Reformulation is a complex, multifaceted linguistic process occurring in different communicative interactions. If we consider interlingual subtitling (i.e. subtitling from one language to another) as a communicative process, we notice that reformulation is widely productive in this field as it is in oral interaction. This paper is based on the analysis of two Hungarian films with Italian subtitles and aims at illustrating the different functions of reformulation in subtitling. Besides conveying clearer and more explicit messages on the basis of different semantic relationships between source and target text, reformulation allows the translator to compress the
source text without altering its informativity. Last but not least, the opportunity of accessing simultaneously both the original language and the (reformulated) target language may be strategic in a situation where the viewer’s aim is foreign language learning.
