Rewriting for performability in audiovisual translation: insights from the <i>White Snake</i> film series

The concept of performability, originating from drama translation studies, emphasizes the effective delivery of translated texts in performance settings. While extensively studied in drama translation, its application in audiovisual translation (AVT), particularly in subtitle translation, remains underexplored. This study examines English subtitles from authorized release versions of White Snake (2019) and Green Snake (2021) through four key aspects of performability: speakability and intelligibility, stylized characterization, semantic context adaptation, and verbal action alignment. It investigates how these performability features are maintained in subtitle translation and how they interact with audiovisual elements to enhance cross-cultural communicative effectiveness. The findings suggest that successful AVT is achieved through the effective realization of these performability dimensions under multimodal constraints, requiring a balance between linguistic accuracy and performative effectiveness. This balance is reflected in strategies such as rhythmic adaptation, character-focused stylization, semantic context reconstruction, and multimodal coherence. The findings advance understanding of how performability principles can be systematically applied in AVT, offering theoretical perspectives and practical insights into enhancing the cross-cultural communicative effectiveness of subtitle translation.