Linguistic and cultural aspects of the translation of swearing: The Spanish version of Pulp Fiction. (original) (raw)
The pragmatic dimensions of swearing in films: Searching for coherence in dubbing strategies
Journal of Pragmatics, 2023
Swearing is exploited to release strong emotions, attack the interlocutor's face and build interpersonal solidarity, both in spontaneous interactions and in film. In audiovisual translation, it tends to be toned down or omitted, with research mostly explaining neutralisation as censorship-driven and treating the translation of taboo language as an internally-undifferentiated, arbitrary procedure. In the present corpus-based study we move away from the external, socio-cultural motivations for loss to assess whether specific pragmatic, structural-functional and textual dimensions of swearing account for preferred translational strategies and impact the translational outcomes. All occurrences of F-words in a parallel corpus of Anglophone films and their Italian translations are examined in their bilingual concordances at the utterance level and in the wider multimodal context. The quantitative and qualitative analyses outline the interaction between structural-functional patterns and pragmatic functions with reference to the translation strategies of full translation, mitigation, de-swearing and omission. The findings unveil coherence in Italian translators' preferences for pragmatically-motivated cross-linguistically viable language patterns which foreground the heightened emotional charge and the abusive dimensions of taboo words, thus pointing to a principled approach to translational solutions which boost the conflictuality intrinsic to film.
Prologue: Journal on Language and Literature, 2023
This article examines swear word translation in Eka Kurniawan's Indonesian novel, Seperti Dendam, and its English version, Vengeance. The study analyzes swearing expressions and translation strategies using a qualitative approach. Data from both novels reveals seventeen swear words across eight themes. Swear words are classified into four function types and a mixed function. The translator employed five main strategies, maintaining function and theme being the most common. The findings show the translator aimed to preserve the original function and theme while adapting to the target text's style. Indonesian swear words share similarities with English counterparts in function and theme.
The dubbing process of swearwords and insults into Italian: Translator versus dialogue writer
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.
International Journal of Asia Pacific Studies, 2019
Swearwords are intentionally employed in movies to express certain pragmatic functions including portraying characters' inner feelings, their social and educational background and the relationship between the characters. Such functions need to be preserved in the interlingual/intercultural subtitling so that the communicative effects of swearwords are duly transferred to the target audience. However, achieving this objective requires a thorough contextual analysis of the relationship between the characters, the intended illocutionary force of the speech acts expressed by the swearwords and the reaction of the addressee to their implied communicative force. A lack of such an analysis may lead to a change in the intended pragmatic functions of swearwords during the subtitling process. In this light, this study sought to investigate the pragmatic functions of swearwords in selected American crime drama movies and their Arabic subtitles, identifying whether the same pragmatic functions of such words have been preserved in the subtitles. The study also attempted to identify the causes and consequences of the resulting (in)congruity between the expressed functions of the swearwords in the movies compared with those expressed by their subtitles in Arabic. To address these objectives, a corpus comprising the scripts of two American crime drama movies exhibiting high occurrences of swearwords and
Taboo in Discourse. Studies on Attenuation and Offence in Communication, 2018
The publication of the novel The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger in 1951 was a huge and an instant success. Nonetheless, it stirred up mixed feelings amongst its primary American audience and, subsequently, due to its translations into many other languages, in a good number of countries all over the world. On the one hand, there were the views of those who regarded Salinger’s terminological choices to be inappropriate and immoral. Up to a point, that the book was for a while removed from school libraries and banned in the reading lists of certain secondary and high schools in America. On the other hand, others considered the work a masterpiece, as it truly reflects the language used by teenagers, which is deftly employed to characterize the main part, Holden Caufield, set in a specific social class and in a specific time. One of those translations is the canonical version made into Spanish (for Spain) by Carmen Criado for Alianza publishing house that has been re-edited on several occasions after its first publication. In this translation I will focused on the translation of swearwords and offensive terms or idiolects / idioms such as goddam, bastard, lousy, sonuvabitch, pain in the ass, etc. Specifically, the spotlight will be placed on the strategies and procedures used to translate these terms or expression, be it those specified by Vinay and Darbelnet (2001) or be it those related to censorship, such as omission and cancelling, and the effect each of them has on the translation.
Translation of Vulgarism in Subtitles a Game of Swear Words
2017
This dissertation is an attempt to take an in-depth look at the practice of translating swear words in subtitles of movies and series, in the Greek environment. A presentation of audiovisual translation history sets the theory background, with emphasis on the mode of subtitling, the norms that govern it and the strategies that translators employ. A major part of this study is fansubs, subtitles amateurs create and share online. The main hypothesis is that professional subtitlers and fansubbers have a different approach to translating swear words. Fansubbers use a more literal approach, translating almost all vulgarity, whereas professionals resort to omission and substitution, due to the censorship they have to deal with, especially when creating subtitles for television. To test this theory, a comprehensive analysis of the popular series Game of Thrones is performed. Four different Greek subtitles, one for television, another one for the DVD/Blu-Ray release and two amateur versions, are contrasted with the English source text. The results verify the hypothesis. Through a side to side comparison of all five subtitles, it was found that, indeed, amateur subtitlers translate almost all swear words, without toning down the language, however, there is variation in the extent this is done so, between different fansubbing teams. Professionals, on the other hand, have to not only overcome censorship, but they also seem to consider more the notion that swearing in written language has a stronger effect than in spoken one and resort to euphemisms when translating strong or very strong vulgarisms.
The Rendering of Foul Language in Spanish-English Subtitling: The Case of El Vecino
Íkala, Revista de Lenguaje y Cultura
Audiovisual translation into English is recently gaining importance as the material produced in other languages is now increasingly crossing borders thanks to the internet. This article explores foul language, deemed one of the most problematic aspects of subtitling. The aim is to elucidate how this is normally subtitled into English. Drawing on a corpus of swearwords from Netflix Spanish comedy series El Vecino (Vigalondo, 2019‒2021), this paper examines the frequency of use of different translation techniques and the reasons behind the omission of certain instances of foul language. Results show that, while omitting swearwords is the second most common scenario, the most frequent one is transferring the offensive load of the original expression, with roughly 70 % of instances making it into the target product. As for factors influencing this decision, it was observed that overall swearwords are omitted not because they are offensive, but primarily because of their low narrative va...
2016
Offensive and taboo exchanges are very recurrent in Quentin Tarantino's films, whose screenplays are full of characters who swear, curse and make ample use of taboo terms. The way subtitlers deal with such terms can cause a greater impact on the audience than oral speech . This paper aims to provide some insights, from a Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) approach, into the subtitling of offensive and taboo language into Spanish by examining Tarantino's first blockbuster, Reservoir Dogs (1992), and making use of a multistrategy design, which enhances triangulation . The ultimate goal is to shed some light on the way this film has been subtitled in Spain, by assessing whether the dialogue exchanges have been rendered in the subtitles in a close way to the source text or, by contrast, some type of censorship (i.e. ideological manipulation) may have taken place. key words: Interlingual subtitling, offensive and taboo language, translation strategies, multi-strategy design, ideological manipulation.