What Would We Read Best? Hypotheses and Suggestions for the Location of Line Breaks in Film Subtitles

This study aims to shed light on the possible effects of line-breaks on film subtitle readability and usability, and offers theoretical evidence that processing might be enhanced by careful segmentation of lines. Although psycholinguistic literature shows that reading coherent groups of words at each fixation aids its linear progress, a careful segmentation of lines does not seem to be consistently provided to encourage automated reading of film captions and subtitles. This paper makes the claim that when phrases and clauses have to continue over a new line, segmentation should take place according to the principal rules of syntax. Only in this way can the cognitive process of reading subtitles and watching action proceed with the least effort. This is also likely to enable more users, including the deaf and hard-of-hearing, along with second language learners, to process film subtitles proficiently