With over 6,000 languages in the world today, media speak is far from universal, but the complexities of translation are rarely acknowledged by the industry, or by audiences and scholars. Redressing this neglect, Speaking in Subtitles argues that the oddities and idiosyncrasies of translation are vital to screen media's global storytelling. Examining a range of examples from crowdsourced subtitling to avant-garde dubbing to the growing field of 'fansubbing', Tessa Dwyer proposes that film, television and video are fundamentally 'translational' media.

This study argues that the contingencies of translation are vital to screen media's global storytelling. Through examples ranging from avant-garde dubbing to crowdsourced subtitling, it proposes that screen media is fundamentally 'translational'.