Codification of Nonverbal Elements in Subtitled Texts: A Case Study of the Persian Subtitles of English Movies

Codification of nonverbal elements in subtitling movies is a challenge for translators. The aim of this study was to investigate the strategies used by Iranian subtitlers for codification of nonverbal elements in subti- tling English movies into Persian using Perego’s shifts and strategies (2003). For this purpose, a selection of 20 English movies (ST) with their Persian subtitles (TT) by Iranian subtitlers were selected and analyzed. At first, nonverbal elements in the ST were identified. Then, they were compared with their Persian subtitles using Perego’s model to find out the strategies used by Persian subtitlers in codifying the nonverbal ele- ments. The results showed 56 cases of codification of nonverbal information in the Persian subtitles. Ac- cording to the results, the strategies suggested by Perego for the codification of nonverbal information in subtitling are applicable to subtitling from English into Persian. Among these strategies, addition (48%) had the highest frequency and reformulation (13%) had the lowest frequency in the subtitling of the 20 English films.