Abstract
Subtitles are the visual written texts of dialogues in films and TV programs, often displayed at the bottom of the screen. They can be used either for the translation of foreign language dialogue in the film, or for the visual representation of dialogue in the same language as that used in the film. Subtitles may also be used to provide additional information for the viewer. The challenge encountered by subtitlers is how to represent the spoken dialogues as coherent subtitles within a limited space and time. These spacial and temporal constraints often mean that subtitlers have to simplify the language in the subtitles. They often do this by omitting linguistic items and altering syntactic structures. Díaz Cintas & Remael (2007, p.61) state that “the transition from oral to written mode obviously means that some of the typical features of spoken language will have to disappear”. They assume that “the written version of speech in subtitles is nearly always a reduced form of the oral soundtrack” (2007, p.145). In general, omission is considered as one of the most applicable of the different strategies employed by subtitlers. This study will focus on the strategies of omitting linguistic items and altering syntactic structures in the subtitles of the Egyptian film ‘Torment’.