Standards and practices

Abstract

There are no established universal guidelines where dialogue writing is concerned. Some companies provide dialogue writers with a set of generic guidelines and specifics pertaining to the adaptation of scripts (Boldon and Carter 2013), others simply do not. Although these guidelines may vary from one company to another and also one country to another, there are a number of adaptation conventions that, to a certain extent, seem to have become commonly accepted standards (Dries 1995). It is important to note that adaptation norms are determined by the country and culture where the dubbing takes place and not by the target language (TL) in itself. So, for instance, dubbing specifics and conventions for dubbing into Italian in a US-based company will vary when compared to those applied in dubbing studios based in Italy. More often than not, branches of the same company located in different countries customize their dubbing methods accordingly, though there are exceptions. Some production and distribution companies with a global scope, such as Netflix, seem to lean towards a standardization of dubbing specifics applicable across different countries.