The European Association for Studies in Screen Translation (ESIST) is an international association in the field of audiovisual translation.Díaz Cintas, J. Subtitling: the long journey to academic acknowledgement. The Journal of Specialised Translation, 1, pp.50-70. According to ESIST, screen translation includes all forms of language transfer in the media, including subtitling, dubbing, voice-over, interpreting for the media, surtitling, subtitling for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing, and audio description for blind and partially sighted audiences.
History ESIST was founded in March 1995 in Cardiff by a group of professionals and academics from fifteen European universities to establish communication with creators, translators, distributors, and scholars working in the area of European audiovisual broadcasting and multimedia production.Gambier, Y., 2002, De quelques enjeux de la traduction audiovisuelle, Hyeronymous, 2, p.3.Multimedia Consulting Group, 2007, Study on dubbing and subtitling needs and practices in the European Audiovisual Industry: Final Report, Information Society and Media Directorate-General and Education and Culture Directorate-General of the European Commission, p.77.
ESIST has been active in promoting European cooperation in audiovisual translation trainingJames, H., Roffe, I. and Thorne, D., 1995. Assessment and Skills in Screen Translation. In: C. Dollerup and V. Appel, eds. 1995. Teaching Translation and Interpreting 3. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co., p.178. and the standardization of subtitling practices at a European level.Bartoll, E. and Martinez Tejerina, A., 2010. The positioning of subtitles for deaf and hard of hearing. In: A. Matamala and P. Orero, eds. Listening to Subtitles. Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Bern: Peter Lang, p.72. In 2000 it launched The Comparative Subtitling project, the first comparative analysis of subtitling practices and guidelines in all European countries.Romero-Fresco, P., 2010. D’Artagnan and the Seven Musketeers: SUBSORDIG travels to Europe. In: A. Matamala and P. Orero, eds. Listening to Subtitles. Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Bern: Peter Lang, p.166.Arnàiz Uzquiza, V., 2010. SUBSORDIG: The need for a deep analysis of data. In: A. Matamala and P. Orero, eds. Listening to Subtitles. Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. Bern: Peter Lang, p.166.
In 1998, ESIST endorsed the Code of Good Subtitling Practice.Mangiron, C., 2011. Subtitling in game localisation: a descriptive study. Perspectives: Studies in Translation Theory and Practice, 21(1), pp.42-56. The Code is a set of guidelines developed by Jan Ivarsson and Mary Carroll,Ivarsson, J. and Carrol, M., 1998. Subtitling. Simrishamn: Transedit, pp.157-159.Díaz Cintas, J. and Remael, A., 2007. Audiovisual Translation: Subtitling. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing, p.80. which has emerged as a recognized standard in the profession.
In 2010, ESIST signed a protocol of understanding with the European Society for Translation Studies (EST) to enable knowledge exchange in the field of audiovisual translation.
In 2018, the inaugural issue of Journal of Audiovisual Translation was published by ESIST, and new issues are published at a rate of at least two a year. This open-access, peer-reviewed journal is the first academic international journal dedicated to audiovisual translation studies and media accessibility.
Jan Ivarsson Award Since 2010, ESIST has presented the Jan Ivarsson Award for invaluable services to the field of audiovisual translation. The award is given biannually at the Languages & the Media conference in Berlin.
The award has been presented to: 2010: Jan Ivarsson 2012: Mary Carroll 2014: Jorge Díaz Cintas (University College London) 2016: Yves Gambier (University of Turku) 2018: Aline Remael (University of Antwerp) 2020: Frederic Chaume Varela (Universitat Jaume I) 2022: Agnieszka Szarkowska (University of Warsaw) 2024: Elena Di Giovanni (Università di Macerata)
See also Translation studies Multimedia translation Subtitles
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