Subtitling Challenges in Kannywood Movies: Pros and Cons

Subtitling Challenges in Kannywood Movies: Pros and Cons.

Abstract

The study aims to draw attention to the need to have correct and appropriate subtitling in Kannywood movies, so as to elevate its status and promote better grasp of its aesthetics.

To highlight the historical background of Kannywood movie industry. Researcher reaches that good and correct subtitling may futher enhance audienship of the esthetics quality of filming and boost communication.

It can be inferred from the results of the study that viewers of kannywood movies face multiple problems with regards to the subtitle.

These problems were equally confirmed by the results obtained from observing some kannywood movies.

The problems identified includes fast disappearance  of subtitles, poor synchronization between image and subtitle, following the program and reading the subtitles at the same time and poor translation or language errors.

The findings also revealed that subtitling of movies is very important as it improves translation skills, increases reading speed, improves the ability to learn foreign language as well as comprehension.

Introduction

Background of Study

Kannywood is the title given to the film industries in theNorthern part of Nigeria with Kano as its epicenter, hence named after Kano (Farouk, 2012).

It suffices to note that the name “Kannywood” followed the styles of the American “Hollywood”, Indian “Bollywood” and similar other “woods” across the world (Farouk, 2012)

Kannywood was created beside the national film industry called “Nollywood” where the films produced are in English, the actors mostly Christians from the Southern part of Nigeria (Lere, 2014).

Unlike Nollywood, the medium used in Kannywood is Hausa, which is the major language in the North and the most widely spoken indigenous language in Nigeria second only to Swahili in the whole of Africa (Musa, 2014).

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