The Impact of Italian Dubbing on Viewers’ Immersive Experience: An Audience Reception Study

Francesca Raffi 1 *
More Detail
1 University of Macerata, ITALY
* Corresponding Author
Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, Volume 10, Issue 3, Article No: e202019. https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/8371
OPEN ACCESS   2569 Views   1709 Downloads   Published online: 30 Jun 2020
Download Full Text (PDF)

ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the impact of Italian dubbing on the immersive psychological experience of the American TV series Game of Thrones, using data from post-hoc self-report questionnaires. The show is filled with historical and cultural references to medieval England and the characters are portrayed linguistically through different accents, regional dialects and registers. The research takes the form of an audience reception study. Two audience samples (Italian and English native speakers) watched an excerpt from the ninth episode of season two. English viewers watched the video in the original version, while the Italian sample watched it in the dubbed version. Participants then completed a 40-item questionnaire to self-report their level of immersion, using post-hoc Likert scales to evaluate their presence, perceived realism, character identification, enjoyment and transportation to the narrative world. The results showed significant differences between the immersion levels experienced by the two samples. The English audience reported higher scores on each immersion scale, especially with regard to perceived realism, character identification and transportation, while presence seemed to be the least affected by language transfer.
Keywords: audiovisual translation, dubbing, reception study, psychological immersion, Game of Thrones

CITATION

Raffi, F. (2020). The Impact of Italian Dubbing on Viewers’ Immersive Experience: An Audience Reception Study. Online Journal of Communication and Media Technologies, 10(3), e202019. https://doi.org/10.30935/ojcmt/8371

REFERENCES

  • Ameri, S., & Khoshsaligheh, M. (2018). Exploring the attitudes and expectations of Iranian audiences in terms of professional dubbing into Persian. Hermes, 57, 175-193. https://doi.org/10.7146/hjlcb.v0i57.106206
  • Ameri, S., & Khoshsaligheh, M. (2020). Dubbing viewers in cyberspaces: A netnographic investigation of the attitudes of a Persian-language online community. KOME, 8(1), 23-43. https://doi.org/10.17646/KOME.75672.45
  • Ameri, S., Khoshsaligheh, M., & Khazaee Farid, A. (2018). The reception of Persian dubbing: A survey on preferences and perception of quality standards in Iran. Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice, 26(3), 435-451. https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676X.2017.1359323
  • Benioff, D, & Weiss, D. (Executive Producers). (2011-2019). Game of thrones [TV series]. HBO Entertainment.
  • Busselle, R. W., & Greenberg B. S. (2000). The nature of television realism judgments: A reevaluation of their conceptualization and measurement. Mass Communication and Society, 3(2-3), 249-268. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327825MCS0323_05
  • Carroll, N., & Seeley W. P. (2013). Cognitivism, psychology, and neuroscience: Movies as attentional engines. In A. P. Shimamura (Ed.), Psychocinematics: exploring cognition at the movies (pp. 53-76). Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199862139.003.0003
  • Chmiel, A., & Mazur, I. (2012). AD reception research: Some methodological considerations. In E. Perego (Ed.), Emerging topics in translation: Audio description (pp. 57-80). Trieste: EUT Edizioni Università di Trieste.
  • Cho, H., Shen, L., & Wilson, K. (2014). Perceived realism: Dimensions and roles in narrative persuasion. Communication Research, 41(6), 828-851. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650212450585
  • Cohen, J. (2001). Defining identification: A theoretical look at the identification of audiences with media characters. Mass Communication Society, 4(3), 245-264. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15327825MCS0403_01
  • Coleridge, S. T. (1985). Biografia literaria. In H. Jackson (Ed.), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (pp. 155-482). Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Original work published 1817).
  • Di Giovanni, E. (2019). The reception of professional and non professional subtitles: Agency, awareness and change. Cultus, 11(2), 18-38.
  • Di Giovanni, E., & Gambier, Y. (2018). Introduction. In E. Di Giovanni & Y. Gambier (Eds.), Reception studies and audiovisual translation (pp. vii-xii). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.141.01gio
  • Di Giovanni, E., & Romero Fresco, P. (2019). Are we all together across languages? An eye tracking study of original and dubbed films. In I. Ranzato and S. Zanotti (Eds.), Reassessing Dubbing. Historical Approaches and Current Trends (pp. 125-144). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.148.06di
  • Díaz-Cintas, J., & Szarkowska, A. (2020). Introduction: Experimental research in audiovisual translation - cognition, reception, production. Journal of Specialised Translation, 33(3), 3-16.
  • Flis, G., Sikorski, A., & Szarkowska, A. (2020). Does the dubbing effect apply to voice-over? A conceptual replication study on visual attention and immersion. Journal of Specialised Translation, 33(3), 41-69.
  • Gerbner, G., & Gross, L. (1976). Living with television: The violence profile. Journal of Communication, 26(2), 172-199. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1976.tb01397.x
  • Green, M. C., & Brock, T. C. (2000). The role of transportation in the persuasiveness of public narratives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(5), 701-21. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.79.5.701
  • Green, M. C., T. C., & Kaufman, G. F. (2004). Understanding media enjoyment: The role of transportation into narrative worlds. Communication Theory, 14(4), 311-27. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2004.tb00317.x
  • Hall, A. (2003). Reading realism: Audiences’ evaluations of the reality of media texts. Journal of Communication, 53(4), 624-641. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2003.tb02914.x
  • Heiss, C. (2004). Dubbing multilingual films: A new challenge? Meta 49(1), 208-220. https://doi.org/10.7202/009035ar
  • Kim, T., & Biocca, F. (1997). Telepresence via television: Two dimensions of telepresence may have different connections to memory and persuasion. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 3(2), online. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.1997.tb00073.x
  • Kruger, J. L., & Doherty, S. (2018). Triangulation of online and offline measures of processing and reception in AVT. In E. Di Giovanni & Y. Gambier (Eds.), Reception studies and audiovisual translation (pp. 91-110). Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.141.06kru
  • Kruger, J. L., Doherty, S., & Soto-Sanfiel, M. T. (2017). Original language subtitles: Their effects on the native and foreign viewer. Comunicar, 25(50), 23-32. https://doi.org/10.3916/C50-2017-02
  • Kruger, J. L., Doherty, S., Fox, W., & De Lissa, P. (2018). Multimodal measurement of cognitive load during subtitle processing: same-language subtitles for foreign-language viewers. In I. Lacruz, & R. Jääskeläinen (Eds.), Innovation and expansion in translation process research (pp. 267-294). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/ata.18.12kru
  • Kruger, J. L., Soto-Sanfiel., M. T., Doherty, S. & Ibrahim, R. (2016). Towards a cognitive audiovisual translatology: Subtitles and embodied cognition. In. R. Muñoz (Ed.), Reembedding Translation Process Research (pp. 171-194). London: John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.128.09kru
  • Livingstone, S. M. (1998). Making sense of television: The psychology of audience interpretation. New York: Routledge.
  • Lothe, J. (2000). Narrative in fiction and film: An introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Minsky, M. (1980). Telepresence. Omni, 2(9), 45-51.
  • Nilsson, N. C., Nordahl, R., & Serafin, S. (2016). Immersion revisited: A review of existing definitions of immersion and their relation to different theories of presence. Human Technology, 12(2), 108-134. https://doi.org/10.17011/ht/urn.201611174652
  • Orrego-Carmona, D. (2016). A reception study on non-professional subtitling. Do audiences notice any difference? Across Languages and Cultures, 17(2), pp. 163-181. https://doi.org/10.1556/084.2016.17.2.2
  • Paas, F., van Merriënboer, J. J. G., & Adam, J. J. (1994). Measurement of cognitive load in instructional research. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 79(1), 419-430. https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1994.79.1.419
  • Pouliot, L., & Cowen, P. S. (2007). Does perceived realism really matter in media effects? Media Psychology, 9(2), 241-259. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213260701285819
  • Romero Fresco, P. & Fryer, L. (2013). Could audio described films benefit from audio introductions? An audience response study. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness 107(4), 287-285. https://doi.org/10.1177/0145482X1310700405
  • Romero Fresco, P. & Fryer, L. (2016, April 29). The reception of automatic surtitles: Viewers’ preferences, perception and presence [Conference presentation] Unlimited: International Symposium on Accessible Live Events, University of Antwerp, Belgium.
  • Romero Fresco, P. (2020). The dubbing effect: an eye-tracking study on how viewers make dubbing work. Journal of Specialised Translation, 33(3), 17-40.
  • Tal-Or, N., & Cohen, J. (2010). Understanding audience involvement: Conceptualizing and manipulating identification and transportation. Poetics, 38(4), 402-418. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2010.05.004
  • Walczak, A. & Fryer, L. (2017). Creative description: The impact of audio description style on presence in visually impaired audiences. British Journal of Visual Impairment 35(1), 6-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/0264619616661603
  • Whitman-Linsen, C. (1992). Through the dubbing glass: The synchronization of American motion pictures into German, French, and Spanish. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
  • Wirth, W., Hartmann, T., Boecking, S., Vorderer, P., Klimmt, P., Schramm, H., et al. (2007). A process model of the formation of spatial presence experiences. Media Psychology, 9(3), 493-525. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213260701283079
  • Wissmath, B., & Weibel, D. (2012). Translating movies and the sensation of ‘being there’. In E. Perego (Ed.), Eye tracking in audiovisual translation (pp. 281-298). Roma: Aracne Editrice.
  • Wissmath, B., Weibel, D., & Groner, R. (2009). Dubbing or subtitling? Effects on presence, transportation, flow, and enjoyment. Journal of Media Psychology, 21(3), 114-125. https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-1105.21.3.114