Attitudes of Non-Professional Subtitlers towards Ethics in Subtitling English-Language Films into Persian

Audiovisual translation has received considerable attention from translation scholars in recent years. However, subtitling and specifically non-professional subtitling, due to the dominance of dubbing in Iranian national and state media, has received less attention in Iranian academia. This study examines the attitudes of non-professional subtitlers towards ethical principles in subtitling English language films into Persian. The statistical population included all non-professional subtitlers active on the Internet, among whom 15 individuals were selected through purposive sampling. A semi-structured interview was conducted as the main research tool, and its items were online-based and available to the interviewees by email or in person. Findings showed that the ethical principles were limited to faithfulness to the original audiovisual translation (AVT) material and avoiding any manipulation, resulting in the transfer of many Western cultural and linguistic taboos in subtitling. Moreover, novice translators placed more emphasis on complete faithfulness to the original text regardless of any cultural and linguistic filters.