Dubbing has two meanings in the process of television production. It is used to describe the replacement of one sound track (music, sound effects, dialogue, natural sound, etc.) by another. The technique is used in the production of both audio and audiovisual media. It is a post-production activity which allows considerable flexibility in "editing" the audio component of the visual. Dubbing includes activities such as the addition of music and sound effects to the original dialogue, the omission or replacement of unwanted or poorly recorded audio, or the re-recording of the entire dialogue, narration and music. Much like literary editing, dubbing allows considerable freedom to recreate the product. Synonymous terms include postsynchronizing, looping, re-recording, and electronic line replacement.

Dubbing is also one of the two major forms of "language transfer," i.e. translation of audiovisual works. Dubbing, in this sense, is the replacement of the dialogue and narration of the foreign or source language (SL) into the language of the viewing audience, the target language (TL).

Inherited from cinema, dubbing is extensively used for translating other-language television programs. Some countries and cultures prefer dubbing to subtitling and voice-over. In Europe, for example, the "dubbing countries" include Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland.

Dubbing, unlike subtitling, which involves a translation of speech into writing, is the oral translation of oral language. However, unlike "interpretation" in which the SL speaker and the TL interpreter are separate persons talking in their own distinct voices, dubbing requires the substitution of the voice of each character on the screen by the voice of one actor. It is, thus, a form of voice-over or revoicing. Dubbing is, however, distinguished from voice-over by its strict adherence to lip-synchronization. In order to seem "natural" or authentic, the performed translation must match, as closely as possible, the lip movements of the speaker on the screen. Moreover, there should be a strict, though easy to achieve, equivalence of extra-linguistic features of voice, especially gender and age. The matching of other markers of speech such as personality, class, and ethnicity is most difficult because these features are not universally available or comparable. Another requirement of successful dubbing is the compatibility of the dubber's voice with the facial and body expressions visible on the screen.

Lip synchronization is usually seen as the strongest constraint on accurate translation. The script editor modifies the "raw translation" of each utterance in order to match it with the lip movements of the person seen on the screen. Given the enormous differences between even closely related languages such as English and German, it is difficult to find TL words that match the SL lip movements; this is especially the case when speakers are shown in close-up. It has been argued, however, that a word by word or sentence by sentence translation is not needed, especially in entertainment genres such as soap operas. Lip synchronization can be better performed with a more pragmatic "plot-oriented translation." If translation aims at conveying the general tone of each scene rather than locating meaning in each sentence, there will be more freedom to find appropriate words for lip synchronization. Moreover, it is important to seek the equivalence of not only word and sentence meanings but also genres, text quality, character and cultural context. This approach is consistent with the claims of pragmatics, a new field of study which examines language use in social interaction (Luyken 1991:162-65). In either case, it would be more realistic to view dubbing, like other forms of language transfer, as an activity involving a recreation of the original text.

As the transnationalization of television and film increases the demand for language transfer, the controversy about the aesthetics, politics and economics of dubbing and subtitling continues in exporting and importing markets, and in multilingual countries where language transfer is a feature of indigenous audiovisual culture. The polarized views on dubbing/subtitling highlight the centrality and complexity of language in a medium which privileges its visuality. Audience sensitivity to language can even be seen in the considerable volume of intralanguage dubbing. The miniseries Les filles de Caleb, for example, produced in the French language of Quebec, was dubbed into the French standard for audiences in France. And Latin American producers and exporters of telenovelas have generally adopted a Mexican form of Spanish as their standard, following the lead of the earliest successful programs. Thus, dialect also acts as a barrier in the transnationalization of television within the same language community, and highlights the complex issues surrounding this apparently simple industrial process.

- Amir Hassanpour