Chapter 10. Multimodality and subtitles

Abstract

This article examines, in a corpus of eight mainstream Japanese films with French subtitles, the forms of realization of certain im/polite Japanese multimodal behaviors (verbal rituals, kneeling, bowing, clothing, deferential vs casual attitude), and also the impact of the contextual environment on the choices made by the subtitlers. It shows the importance of multimodality for the non-Japanese spectator who, due to a non-overlap between the formulas of each language and/or in the absence of subtitles, can rely on these nonverbal and situational elements to re-establish the gap between the source language-culture and the target language-culture, to interpret the degree of deference that exists between the characters and/or to imagine the forms of realization of the asymmetry of the relationships.