Voice-over o voice-in-between? Some Considerations about Voice-Over Translation of Feature Films on Polish Television, in Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility at the Crossroads

Of all the AVT techniques, voice-over has probably been the least studied and the least valued. This state of affairs can be found in not only western Europe (where voice-over is limited to mostly non-fiction programmes) but also in Poland (where voice-over remains the most widely applied technique of translation for feature films for the television and DVD markets. The aim of this contribution is to re-evaluate some of the existing academic prejudices against voice-over and to highlight its advantages in comparison with subtitling and dubbing, given that voice-over is free of some specific constraints that are present in the other two AVT techniques. The analysis �� illustrated by selected examples taken from the TV science-fiction series Star Trek �� focuses on the interaction between the key factors in successful voice-over: (1) the acoustic��quality and the quantity of translated text and (3) the timbre and (4) the way in which the reader synchronises the reading with the original soundtrack. In the conclusion, the author proposes that the voice-over of feature films could be improved dramatically by transforming it into ��voice-in-between technique��������������������������������������