Issues of quality in screen translation: Problems and solutions

Scholarly debate in screen translation (ST) regarding quality issues often hinges on the complexity of specifying quality standards for such a heterogeneous market in terms of typology of translation (i.e. dubbing, subtitling, voice-over etc.) and the wide range of credence attributes which might contribute to the creation of quality standards for these products. Moreover, the situation is further complicated by the issue of “Quality according to whom?”: operators; service providers; end users, or all three? However complicated these problems may seem, this paper attempts to look for answers. Total Quality Management (TQM) and attribute-based approaches already widely used to measure customer satisfaction in media studies will be put forward as tentative instruments to determine quality in ST.