Types of film translation
There are two major types of film translation: dubbing and subtitling; each of them interferes with the original text to a different extent.
On the one hand, dubbing is known to be the method that modifies the source text to a large extent and thus makes it familiar to the target audience through domestication. It is the method in which "the foreign dialogue is adjusted to the mouth and movements of the actor in the film" (Dries 1995: 9 qtd. in Shuttle worth and Cowries 1997: 45) and its aim is seen as making the audience feel as if they were listening to actors actually speaking the target language.
On the other hand, subtitling, i.e. supplying a translation of the spoken source language dialogue into the target language in the form of synchronized captions, usually at the bottom of the screen, is the form that alters the source text to the least possible extent and enables the target audience to experience the foreign and be aware of its 'foreignness' at all times.
Classification of countries by translation modes they employ
Before presenting the historical circumstances and their influence on particular cultures, let us have a closer look at the division of countries according to the type of screen translation they use (as presented in The Rutledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies 1997: 244). The Encyclopedia, however, does not differentiate between cinema and television translation.
First, there are the source-language countries, which in the contemporary world mean English-speaking countries such as the United States or the United Kingdom, where hardly any films are imported. The foreign ones tend to be subtitled rather than dubbed. In Britain, film translation does not appear to be a significant issue as the great majority of imported films are American and require no translation.
Second, there are the dubbing countries, and this group comprises mainly French-, Italian- German-, and Spanish-speaking countries (sometimes referred to as the FIGS group), both in and outside Europe. In these countries the overwhelming majority of films undergo the process of dubbing. This is mostly due to historical reasons since "in the 1930s dubbing became the preferred mode of film translation in the world's big-market speech communities" (Gottlieb 1997: 310).