The dubbing process of swearwords and insults into Italian: Translator versus dialogue writer (original) (raw)

In English-Italian film translation swearing has always been a problem In English-Italian film translation swearing has always been a problem that has often been dealt with via self-censorship. Issues regarding self-censorship in the translation of imported audiovisual fictional products in Italy have been discussed by several authors, most notably Pavesi (2000) and Azzaro (2006). These studies have revealed that taboo terms and coarse language are either suppressed or reduced in dubbed films. In Italy dubbing is often carried out by two different professional figures, especially in the case of TV series. These are: the translator, who provides a preliminary translation, and the adapter, who is responsible for the final version. The aim of the present descriptive study is to identify a hierarchy of factors that determine the translation product. The examples presented in this paper confirm the results of previous research in the field and show that the translator usually prefers not to tone down taboos and terms of insult, whereas the adapter prefers to mitigate them.