Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how language is deployed interculturally in the transmission of cultures and ideologies through modern technological media. The paper considers examples of African films with German subtitles and German films with English subtitles.

Paper long abstract:

Intercultural and ideological transmission is very much evident in cultural products such as film and music which are consumed across cultures. Africans in the diaspora take the main cultural products of home to their new abodes. Nollywood films like Omo Germany, Mimi, and her German Husband, Nigeria's Mafia in Germany, Ozoemena the German Machine, etc., speak to intercultural transmissions through the film medium. Reciprocally, host elements in the diaspora also consume African cultural products in the form of film, music, and skits. Language is the main mode of transmission within these genres. This paper examines how language is deployed interculturally in the transmission of cultures and ideologies through modern technological media. The paper is interested in how the language used in subtitles are not just mechanical vectors of dialogue and their denotative meanings, but how they serve as vectors of culture and ideology. Employing critical discourse and critical stylistic perspectives, the paper examines how subtitles perform both of these functions. Cognate perspectives include those of AVT (audiovisual translation) and TE (translation equivalents) in their various theoretical forms. Three classic African films with German subtitles - Lumumba (2000); What a Wonderful World (2006), and No Time to Die (2007) are analysed in line with the perspectives highlighted above. The German film with English subtitles, Nirgendwo In Afrika (Nowhere in Africa) is also examined along the stated perspectives. This paper observes that language plays both intercultural and ideological functions in these forms.