Why are captions on TV shows sometimes different from the words the actors say, but in ways that aren’t explainable by being misheard by a transcriber?

Question

For example, the actor in the movie just said “I’ve been saying that”, and the caption said “I’ve said that”. Do the transcribers have access to the screenplay, and use that as a starting point?

In: Other

Answer 1

Captions are not transcriptions.

The goal of TV captions is to help hearing-impaired people follow the story. In order to do that, they have to convey the meaning of what is being said, but they also need to be readable. That’s why they often shorten sentences, change grammar, or even leave out false starts and other parts of natural speech.

The goal of a transcript is to codify word-by-word what is being said. That’s important if you’re a researcher, or a journalist, or a law enforcement officer. But it’s not necessary when watching TV shows in noisy environments.