For The Love of Subtitling:
Analysing Challenges in Audio-Visual Translations of Rocky aur Rani kii Prem Kahani

In today’s multimodal technological landscape, audio-visual media has emerged as a crucial space for information dissemination and consumption via various digital platforms. Enabled by the rising internet access, audio-visual media has witnessed a rapid increase in consumption due to “its capacity for swift exchange, its appealing nature and its potential to reach large audiences anywhere in the world” (Diaz-Cintas 273), enabling quick and easy spread of information and ideas. These multimodal forms consist of complex linguistic and iconographic elements that allow for complex interpretations of the media for their audience. However, these elements embedded in the audio-visual media form are often difficult to contextually comprehend for a linguistically and socio-culturally varied audience. This can materialise in the form of greetings, culinary items, clothing, humour, honorifics, language variation, and so on. Thus, this contextual information must be transferred for the target demographic to understand and interpret. In order to do so, the translator must be well-versed in the socio-cultural context of the source and the target language in order to facilitate a cross-cultural understanding.

Over the years, Audio-Visual Translation (AVT), with its modalities of dubbing, subtitling, and voiceover, has been utilised to make various multimodal forms accessible to a vast audience. In contrast to the traditional translation process, AVT must consider the visual component, in addition to the auditory one, as the translation must be integrated with the visuals of the media for a seamless experience. Therefore, the translators are not working to produce a linguistic output for a verbal input but rather a linguistic output in accordance with the audio-visual input, technical requirements, and, importantly, the cultural-specific context present in the media.

Used since the early 1930s in the film industry, AVT has now made its way to various digital platforms, where users can consume content in the form of videos, texts, and graphics. Considering that media forms make use of certain stylistic elements to represent and actualise the reality of the world within the media, it becomes pertinent to be cognizant of these representations as they are often interrelated with the socio-cultural context of the place where the media is situated. Translators greatly influence the final product as they have the authority over the approach the AVT process takes. This can often lead to translations that are not only faulty and lacking nuance but can also alter the meaning of the source. For instance, the lines of the song “Yeh Bandhan Hai” from Karna and Arjun (1995) are translated as:

“this bondage is the bondage of love, its the intercourse of many births” ¹ (The original lines being: yeh bandhan toh pyaar ka bandhan hai / janmo ka sangam hai) (my translation: this bond is a bond of love, the union of many births)

Therefore, it is of utmost importance to be well-versed in the various aspects and nuances of the media and its social, cultural, and linguistic characteristics. Evidently, language plays a crucial role in the AVT process; however, language can extend beyond its communicative purpose.

While it is true that subtitles work to facilitate the flow of information, it is also evident that they do not merely transfer the content from the source but also the context associated with it. Various elements and components of the audio-visual media form contribute towards meaning-making through their interactions. A simple conversation consists of linguistic and extra-linguistic information that must be transmitted through the subtitles as it “reveals the correlation between formal features and extra-linguistic meanings supporting the identification and interpretation of users and situations” (Pinto 4). Since any form of media makes use of certain elements for developing its setting and narratives, it is essential that the implications of these elements are conveyed in the subtitles. Through these elements, purposes such as “introducing realism, defining relations of power and solidarity, contributing to spatial localization and diegetic focus/point of view or introducing comic moments” can be easily facilitated (Pinto 11-12). The nature and execution of these representational elements within a media form affect the textual presentation in the form of subtitles. The use of accents, costumes, settings, and so on are some of the representational elements that determine how the subtitles are presented. Since these elements can often be unique to certain cultures and can be understood fully within that context, it becomes highly important for the translator to communicate in this context. This involves a consistent “effort to contextualize a product and to understand the observed translational choices in terms of ideology, the status of translator and translation in the target context, legibility and intelligibility for the target audience, differences between source and target cultures, audience profiling and expected product function” (Renna 37). Thus, the subtitler must make informed decisions regarding the translation of terms, keeping in mind the socio-cultural context embedded in the media.

Language and language variation emerge as one of the most used elements of representation in AVM since it provides an opportunity to experiment with spoken language, which has a dual function of communicating information and “establishing social relationships” (Trudgill 2). Since there is a “close inter-relationship between language and society” (Trudgill 2), spoken language or speech allows for identifiable characterisation in audio-visual media. A contrast between the standard language and its variation is often used for indirectly portraying different characters and situations. When spoken by the characters, language variation reflects and reveals the cultural ideologies and sociolinguistic values related to their communities, which are “organised in a specific manner to produce specific meanings and assist the viewer in positioning the character within the fictional sociocultural structure” (Pinto 5). Information about the characters, such as their social-class background, education level, geopolitical location, etc., is revealed through language variations.

Language variation arises as the major stylistic element of Language Variation in the 2023 Bollywood film Rocky aur Rani kii Prem Kahani (RRPK, trans. Rocky and Rani’s Love Story), underlining the various linguistic and socio-cultural nuances of the subtitling process. Subtitled by one of the most renowned subtitlers of the industry, Nasreen Munni Kabir, the film navigates its story via the socio-cultural aspect of Language Variation, demonstrating the necessity and significance of maintaining the essence of the audio-visual media. The numerous decisions undertaken by Kabir during the subtitling process accentuate the impact of subtitling on the audience’s interpretation and understanding of the media form. RRPK juxtaposes a standard English vernacular with that of an Indian vernacular variation to fulfil the purpose of characterisation, humorous relief, and a major conflict via the subtextual socio-cultural aspect of the vernacular.

Due to the central role played by language variation in the film, it becomes crucial for Kabir to transfer these aspects into the subtitles of the film. In fact, the transfer of contextual information becomes all the more pertinent in the case of language variation because “language as a social phenomenon is closely tied up with the social structure and value systems of society, different dialects and accents are evaluated in different ways” (Trudgill). These value systems are intricately related to the concept of prestige within socio-linguistic groups. Languages, along with the linguistic and communicative aspects, also carry a social dimension that must be accounted for in the process of subtitling. However, the subtitling process is extremely complicated. Due to the simultaneous processing of audio, visual, and textual input by the audience, it becomes imperative that the subtitles maintain the essence of the verbal utterance in the AVM and be seamlessly assimilated as well. This can often result in reduction—total or partial—or condensation of the original utterance, posing a threat to the subtextual context of the media. Furthermore, the spatial and temporal aspects of the subtitles also affect the way subtitles are presented to the audience, thereby impacting the entire subtitling process as there is limited time and space to work with.

According to industry standards, a maximum of 37 characters per line would be allowed in each line, with a “maximum exposure time” of two lines of subtitles to six seconds (Diaz-Cintas and Ramael 97, 109). The effect of these challenges is evident in Kabir’s decision in the subtitles when Rani, while in an argument with Rocky, says, “LSR se graduate hu” (trans. I am a graduate from LSR), which is simply translated as “I graduated from LSR” with the abbreviation included in the subtitle. By not expanding LSR to Lady Shri Ram College, which in the Indian context is one of the most prestigious institutions for education, Kabir seems to favour cultural authenticity over brevity. Thereby not conveying the cultural context of the dialogue, which can be attributed to the intensity with which the dialogue is delivered. Similarly, in the first meeting between Rocky and Rani, referring to the latter’s comment on the former’s buttoned-down shirt, Rocky says, “agar maine aapke low sweetheart neck wale blouse par aesa koi comment kar diya hota toh kand ho jana tha” (trans if I had commented on your low sweetheart neckline blouse, then there would have been a scandal). This is translated as “if I said anything about your neckline, or commented on your blouse, all hell would break loose!”. To make the subtitles readable and concise, Kabir leaves out certain words from the original utterance. Additionally, when introducing his friend to Rani, Rocky says, “soon to do marriage with steady girlfriend Minty” (verbatim), which is subtitled as “soon to marry steady girlfriend Minty”, which could be attributed to the spatial and temporal consideration due to the fast-paced dialogues between the characters.

The significance of these examples lies in the fact that the film utilises the major element of language variations for its stylistic element to highlight the socio-cultural differences amongst characters through connotations. The film establishes a contrast between its main set of characters through language variation—one set being Rani and her family and the other, Rocky and his family.

The male protagonist Rocky makes use of a non-standard variety of English that gives rise to verbal utterances of words, such as “esscuse” (excuse), “missaaginy” (misogyny), “laddiz” (ladies), and so on. These utterances then become indicators of his low-prestige socio-cultural status. Rocky’s speech is constituted of specific linguistic idiosyncrasies that are associated with a form of non-standard Indian English. This language variation that Rocky uses is so consistent and unique to him that it becomes the essence of his character. Additionally, language variation is also used by minor characters such as Vikky (Rocky’s friend) and Gayatri (Rocky’s sister). Vikky shares a sociolect² with Rocky as they are both seen pronouncing words a similar way (‘educated’ being pronounced as ‘aejucated’) and also possessing a similar ideological point of view and habits. Vicky is Rocky’s “BFF-cum-trainer” and can arguably be assigned the archetype of the sidekick. On the other hand, Gayatri struggles with appropriate word usage, for instance, confusing ‘organise’ with ‘orgasm’. This also corresponds to the conservative views regarding gender that she is bound by. Thus, while they all belong to a wealthy economic class, the entire circle is associated with low prestige and socio-cultural status, implying that they hold regressive views aligning with specific conservative and oppressive ideologies.

Similarly, the female protagonist, Rani, represents the oppositional values of the social hierarchy. While Rocky’s household, which primarily makes use of a non-standard and low-prestige language, also holds regressive gender-based, patriarchal views, Rani’s household is associated with literature, culture, art, and more, is portrayed as progressive. Rani’s entire family is built on the stereotypical idea of a ‘high-culture’ Bengali household as they are seen hosting culture club meetings, indulging in classical dance forms, adorning their home with a portrait of Rabindranath Tagore, and so on and so forth. In fact, the two main protagonists also emerge as the representatives of their familial qualities, which also becomes the main conflict of the plot. In one of the scenes, Rani says to Rocky:

“I graduated from LSR [Lady Shri Ram College at Delhi University]. Did my post-grad in Columbia. All my exes were high achievers…One is looking for the cure to cancer…Then you landed up in my life, with a protein shake in your hand and a shirt wide open. Limitless hotness and in strange English, you said: ‘Hi, Rani! How’s you? Rocky Randhawa this side.’ My head said we had nothing in common.”

This scene overtly expresses the gap between Rani, a ‘highly-educated’ woman, and Rocky, a generationally wealthy man, boastful about his bought-off high-school degree. Furthermore, this scene brings to the fore the main conflict of the film. These deeply embedded cultural markers become rather complex for Kabir to convey within restricted parameters.

However, this language variation enables the construction of a clear dichotomy between the two social classes within the film. This dichotomy is not on a linguistic level but a social one and plays out as the major conflict in the plot of the film. As Peter Trudgill remarks on non-standard language variations in his book Sociolinguistics – Language and Society, all language varieties are adequately structured language systems that have nothing inherently inferior in them. Any value judgement of inferiority attributed to any language variation is due to the associations made “with speakers from under-priviledged, low-status groups” and any concerns of “correctness and purity of linguistic varieties are social rather than linguistic” (8-9). This socio-linguistic hierarchy also represents the ideologies of the social groups, as is evident from the contrasting views of the two households. There exists a gap between the sensibilities of the two groups, which are expressed through conflicts of gender stereotypes or patriarchal values and also represented through associations with language variations.

This language variation is represented in the subtitles by replicating the phonological features and grammatical structures of the speech. Kabir utilises, in Pinto’s terms, the Preservation Strategy of ‘Maintenance’, which refers to a technique that “preserves variation in similar terms as in the source product” (8). This foregrounds the significance of the linguistic dimension of subtitling. In the case of RRPK, this strategy becomes particularly significant for stylistic representation as well as for the facilitation of interpretation of these representations to a varied audience. While all audio-visual media consists of its own set of representational elements, including language variation, the case of RRPK is unique as it places these elements at the very crux of its film.

Kabir’s skilful subtitling assists in translating the indirect elements of representation, particularly the language variation, into a textual form that a linguistically and geographically varied demographic can easily understand. For this reason, Rocky’s pronunciation of words such as ‘Birthday’, ‘Simple’, ‘Memory’, and ‘Focusing’ are presented in the subtitles as “Burrday”, “Simpal”, “mammery”, and “fokusing” to preserve his variation. After all, the idea that “Rocky doesn’t know English” would not have the same effect if his language variations, such as “Meanz?”, “sallibrating”, “aalso”, and “naice” were simply translated as ‘What do you mean?’, ‘celebrating’, ‘also’, and ‘nice’ in the subtitles. Thus, Kabir’s subtitles manage to preserve not only Rocky’s characteristic essence but also the humour of the film, which is also an essential aspect of the film in relation to Rocky’s character. As the male protagonist, he becomes the representative of his household and, therefore, the social circle that is being hinted at.

Accordingly, each utterance in the film is surrounded by “assumptions, presuppositions and conventions” that “reflect the ways in which a given culture constructs and partitions reality” (Hatim and Mason 67), as the semiotics account for the linguistic relations within a larger system and “locate a given message within an overall system of values appropriate to a given culture” (Hatim and Manson 59). Here, language variation becomes a semiotic and pragmatic tool for reflecting traditional and cultural values due to the relationship between language and social background, level of education, and so on. The subtitles manage to establish the fact that despite having wealth, Rocky and his social circles are not as ‘refined’ and ‘sophisticated’ as compared to Rani’s, which becomes a point of conflict in the plot of the film. Due to its significance, Rocky’s language variation necessitates a reflection in the subtitles for a non-Indian demographic to situate his socio-cultural status.

Kabir also displays her awareness regarding the interactions taking place between various audio, visual, and textual components and their effect on the audience’s interpretation. Unlike the aforementioned dialogues from Rocky, which are spoken in a dialect which are then translated phonetically by Kabir, the dialogues of a lower-rung employee at Rani’s office are treated with more liberty in order to better align him with the social hierarchy of the culture. The original utterance consists of the word “madam” (in reference to Rani), but in the subtitles, a small addition of “ji” at the end is made to hint at his position in society indirectly. The suffix “ji” is a Culture-Specific Item in the Indian Subcontinent and is used as an indicator of respect. Those who use this suffix with words such as madam, doctor, teacher, etc., are often considered to come from a low prestige, low sociocultural status group as they do not fully grasp the structure of the English language (which in itself is considered a marker of education and social hierarchy in the Indian socio-cultural context). While these utterances, along with the iconography that is also culture-bound, are easily identified by the Indian demographic that can recognise these markers from the audio, it is this very addition of “ji” that conveys the verbal and visual implications for an alien audience. The addition allows a varied audience to be aware of the uniqueness of the address and, therefore, understand it differently.

Since different components contribute to meaning-making with the verbal components, the resulting product of subtitling, as Diaz-Cintas and Ramael aptly state, is “a result of reading, interpretation and choice” as it is affected by “a host of factors and cannot be judged out of context” (146). The impact of different subtitling decisions is displayed in the gymnasium (akada) scene, where Rocky takes a friendly jibe at Rani by saying to his friend that she won’t drink the lassi because “haina tohdi si south delhi type” (trans. she is a little south-Delhi-type). This is translated simply as “Delicate south Delhi-ite”, omitting the word “type”, adding “delicate”, and changing the meaning ever so slightly. In the first meeting between Rocky and Rani mentioned earlier, the word “kand” (trans. scandal) is translated in the subtitles as “all hell will break loose”. This change works to accommodate an appropriate sentiment as the original utterance at the cost of not being completely faithful to the source, as scandal and “kand” don’t really have the same connotations. Likewise, when Rocky pronouns ‘chorus’ in one of the dialogues as ‘cho-rus’ instead of the correct pronunciation of ‘ko-rus’, yet Kabir is understandably unable to translate that in the subtitles due to textual restrictions. Arguably, it could also be done, arguably, to maintain linguistic cohesion and coherence, which Diaz-Cintas and Ramael describe as “a property of texts that are well written and helps the message come across” and “the techniques writers have at their disposal to promote such coherence”, respectively (168).

As mentioned before, subtitlers, while translating, need to transfer the pragmatic and semiotic meanings embedded in the source via the media subtitles within the scope of the challenges posed to them. Conclusively, Kabir’s decision to preserve Rocky’s language variation emerges as a significant decision. Evidently, there are many aspects and factors undertaken in the process of subtitling (and AVT at large). Audio-visual media aims to mimic the real-life realities in a fictional world by deliberately making use of certain elements that represent the intended ideas most accurately. As is analysed in terms of language variation in RRPK, seamlessly assimilated aspects of the media forms can contain many layers of meanings that are required to be rendered in AVT to maintain the essence of the media. To express these elements in AVT, the translation must be accurate, appropriate, and applicable, as is apparent from the example of RRPK.

However, in a digital world, these intricacies of translation are lost at the hands of untrained practitioners and machine translations that fail to account for the complexities of the AVT process. Moreover, as the process of AVT, specifically subtitling, becomes more automated with the emergence of machine translation software and video-editing applications, the process of subtitling has become all the more accessible yet inadequate. This is because the nuance of culturally specific items is often lost during translation at the hands of such software and/or inept practitioners.

In regard to AVT, it becomes of utmost importance to view translations as expressing not only information but also the elements of the media, which must be preserved through AVT for consumption by a widely varied demographic. Therefore, it becomes abundantly evident that the AVT process requires a thorough understanding of these aspects to produce a quality end product. By exploring the AVT process undertaken in the film, it becomes evident how Kabir’s subtitles allow for a comprehensive understanding of the socio-cultural subtext embedded in the film through the preservation of the characters’ language variation.