Sanderson, John D. and Carla Botella-Tejera (eds) (2018). Focusing on Audiovisual Translation Research. València: Publicacions de la Universitat de València, pp. 240, €15. ISBN 978 8491343905.
This slim collection, featuring nine articles, forms part of the English in the World series, and it is perhaps because of this very broad scope that the volume feels a little like a collection of articles in search of a reader. The target audience is somewhat unclear. The stated aim of the book is to “make a statement on the importance of research categorized under the heading of its title” (13), an aim in which it was not entirely successful.
The volume is a loose collection of contributions drawn together by their relevance to AVT. It is not apparent from the paratext whether the articles were peer-reviewed, and I suspect from some of the methodological weaknesses and flaws in academic discourse apparent that they were not. There is also a worrying prevalence of typographical mistakes, something that is particularly to be avoided in books that purport to “cover research topics that are at the cutting edge of English Language studies” (237).
It would be difficult to class a number of the articles as research, being as they are wholly descriptive and anecdotal in nature. Several of the authors advance views that they fail to substantiate using data or argument. That is not to say that such writing does not have its place, but its place is not, I feel, in a publication that purports to be scholarly.
That said, the book covers a wide range of topics in AVT, and includes some domains that tend towards underrepresentation in the literature, such as surtitling, in this case an interesting descriptive study of practice in the Canadian context (Laliberté); the translation of invented languages (a strong contribution from Santamaria Guinot and Pujol Tubau), and the audio synchronisation of dubbed video games (a study by Climent focusing on the game Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (Ubisoft 2015)). Several of the articles would, perhaps, be well-placed in a primer or introductory volume aimed at students with no knowledge of the area. However, it is interesting to see Pérez Escudero’s article summarising the breadth and depth of PhD theses in the AVT field, which shows a research area in rude health.
All in all, the book is commendable for the breadth of its focus, but this also contributes to its weakness. A sharper editorial pen would have resulted in a stronger publication.
Lindsay Bywood
University of Westminster
E-mail: l.bywood@westminster.ac.uk