Profanity and blasphemy in the subtitling of English into European Spanish: four case studies based on a selection of Tarantino's films

The combination of profanity and blasphemy can be said to be one of the most delicate taboo categories to deal with on the screen. It is in the context of audiovisual translation (AVT) where professionals have to make challenging decisions when transferring these elements. Thus, should audiovisual t...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Ávila Cabrera, José Javier
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2020
País:España
Institución:Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
Repositorio:e-spacio. Repositorio Institucional de la UNED
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:e-spacio.uned.es:20.500.14468/24091
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/24091
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:57 Lingüística
blasphemy and profanity
interlingual subtitling
descriptive translation studies
faithfulness
self-censorship
blasfèmia i profanitat
subtitulació interlingüística
estudis de traducció descriptiva
fidelitat
autocensura
Descripción
Sumario:The combination of profanity and blasphemy can be said to be one of the most delicate taboo categories to deal with on the screen. It is in the context of audiovisual translation (AVT) where professionals have to make challenging decisions when transferring these elements. Thus, should audiovisual translators be faithful to the source text or is it legitimate that they tone down the load of profanity and blasphemy? This paper describes the subtitling into European Spanish of a corpus composed of some of Tarantino’s films on the grounds of profane and blasphemous phrases which could provoke a strong reaction from the audience. Among the main goals of this paper are: scrutinising (1) if the religious phrases under analysis are transferred faithfully; and (2) whether or not cases of blasphemy in the target text have been encountered. In a nutshell, this study aims to explore the treatment of profanity and blasphemy in the subtitles produced for the Spanish audience.