Verbal and visual paratexts in translation and interpreting studies

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Broadly understood as the thresholds through which readers and viewers access texts, paratexts have been shown to play a crucial role in the reception and interpretation of texts. While Gérard Genette’s original theorisation of paratexts took place in the context of literary print culture, in recent years the concept has been fruitfully applied to digital contexts and other kinds of texts, notably film, television and video games. The types of paratexts studied in these contexts are many and varied; examples include trailers, game strategy guides, e-reading devices, discussion forums, spoilers and fan-vids. In translation studies, research has tended to focus on the paratexts of printed translation products, such as book covers, translators’ prefaces and translators’ footnotes, but there is considerable scope for applying the concept to research in digital and audiovisual translation studies. The notion of the paratext is also potentially relevant to research into interpreting, where it might be used to investigate prosodic variation, body language, or other framing devices.