El lenguaje tabú en la traducción audiovisuallímites lingüísticos, culturales y sociales

Abstract

This paper aims to cast light into the linguistic, cultural, and social limits of taboo language in the different audiovisual translation modes by analysing the transfer of taboo language from English into Spanish on various audiovisual productions. We wish to establish what criteria and strategies are used when translating these elements, as well as to discover the manner and the degree in which certain taboo elements successfully cross the interlinguistic and intercultural barriers. Firstly, taboo language elements are divided into five categories (sex, scatology, religion, family, and derogatory names). Secondly, these elements are grouped in accordance to their degree of euphemization (using examples from the film Pulp Fiction (1994) in its dubbed versions to both peninsular and Latin American Spanish. This categorization will help identify potential convergences, if any, between English and Spanish in terms of reference frameworks, and to determine whether such frameworks function in the same way in different cultures within the same given language.