Since Audiovisual Translation burgeoned into an area of interlingual mediation worthy of scholarly research in its own right, the rationale for and impact of the translator’s intervention have always ranked high in the specialists’ agenda. For decades, the study of intervention has been informed almost exclusively by mechanical considerations. The need to subordinate the translator’s ingenuity to the constraints imposed by the interaction between visual and aural information has been found to result in interventionist mediations and has led some scholars to regard such interlingual transfers as forms of adaptation rather than translation. In recent years, however, audiovisual translators have found themselves dealing with a wider typology of genres and text-types, mediating in increasingly more varied and hybrid media and working for a more heterogeneous set of social players and political/ideological agendas. On the one hand, audiovisual technology has become one of the most powerful communicative instruments in our world, and the materials disseminated through this technology are arguably far more influential than the print media and literature. On the other hand, our increasing exposure to visuals and their embedding into all sorts of message structures used in everyday life is modifying our own patterns of engagement with and interpretation of audiovisual texts.

All in all, this shift from the translation of (mainly) films to that of multimodal texts across a growing number of media calls for a more sophisticated approach to the study of the translator’s more or less overt/deliberate intervention and the reasons thereof. Translation plays an enormous role in the global distribution systems of feature films, documentaries, cartoons, children’s programming on TV, serials, educational/training/ corporate videos, public service “spots”, software, video games and other phenomena. Yet, in their passage from language to language, culture to culture, these materials are often subject to interventionist translation - for political, ideological, educational, cultural or simply mechanical reasons. This panel will examine intervention via translation in this area of human communication.

Proposals for papers are welcome on any topic that clearly addresses “intervention in AV translation” in any of the genres listed above. Specific issues which may generate particular interest include the following:

• New trends and practices for consolidated and emerging modes of audiovisual transfer.

• Interdisciplinary approaches to the concept of intervention in audiovisual translation: film theory, social theory, multimodal theory, narrative theory, semiotics, corpus-based studies, etc.

• Methodological insights into the study of intervention in the translation of multimedia texts.

• The impact of globalization, localization and internationalization on the conception, management and distribution of audiovisual texts: the place of translation and the impact of the translator’s intervention within the new overall workflow.

• The politics of audiovisual translation: who chooses what is translated when, why and for whom. External intervention versus the translator’s own intervention.

• Intervention in the translation of ideologically loaded texts: censorship and ethics of audiovisual translation.

• Intervention and the mediation between majorities-minorities; powerful-powerless agents; mainstream-fringe values; texts-subtexts.

• Amateur audiovisual translators of widely circulated texts: fansubbers and political activists.

• Intervention and accessibility: subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing and audiodescription.

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