Subtitling in the Nigerian Film Industry, Informative or Misleading?

Authors

  • Andrew Ali Ibbi ELIZADE UNIVERSITY ILARA MOKIN, ONDO STATE, NIGERIA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2014.100

Keywords:

Kannywood, Intertitles, Subtitles, Yoruba films, Hausa films, Spotting

Abstract

Subtitles are captions displayed at the bottom of a cinema or television screen that translate or transcribe the dialogue or narrative. Nigeria and indeed Africa should be a major beneficiary of the subtitles considering the number of ethnic groups in the continent. The emergence of different film industries in countries around Africa has helped in showcasing Africa to the international community. Hence, subtitles came in handy, considering the fact that most viewers cannot understand the language with which the movies were produced. This paper explores the battle for meaning by English subtitles to movies produced in African languages especially the Nigerian film industry. The paper will look at the Hermaneutic Theory of Mass Communication to buttress the relevance of deriving meaning out of movie subtitles. The Hausa and the Yoruba film industries are the subjects of this study because of the large viewership they enjoy by people even outside Nigeria. The research came up as a result of the persistent errors which I have noticed while watching Yoruba and Hausa films with subtitles. Subtitles convey a summary of the dialogues taking place in a movie. Viewers who cannot understand the language used for the dialogue rely on the subtitles to make meaning out of the movie. If they are unable to make meaning out of the subtitles because of some inadequacies as a result of carelessness in the process of production, the aim of having the subtitles is defeated.

Author Biography

Andrew Ali Ibbi, ELIZADE UNIVERSITY ILARA MOKIN, ONDO STATE, NIGERIA

Lecturer at the Department of Mass Communication. Lecturer II

References

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Published

2015-07-13

How to Cite

Ibbi, A. A. (2015). Subtitling in the Nigerian Film Industry, Informative or Misleading?. CINEJ Cinema Journal, 4(1), 47–61. https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2014.100

Issue

Vol. 4 No. 1 (2014): Fall 2014

Section

Articles

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