n. in a foreign-language film or video-recording, the process of substituting for the original sound track of speech a translated version in another voice, for the benefit of non-bilingual viewers.
The visible lip movements of the visual recording are closely synchronised with appropriate acoustic events of the new one. This process of synchronisation is colloquially referred to as lip-synching, often abbreviated to ‘lip-synch’ (or ‘lip-sync’). The comparable synchronisation of the verbal strand with emphasis and paralinguistic gesture in such dubbing is sometimes referred to colloquially as nuclear-sync.
Preference for subtitling/captioning versus dubbing varies over different countries. For example, in Europe, countries that traditionally favour dubbing over subtitling/captioning are Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Dubbing is also traditionally preferred over subtitling/captioning in Latin America, and in China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Spain. In a number of smaller regions where a minority language is important, such as Catalonia, the Basque area, Québec and Wales, dubbing also tends to be favoured. Countries that favour subtitling/captioning over dubbing are Belgium, Greece, Israel, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Scandinavia, Thailand and the United Kingdom. With a choice between the two methods now becoming increasingly available to users, there is a swing in many countries towards subtitling.
