The Wedding Video Voiceover
You are helping at a family wedding in Brisbane. Your cousin recorded a 4-minute video of the Anand Karaj ceremony and asks you to write Punjabi subtitles. The audio is difficult: the granthi speaks quickly in a mix of Punjabi and English, guests talk over him near the 90-second mark, and there is a loud dhol solo from 2:30 to 3:10. Your cousin says, "Just translate the important parts." You have 20 minutes before the video is shown at the reception, and you must decide which segments to subtitle and how to represent overlapping speech.
1. Explain how you would decide which segments to subtitle, and justify your choices using listening-comprehension strategies.
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I would first do a gist pass of the whole 4 minutes without writing, to map the structure: opening prayer, vows, dhol, closing. Then a detailed pass segment by segment. The dhol solo (2:30–3:10) carries no speech, so it needs no subtitle; instead I would add a bracketed note like [dhol] only if the cousin wants it. The overlap at 90 seconds is the hard part: I would isolate the granthi's voice using repeated listening and note that guest chatter is not content to translate. "Important parts" means the ritual instructions and blessings the family needs to follow, not every word. I would prioritise: (1) any instruction the couple must act on, (2) blessings with cultural significance, (3) names and kinship terms. I would flag uncertain words rather than invent them, and tell my cousin which 10–15 seconds are genuinely inaudible.
2. The granthi code-switches between Punjabi and English. How should the subtitles handle this, and what does that reveal about spoken Punjabi in diaspora communities?
Read the worked answer
Code-switching is normal, not a defect. Words like 'stage', 'photo' or 'ring' may appear in English because they are everyday loanwords in the family's speech. My subtitles should keep the Punjabi line natural rather than forcing a pure-Punjabi rendering that nobody actually said. If an English word is a fixed loanword (for example, a technical or modern term), I keep it in the Punjabi subtitle in Gurmukhi transliteration or as-is, depending on the family's convention. This shows that diaspora Punjabi is a living, mixed register: the granthi adjusts to a Brisbane audience. Recognising register and audience is part of listening comprehension, not a distraction from it.