A lot of us know captions and subtitles under the same name of subtitles but they aren’t the same. Captions are a transcription of dialogue, while subtitles are a translation. They both appear as text on the bottom of your screen, and typically represent the narration or speech between characters on your television or computer. Even Netflix, a streaming company with some of the highest subtitles and captioning standards, groups them both under a heading of subtitles. This can be confusing for someone trying to understand the difference between subtitles and captions.
The main difference between the two is that captions are a direct transcription of the video speech in the exact same language and subtitles are still the same dialogue but translated in another language.
While captions ensure accessibility, they are useful for a variety of other reasons. For example, captions allow viewers to follow the story when sound can’t be heard, either because of a noisy environment, such as the gym, or because of a sound-sensitive environment, such as a hospital. Even more prevalent these days, captions allow viewers to understand videos that show up on social media news feeds, which play the video on silent by default.
Subtitles, on the other hand, were developed to make multimedia available to viewers who may not speak the language used in the video. Globalization has increased the use of subtitles, with many video producers seeing the value in making content available in more than one language. Subtitles for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing take this one step further, providing accessibility to those with hearing disabilities in more than one language.
Plus subtitles aren’t only for understanding a foreign film in your native language. They also have proven benefits for those trying to learn another language. In fact, research shows that as long as videos with subtitles match the proficiency of the language learners, they are a useful tool for improving comprehension.
