Raising the Bar in Audiovisual Translation: Developing a Subtitling Competence Framework

Over the last decades, audiovisual consumption has been thriving thanks to the emergence of streaming platforms which have triggered the proliferation of media content and the need of large pools of qualified professionals capable of satisfying these new demands in multiple languages. While many scholars have developed translation competence frameworks in recent years, the body of literature focused on audiovisual translation (AVT) in general, and subtitling in particular, is very limited. Inspired by previous work on translation competence and skills, the present paper puts forward a set of core competences, the Subtitling Competence Framework (SCF), that can be used in academic environments and has been implemented in the design of a professional certification in subtitling launched in 2023. This project responds to a desire to raise the visibility of the work carried out by subtitlers, by addressing the lack of a professional framework of reference in the media localisation sector, and to safeguard the professionalism of a field that is expanding at an ever-increasing rate.