In conservative Arab societies, American films are exposed to a strong verbal and non-verbal censorship (Thawabteh 2017; Khuzam 2021) and when subtitling them, translators tend to reduce, change, or even omit the original Source Language (henceforth SL) informati on and meaning to conform to the Target Language (henceforth TL) and to the cultural, politi cal and religious values it carries. This study aims at showing how the inclinati on towards conservati smhas practi cal consequences in the subti tling process (Basalamah 2010) even in modern ti mes when ‘censorship edits’ are no longer legally required by online platforms like Netflix. This tendency influences translators’ behaviour (Vigo 2020) and leads to the choice of specific strategies which reflect the Western and Arab cultural gap and result in the representation of the two societies’ different identities. In order to reach this goal, some selected scenes from a sample of three American films retrieved on Netflix, namely Fifty Shades of Grey, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Scarface, and containing Arabic subtitles will be comparatively analysed. A special focus will be on the investigation of the translation choices employed to render some SL scenes which in the TT culture might be considered offensive, to soft en SL vulgar expressions and swear words, to deal with social taboo topics, mainly sex (Khuzam 2021; see also Basalamah 2010; Merkle 2018), drugs and alcohol and thus to cope with the conservative nature of Arab countries (Barbin/Salloum 2011; Al Saideen et al. 2022)
Censorship and Identity in Arabic Subtitling of American Films: A Qualitative Analysis
Lucia La Causa
2024-01-01
Abstract
In conservative Arab societies, American films are exposed to a strong verbal and non-verbal censorship (Thawabteh 2017; Khuzam 2021) and when subtitling them, translators tend to reduce, change, or even omit the original Source Language (henceforth SL) informati on and meaning to conform to the Target Language (henceforth TL) and to the cultural, politi cal and religious values it carries. This study aims at showing how the inclinati on towards conservati smhas practi cal consequences in the subti tling process (Basalamah 2010) even in modern ti mes when ‘censorship edits’ are no longer legally required by online platforms like Netflix. This tendency influences translators’ behaviour (Vigo 2020) and leads to the choice of specific strategies which reflect the Western and Arab cultural gap and result in the representation of the two societies’ different identities. In order to reach this goal, some selected scenes from a sample of three American films retrieved on Netflix, namely Fifty Shades of Grey, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Scarface, and containing Arabic subtitles will be comparatively analysed. A special focus will be on the investigation of the translation choices employed to render some SL scenes which in the TT culture might be considered offensive, to soft en SL vulgar expressions and swear words, to deal with social taboo topics, mainly sex (Khuzam 2021; see also Basalamah 2010; Merkle 2018), drugs and alcohol and thus to cope with the conservative nature of Arab countries (Barbin/Salloum 2011; Al Saideen et al. 2022)I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
