Exploring the Phenomenon of Fansubtitling in the Arab World: The Case of Anime

The academic attention that was placed on the field of audiovisual translation in the Arab world is relatively new. Within the past decade, Arab scholars have started looking at audiovisual translation studies as a domain worthy of studying and observing. In addition to the fact that the number of studies that have been conducted on fansubtitling is very minimal. Therefore, streamlining the field of fansubtitling in the Arab world is a very important step that will assist in further cementing and establishing it as a legitimate area of study. Moreover, it will offer an insight at the dynamics of Arab fansubtitling groups and how they operate. The aim of this thesis is to explore and investigate the inner workings of Arab fansubtitling groups and their presence over the web and compare. And compare the patterns found with the available information in fansubtitling groups from other regions. In order to achieve these results, two Arab fansubtitlers were interviewed about the work dynamics, the audience interaction, their perceptions on subtitling in general and the enforcement of copyright laws in the Arab world. The investigator also utilized screenshots of the fansubtitlers works for further analysis and discussion. This thesis shows that Arab fansubtitling groups are very active and follow similar patterns of Western fansubtitling groups in terms of task allocation and the motivations behind their work. However, the stances on censorship differ in accordance with each group’s policy and vision. These results show that fansubtitling groups are aware of who their audiences, environment they translating to and the consequences behind the choices they make while subtitling.