The OFFTATLED projectoffensive and taboo exchanges subtitled by online university students

  1. José Javier Ávila Cabrera 1
  2. Pilar Rodríguez Arancón 2
  1. 1 Universidad Complutense de Madrid
    info

    Universidad Complutense de Madrid

    Madrid, España

    ROR 02p0gd045

  2. 2 Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia
    info

    Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia

    Madrid, España

    ROR https://ror.org/02msb5n36

Journal:
Encuentro: revista de investigación e innovación en la clase de idiomas

ISSN: 1989-0796

Year of publication: 2018

Issue: 27

Pages: 204-219

Type: Article

More publications in: Encuentro: revista de investigación e innovación en la clase de idiomas

Abstract

The OFFTATLED Project: OFFensive and TAboo Exchanges SubtiTLED by Online University Students. Every culture has its own idiosyncrasies when it comes to what is considered to be taboo language. For this reason these terms are some of the most difficult to translate from the source language into the target language in audiovisual translation. This study aims to report on how a group of university students dealt with this issue when given the task of subtitling clips from several films, both from English into Spanish as well as from Spanish into English. The participants pertained to the Degree in English Studies at the UNED (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia) and were taking a course on English-Spanish translation. The researchers later analysed whether the end results displayed a faithful rendering of the original strength of meaning or if, on the contrary, they reflected any softening of intent and effect. The research also sought confirmation as to whether the students were more daring than the source text itself when subtitling into the foreign language.

Bibliographic References

  • Allan, K. and Burridge, K. 2006. Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
  • Andersson, L. and Trudgill, P. 1992. Bad Language. London: Penguin.
  • Ávila Cabrera, J.J. 2014. The Subtitling of Offensive and Taboo Language: A Descriptive Study. PhD thesis. Madrid: UNED.
  • Ávila-Cabrera, J.J. 2015a. «An account of the subtitling of offensive and taboo language in Tarantino’s screenplays». Sendebar, 26, 37-56. http://revistaseug.ugr.es/index.php/sendebar/article/view/2501
  • Ávila-Cabrera, J.J. 2015b. «Subtitling Tarantino’s offensive and taboo dialogue exchanges into European Spanish: the case of Pulp Fiction». Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas, 10, 1-11. http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/rlyla.2015.3419
  • Ávila-Cabrera, J.J. 2016a. «The subtitling of offensive and taboo language into Spanish of Inglourious Basterds: A case study». Babel, 62(2), 211-232. https://benjamins.com/#catalog/journals/babel.62.2.03avi/details
  • Ávila-Cabrera, J.J. 2016b. «The treatment of offensive and taboo language in the subtitling of Reservoir Dogs into Spanish». TRANS, 20, 25-40. http://www.trans.uma.es/Trans_20/Trans_20_A2.pdf
  • Ávila-Cabrera, J.J. 2020. «Profanity and blasphemy in the subtitling of English into European Spnaish: four case studies based on a selection of Tarantino’s films. Quaderns. Revista de Traducció. In press.
  • Crystal, D. 2007. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (2nd edn.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Díaz Cintas, J. 2001. «Sex, (Sub)Titles and Videotapes». In L. Lorenzo García, and A. M. Pereira Rodríguez (Eds.), Traducción subordinada II: el subtitulado (inglés – español/galego), (pp. 47-67). Vigo: Universidad de Vigo.
  • Díaz Cintas, J. 2012. «Clearing the smoke to see the screen: ideological manipulation in audiovisual translation». Meta, 57(2), 279-293. https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1013945ar
  • Díaz Cintas, J. and Remael, A. 2007. Audiovisual Translation: Subtitling. Manchester: St. Jerome.
  • Díaz Cintas, J., Parini, I. and Ranzato, I. 2016. «The discreet charm of manipulation». In J. Díaz Cintas, I. Parini and I. Ranzato (Eds.), Numero Speciale Ideological Manipulation in Audiovisual Translation, (pp. i-ix). Altre Modernità. Rivista di studi letterari e culturali. Milan: Università degli Studi di Milano. https://doi.org/10.13130/2035-7680/6798
  • Jay, T. 1980. « Sex roles and dirty word usage: a review of the literature and a reply to Haas». Psychological Bulletin, 88(3), 614-621.
  • Hashemian, M., Mirzaei, A. and Hosseini, M. 2014. «Rendering strategies in culture-specific items: Taboo expressions in IRIB’s dubbed Hollywood movies». International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching & Research, 2(7), 23-29.
  • Hurtado Albir, A. 2001. Traducción y traductológica, introducción a la traductológica. Madrid: Cátedra.
  • Ljung, M. 2009. «The functions of expletive interjections in spoken English». In A. Renouf and A. Kehoe (Eds.), Corpus Linguistics: Refinements and Reassessments (pp. 155-171). Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi.
  • Ljung, M. 2011. Swearing: A Cross-Cultural Linguistic Study. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Martínez Sierra, J.J. 2015. «La traducción de Nigger en Django Desencadenado: Un enfoque ideológico». In F. Chaume and M. Richart Marset (Eds.), Traducción, ideología y poder en la ficción audiovisual. Prosopopeya. Revista de crítica contemporánea, 9, 81-98.
  • McEnery, T. 2009. Swearing in English: Bad Language, Purity and Power from 1586 to the Present. New York, NY: Routledge.
  • Pinker, S. 2007. The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. New York, NY: Viking.
  • Robson, C. and McCartan, K. 2015. Real World Research: A Resource for Users of Social Research Methods in Applied Settings (4th edn.). Chichester: Wiley.
  • Scandura, G.L. 2004. «Sex, lies and TV: censorship and subtitling». Meta, 49(1), 125-134. https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/009028ar
  • Soler Pardo, B. 2015. On the Translation of Swearing into Spanish: From Reservoir Dogs to Inglourious Basterds. Newcastle Upon-Tyne: CSP.
  • Talaván, N. 2006. «Using subtitles to enhance foreign language education». Porta Linguarum, 6, 41–52. http://www.ugr.es/~portalin/articulos/PL_numero6/talavan.pdf
  • Talaván, N. and Rodríguez-Arancón, P. 2014. «The use of reverse subtitling as an online collaborative language learning tool». The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 8(1), 84-101. https://doi.org/10.1080/1750399X.2014.908559
  • Toury, G. 2012. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
  • Valdeón, R.A. 2015. «The (Ab)use of taboo lexis in audiovisual translation: Raising awareness of pragmatic variation in English-Spanish». Intercultural Pragmatics, 12(3), 363-385. Berlin: DeGruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/ip-2015-0018
  • Vinay, J.-P. and Dalbernet, J. 2000. «A methodology for translation». In L. Venuti (Ed.), The Translation Studies Reader (2nd edn.) (pp. 84-93). London and New York: Routledge.