Audiovisual Translation

The MA in Audiovisual Translation is an internationally leading course in its field, recognised by the European Commission as a European Masters in Translation.

It covers a range of areas, including subtitling, accessibility (subtitling for the deaf and hard of hearing, audio description and live subtitling), multimedia localisation, dubbing and voice-over for films. The programme is open to multilingual students wishing to work between different languages but also welcomes students working monolingually in English.

This course covers the theoretical and practical aspects of audiovisual translation. You will explore a broad range of approaches to translation, including linguistic, socio-linguistic, cultural, cognitive, descriptive, gender and postcolonial perspectives. You will also gain the practical translation skills fit for a career in the profession as it is shaped in the 21st Century. You will learn how to subtitle, to translate for dubbing and voiceover, and/or to provide captioning for the deaf and the hard-of-hearing.

You will complete your MA with a dissertation, which allows you to carry out a practical translation task with a commentary or to apply your understanding, knowledge, analytical, conceptual and personal skills to an in-depth investigation of a translation-related topic.

This programme places significant emphasis on accessibility in the media and offers a grounding in translation theory and research methods. Through your work with dedicated software and high-tech industry-standard equipment, you will equip yourself with the skills necessary to enter the professional market and the knowledge to pursue further research in this field.

You will be taught by staff who are experts in their field of translation and whose work has influenced national and international organisations. They will bring their professional experience into the classroom, meaning that you will always be benefiting from the most up-to-date research and practice.

Roehamptons location in the British capital means that you are ideally situated to take advantage of opportunities such as visits to language service providers and cultural institutions where translation takes place (e.g. subtitling for opera).

Placements with translation/localisation companies are at the heart of this MA. Placements are not compulsory, but you will benefit from the extensive industry contacts of members of staff and the visits of key professionals in order to help you find a placement that suits your interests.

Recent graduates have received special commendations from the Institute of Translation and Interpreting for dissertations completed as part of their degree.

A Windows OS computer is necessary to use most of our professional software packages.

Out of English into: Arabic, Chinese, Czech, Danish, French, Finnish, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish

Into English from: French, Greek, Italian, Japanese, German, Spanish

(Contact us about other language pairs)

Member of EMT

Corporate member of International Translators and Interpreters

Member of APTIS

Supported by

Completion of a bachelor’s Degree at 65% or GPA of 2.5

Career Options

Students go on to careers in a broad range of media companies and broadcasters, subtitling companies, translation and localisation providers, and production houses with in-house translation teams.

Our students have gone to work to many companies in the entertainment and language service industries - from the BBC, Netflix, Fremantle and Deluze to Lionbridge, Playstation, SEGA and Ubisoft.