Skip to main content

EnSub Guidelines

From this page you can download a full set of research-informed, audience-centred guidelines for Enhanced Subtitling (EnSub).

 

 

Versions

These guidelines are grounded in ongoing research and are intended to evolve as new evidence becomes available. Alongside professional recommendations, the document provides references to the research that informs its development. Updated versions of the guidelines will therefore be released periodically.

  1. Enhanced Subtitling Guidelines, v2026/1 Oct2026    Download
  2. Enhanced Subtitling Guidelines, v2026/2 Nov2026    Download
    • changes in the minimum subtitle duration based on Kruger et al 2026

 

Call to action!

We welcome feedback, suggestions for additional research to consider, and examples of challenging subtitling cases that may help refine future versions of these guidelines. To share your comments, please email Dr Sara Ramos Pinto (PI), [email protected].

 

What is Enhanced Subtitling? 

 

 

Enhanced subtitling is an audiovisual translation practice that adds written text to audiovisual content, enabling new audiences to identify, access, and interpret information conveyed through both visual and auditory channels.

More specifically, Enhanced Subtitling integrates written text into an audiovisual product to support access to dialogue, on-screen written content, and other meaning-bearing elements. The text may be presented in the same language as the source content or in a different language, and it is positioned close to natural points of visual attention and speakers’ locations to integrate it into the visual composition.

Enhanced Subtitling uses the affordances of written language and digital media, including formatting features such as bold, italics, colour, font size variation, and visual effects such as fading or blurring. These resources can be employed to represent:

  • spoken dialogue;
  • written elements appearing on screen, such as signs, letters, captions, graffiti, and inscriptions;
  • verbal information conveyed through the soundtrack, including songs and off-screen speech; and
  • key visual or auditory information that may not be readily accessible to audiences who do not share the socio-cultural knowledge assumed by the original content.

Meaning expressed through modes other than dialogue may also be incorporated into subtitles through extratitles, which can appear independently or alongside dialogue subtitles.

The three premises of Enhanced Subtitling

Access

If we have a multimodal text in which meaning is erected through different visual and auditory elements coming together, I argue that we cannot create the conditions for an audience in a different semiotic space to access such a text (and the meaning it is expressing) by translating only some of the auditory and visual elements. At times, the level of non-sharedness may come from the audience being deaf or hard of hearing and unable to access the auditory modes. Other times, non-sharedness may occur because the audience cannot recognise or interpret some auditory and visual elements.

Enhanced Subtitling finds creative ways to make the meaning expressed via visual and aural, culturally specific elements accessible to the target audience.

Subtitles' placement

The very fact that subtitles appear inflexibly in the same place on the screen means that they necessarily reorganise viewing patterns by imposing a different axis between focal points and subtitles. This new axis is often divergent (or even opposite) to the one planned in the source film, potentially interfering with the viewing experience or the ability to notice specific on-screen elements. The inflexible placement of subtitles also means they often appear on top of the focal point, disrupting or covering important visual elements.

Enhanced subtitling places subtitles close to the focal points and in line with the vectors of attention created in the source audiovisual product.

Subtitles’ form

Because films are inherently visual productions, it was important to add subtitles that followed the film's visual composition as closely as possible and avoided introducing a different aesthetic. Building on previous work on “integrated subtitles”, it is important to consider the form and timing of subtitles on screen.

Enhanced subtitling uses alternative options for the subtitles’ colour, font type, font size, effects such as fading, and the rhythm at which subtitles appear on screen.