Accessibilità e contronarrazione al Sole Luna Doc Festival. Sottotitolare le storie dei documentari

Abstract

This work is placed in the context of studies on the accessibility of audiovisual products in the realm of independent cinema, with its ability to provide access to social, cultural, historical and political truths, and also in the context of studies on audiovisual translation as an instrument providing access to audiences with specific and general disabilities, and to audiences with normal hearing. Against the backdrop of documentary festivals and, in particular, within the framework of the Sole Luna Doc Film Festival, scrutiny is placed on interlingual subtitling (also for the deaf and hard of hearing) as the most frequently used and disseminated practice. The three dominant languages are, first of all, the source language of each documentary (some in European, others in non-European languages), secondly, the primary target language and, finally, the secondary target language. The English language, used as a language for global communication, and the Italian language as a local language, are the languages through which stories about identities with different cultural roots – impacted and constrained by social issues and marginalisation – unfold within the narrative space of subtitles. By means of a specific corpus of bilingual subtitles selected from the documentaries chosen for analysis, this study sheds lights on the concept of stories or narratives made accessible through bilingual subtitles identified as spaces of narrativity. The narrative space marked in the selected speaking Anglo-Italian subtitles is investigated according to the model of the Appraisal system through which it is possible to extrapolate the textual voices (both oral speech and written texts) that are embedded in common peripheral contexts, and to comprehend how these identities have interpersonally constructed their personae, while producing greater solidarity and empathy on the part of the public.