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Volume 66, Issue 3
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Abstract

Abstract

As stated by Jay and Janschewitz (2008), the primary pragmatic function of swear words is to express emotions, such as anger and frustration. The main objective of the present paper is to analyse the translation of the two commonest English swear words, and (Jay 2009: 156) – together with their morphological variants – into Galician. The research instrument used for this purpose has been the Veiga Corpus, a bilingual English-Galician corpus of subtitles. Regarding the results obtained in this study, the most frequent solution has been pragmatic correspondence, followed by omission, softening, and de-swearing. However, descending in the analysis, clear differences emerge between the treatment of the two words. Thus, the tendency to sanitize the Galician subtitles by omitting, neutralizing or smoothing swearwords is much more evident in the case of . This finding may be explained by the difference in tone between the two taboo words analysed. As is considered milder, translators may feel there is no need to tone it down. In addition, while has a literal translation which is perfectly natural in Galician, that is not the case with . Finally, the grammatical category variable has also been found to have an effect on the choice of translation solution.

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2020-04-10
2023-06-04

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Translating swear words from English into Galician in film subtitles
Babel 66, 393 (2020); https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00162.dia
/content/journals/10.1075/babel.00162.dia
/content/journals/10.1075/babel.00162.dia
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): anglais; audiovisual translation; English; films; Galician; galicien; gros mots; sous-titrage; subtitling; swear words; traduction audiovisuelle

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