As is commonly known, Polish AVTs are dominated by voice-over – a cultural phenomenon
of the post-communist state. Given the translation reality of the contemporary
European TV market, whenever voice-over is applied to movie translations, it is
perceived as a painful legacy of the Communist era. No matter which translation mode
an average fi lm viewer prefers, it is the TV corporation that decides whether to dub,
voice-over or subtitle a foreign fi lm, and then broadcast it to the viewers. This paper
attempts to unravel the tangle of confl icting claims on voice-over as a fi lm translation
mode from an academic viewpoint based on linguistics, translation studies and cultural
linguistics. In the authors’ view, there are three main technical barriers for voice-over
which a translator needs to take into account at any stage of his work: the translator’s
personality, translation conventions commonly accepted by fi lm translators and legal
regulations.

As is commonly known, Polish AVTs are dominated by voice-over – a cultural phenomenon
of the post-communist state. Given the translation reality of the contemporary
European TV market, whenever voice-over is applied to movie translations, it is
perceived as a painful legacy of the Communist era. No matter which translation mode
an average fi lm viewer prefers, it is the TV corporation that decides whether to dub,
voice-over or subtitle a foreign fi lm, and then broadcast it to the viewers. This paper
attempts to unravel the tangle of confl icting claims on voice-over as a fi lm translation
mode from an academic viewpoint based on linguistics, translation studies and cultural
linguistics. In the authors’ view, there are three main technical barriers for voice-over
which a translator needs to take into account at any stage of his work: the translator’s
personality, translation conventions commonly accepted by fi lm translators and legal
regulations.