Subtitle consumption according to eye tracking data: An acquisitional perspective

When dealing with film subtitling, the exploration of readability and usability issues as well as the analysis of the cognitive effectiveness of subtitle reading are relevant to ensure that subtitles are fully usable for the end-audience. Eye-tracking based approaches to the study of subtitling, for example, enable us to get into different aspects of the way film subtitles are processed and perceived. This is particularly important when considering subtitles in an acquisitional and didactic perspective. With this paper, we intend to present an updated critical overview on the most recent perception-based aspects of subtitle processing. The paper includes a discussion of the impact of translation strategies on subtitle reading, the processing of subtitles as a function of language knowledge and type of information on the screen, the effect of linguistic variation on subtitle perception and the influence of line segmentation on subtitled film viewers.