Appropriate icon is appropriate

[soc_puppet]

Person on Tumblr: Why would people need subtitles for a show that's in English, WTF?

Lots of other people in reblogs: Audio processing disorder, sound mixing in shows has gone to shit, I like to eat crunchy things while watching, etc.

Me, deliberately not reblogging: Interesting that you specify "English" there, and also use the word "subtitles" instead of "captions", because that means that my first thought is that the watcher doesn't necessarily know English. Like, I get that we're assuming that the subtitles are also in English, but OP really didn't specify that, and it's kind of a glaring oversight on everyone's part here.


Yeah, pretty sure adding that in a reblog wouldn't actually help anything, so I'm just keeping it here so I don't go bananas trying not to say it.

Comments

[pangolin20]

Exactly! I live in a country that's generally quite good at English, and there's still often subtitles with English speakers, because that's just good form.

And even having English subtitles for English shows available is just common sense. So yeah, I feel you!

[pikkugen]

Same. Also learning English is easier if you can both hear the words AND see them written, so.

[pangolin20]

I think looking at an English program with Dutch subtitles was even one of the ways I began to learn it, so I can certainly attest to that.

[pikkugen]

The Finns are supposedly Good At Languages because we subtitle everything, rather than dub, so we would hear a lot of different languages if the media field wasn't so overwhelmingly American-dominated. (Even our national channels don't have the funding to import and translate other European productions except rarely, and that's a pity. In my youth we would have heard quite a selection of languages on TV, which of course helped me to learn the five I speak now, not fluently any more, but.)

[pangolin20]

That is certainly a pity...

Which languages do you speak, if I may ask?

[pikkugen]

Uhhh. Finnish is my native one, English is my first foreign, then Swedish, French, Spanish, and Latin which I don't exactly speak but, er, used to read when I was still studying? I also have a smattering of related (and unrelated) languages that I love to pretend I understand but never studied properly.

[soc_puppet]

Fully agreed! I mean, I'm on team "Subtitles and dubs and captions* (not to mention descriptive audio for the blind) should be available for everything!", since each of those is a solution to a different problem. And being able to pick which ones you want to use at any given time makes the most sense, even if it's only an option on DVD/Bluray release (which should also be readily available for just about everything).


* I personally refer to subtitles as being a translation from the spoken language into a different language, and captions as a transcript of spoken language. Since I'm in favor of dubs, and since dubs have to take liberties with translation in ways that subtitles don't, I think that people who want to watch dubs should still be able to read along with the dub. For example, in the copy of Cardcaptor Sakura I have, here's a snippet from the first episode of season two:

English dub: "Hello? Is someone there?"
Subtitle track: "Who...? Who's calling out to me?"

As a linguistic adaptation, it's pretty good! As an accessibility option, not so much. If someone with audio processing issues and their friend with dyslexia want to watch a show together, there should be a way for them to do so!

...Okay, rant over 😅

[pangolin20]

And fully agreed with you! Feel free to rant at me!

Smart energy management and ...

[jesse_the_k]

Here's a linguistic nitpick: UK uses subtitles where US uses captions. They both can be both closed subtitles or closed captions (turn them on with the menu or turn on the character generator on an analog TV) and open subtitles/captions (always present).

BBC Subtitle Guidance

Re: Smart energy management and ...

[soc_puppet]

Oh, I didn't know that! Well, that explains a bit; thanks! I do wish the names were standardized, though, because they're definitely different things, IMO.