quoted in Bruti 2006). Reduction has redeeming
features, however. From the point of view of the ongoing analysis, the terse-
ness resulting from message reduction is part and parcel of the interplay of
features (e.g. form, punctuation) that sets the value of triggers for particular
modes of experience, or maintains it. In the subtitles that mirror Carla’s train
of thought (T2:7, 8, 10, 12), for example, it helps to cue the sense of mounting
emotional panic. In Paul’s unmitigated first request (T2:37-39), it compounds
the distance produced by the absence of moderating features. The contrast
with the second request – where, significantly, there is hardly any message
reduction in relation to the ST – is conspicuous and confirms the strategic
value that message reduction can assume. This value is not set, however, but
itself derives from the interplay of contextual clues, i.e. terseness derived from
message reduction may compound anger or irritation and cue distance in some
contexts, but empathy and bonding in others.

3.2 Example 2: Last scene in Part II

This scene (Table 3) is the context of Carla’s second critical shift to tu. Its
representation in the subtitles is stylized in the extreme – cued in just one
word. This is expressive in its own right. It also demonstrates how effective
triggers can become once a general modus operandi has been established: by
the end of the film, only minimal prompts are necessary to activate particular,
but contextualized, modes of experience.

SML Subtitles
1 P Beaucoup? A lot?
2 C [affirmative head nod]
3 P Vas dans la caisse j’te rejoins Meet me at the car.
4 tout de suite, vas.
5 C Et après? Then what?
6 P Après on met l’turbo et on s’arrache. Then, we get the hell out.
7 C Et après? Then what?
8 P Après quoi? What do you mean, then?
9 C Après tu t’en vas c’est ça? Then you split, is that it?
10 [she puts the plane ticket on the bar]
11 P Et alors? So what?
86 Film Subtitles from a Cross-cultural Pragmatics Perspective

12 C Ben si tu veux partir tu pars Go if you want,

13 mais sans l’fric. but without the cash.
14 P Ça c’était pas prévu ça. – That wasn’t the deal.
15 C Ben non. C’ qu’était prévu c’est – No. You were supposed to find it
16 que c’était toi qui trouvais le fric.
17 P Mais eh [P grabs C’s arm]
18 C Lâche moi. Lâche moi. Let go.
19 C J’suis à la voiture. Si t’es pas là Come in ten minutes
20 dans 10 minutes j’m’en vais. or I’ll be gone.
[P grabs C by the arm again]
21 C Arrête.

Table 3: Example 2 – Last scene in Part II: Carla has found the money and
joins Paul in the bar of the night club; Paul can tell from Carla’s expression
that she has the money (second person address in the ST in bold; T/V shift
underlined)

The word that overtly cues the shift in Carla’s attitude, conveyed in the
ST in her use of tu, is ‘split’, in “Then you split, is that it?” (T3:9). It marks a
shift in register in Carla’s speech which, like her tu in the ST, indexes distance,
here prompted by her bitterness at Paul’s duplicity, and sets the scene for the
subsequent blackmail. There is no register shift in the corresponding ST line,
and this confirms its function in the subtitle: in the ST line “Après tu t’en vas,
c’est ça?” (afterwards youT form go, that is it?; T3:9), Carla’s attitude is cued
by her use of tu alone.
As in previous examples, other features reinforce the impact of the register
shift in the subtitles:

• the insistent word-for-word repetition of the question “Then what?” after

what appears to be a legitimate answer, which prepares the ground for
the shift and sets its value by intimating that something is amiss, as is
also shown by Paul’s request for clarification “What do you mean, then?”
(T3:8);
• the confirmation tag question “…, is that it?” (T3:9) which confirms that
the question is not a neutral enquiry but a covert accusation;
• the distance-reinforcing terseness of the lines.

What is striking, however, is how little is needed at this stage, in the text itself,
to trigger a shift in experience.
In SML, the interplay of cues in the subtitles is practically sufficient over-
all to account for the development of the relationship between the characters
conveyed by T/V shifts in the source dialogues, and to fulfil their narrative
and structural functions, even though other (visual and aural) signs provide
Marie-Noëlle Guillot 87

helpful back up in the more complex second part; these signs include facial
expression, body behaviour and tone of voice. From a linguistic point of view,
the interplay also conveys the relationship between the characters’ increasing
control over language and their own personal development, but, inevitably,
does not replicate the T/V system in French per se. What the argument and
the principles discussed here allow us to do is to observe and acknowledge
alternative options: they allow the locus of representation of what the T/V
system reveals about relational negotiation among French people to be found
in features other than the pronominal system itself – for example, terms of
address.
In SML, terms of address, like the T/V system itself, are used strategically
to signpost shifts in relationships. A broad range is used in the source dialogue:
monsieur/madame with surname, madame with Christian name, surname on
its own, Christian name on its own, no term of address. Like T/V shifts, shifts
between these different forms are narratively and structurally critical in the
film. They are in this sense constructed uses, yet like T/V shifts, they none-
theless embody French speakers’ sense both of their own practices and of the
negotiation of relationship that they serve to index. Unlike T/V, they can be
linguistically represented and, in interaction with other features, create oppor-
tunities to draw attention to aspects of interpersonal negotiation in French,
albeit within the more restricted system of English. While this characteristic
is not fully exploited in the film, some of the subtitles featuring terms of ad-
dress lend support to the foregoing argument. They also further illustrate how
particular linguistic or pragmatic features may both take on particular values in
the co-text of subtitles and combine to cue particular modes of interpretation,
as in the following example from a different extract in the film:

(4) SML Subtitle

Carla/je vous demandais où était Le Henry / Carla? Where’s Le Henry?
[Carla/I you was asking where was Le Henry]

The question is addressed to Carla by her boss in the context of a staff meet-
ing after she has missed hearing an earlier query. At other times in this and
similar contexts, Carla is addressed and referred to as Mademoiselle Behm
(Miss Behm). The use of her Christian name at this point is thus marked, in
both the source dialogue and the subtitle, and signals that she is addressed
in a different capacity, i.e. not as the boss’s PA, not as an employee, but on a
personal level: it indexes the solicitude that her boss alone displays towards
her at work, and that is also manifest, in the ST but not in the subtitle, in the
mitigation of the subsequent question (reformulation in reported speech/past
tense of the verbs).
What is distinctive in the subtitle, however, is that the Christian name and
the interpersonal closeness cued by its marked use at this point is sufficient to
88 Film Subtitles from a Cross-cultural Pragmatics Perspective

project the question itself as a non-face threatening act, despite the deletion of
mitigating features. Like features discussed earlier, it is instrumental in creating
a particular frame of interpretation and setting the value of linguistic/pragmatic
features within the frame: the subtitle may be overtly direct linguistically, but
its perlocutionary effect is not. In other words, directness of address is not
projected as an attribute of the language represented per se.8 This example
echoes the example discussed earlier (T2:37-39, 40-44), in which the interplay
of directness and indirectness in the formulation of requests was shown to work
as a tool in the process of setting up frames of interpretation.

5. Conclusion

The above analysis and discussion of examples suggest that subtitles can
operate as a system of multimodal textual representation in their own right,
with the capacity to activate their own modes of interpretation by means of
cues that work together in an integrated way, in line with the principles of
Fowler’s Theory of Mode.
In their discussion of politeness in screen subtitling, Hatim and Mason
(1997) show that elements of meaning are inevitably sacrificed as a result of
the hard choices imposed by the constraints of subtitling and, specifically, that
there is systematic loss of interlocutors accommodating to each others’ ‘face
wants’: they suggest that target language auditors may thus find it difficult to
retrieve interpersonal meaning in its entirety, and may even, in some cases,
derive misleading impressions of, for example, characters’ directness and
indirectness (ibid.:84). To consider subtitles from a perspective that integrates
a cognitive dimension casts the issue in a different light, however. It opens up
the possibility, discussed here by drawing on the principles of Fowler’s Theory
of Mode, that by producing their own system of textual representation and
promoting their own modes of experience, subtitles have a greater capacity
to alert audiences to source-text linguistic and cultural particularities and to
promote intercultural sensitivity than might appear at first sight. This raises
difficult questions, however.
The objective of Hatim and Mason’s 1997 study was to ascertain whether
there were any consistent patterns in the kinds of values/signals/items that
are necessarily omitted in translated film dialogue. What would need to be
ascertained from the perspective outlined here is whether there are any consist-
ent patterns in the triggers/values that cue modes of interpretation (e.g. in the
function of shifts in register in this respect, for example), and in the modes of
interpretation that they cue. This would involve taking into account the interac-

8
Directness of address in the subtitles does not, in this sense, necessarily reinforce the
traditional linguistic and cultural stereotypes about French and the French people’s direct-
ness/rudeness/arrogance.
Marie-Noëlle Guillot 89

tion between several other critical elements: the different frames of reference
likely to inflect responses, including audiences’ own frames of linguistic and
cultural reference and their assumptions about the source language and culture,
and the cultural asynchrony between subtitles and the film’s other (visual and
aural) semiotic systems, a further key factor involved in shaping the value
of textual cues. It also highlights the need for reception studies, emphasized
by Hatim and Mason (ibid.:96) and others in later publications (e.g. Gambier
2003). Such studies remain few and far between, and are often limited to
studies of reading patterns based on eye movement, but papers presented in
specialist panels at recent conferences suggest that this is now changing9 and
that we can look ahead to ground-breaking developments.

Marie-Noëlle Guillot
School of Language and Communication Studies, University of East Anglia,
Norwich, NR4 7TJ, UK. M.Guillot@uea.ac.uk

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9
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Audiovisual reference

Audiard, Jacques (2001) Sur mes lèvres / Read My Lips, DVD version. © 2001
Sedif-Cine B-Pathe Image Production – France 2 Cinema.