The Subtitle Project. A vocational education initiative

This article discusses the pedagogical relevance of a research project into professional subtitling practices in Italy which is coordinated by the author at the University of Bologna. The key feature of this initiative relates to its collaborative dynamics: research is carried out by students writing their final dissertations, working together as a team and pooling their resources and findings. The author contends that taking part in this collective enquiry-based experience is as important for the students as the actual results of their investigation and discusses in detail the pedagogical benefits of this approach. The article begins by describing the inception stages of the project, conceived as an attempt to capitalize on the traditionally high weighting of the final dissertation within Italian degree programmes − and hence on the important amount of effort that students are likely to put into it. After describing the pedagogical and research tools used in the project, the paper goes on to present the results achieved in the first 2-3 years of the project’s life; illustrate how the students’ work has influenced the author’s teaching practices as a subtitler trainer; and evaluate the implications of this experience for translator training in general.