Taboo language has always been a translation problem since it is considered to be vulgar and offensive. In audiovisual translation, time-space constraints and the impact of the visual taboo word on screen may affect the translators’ decision-making process, and hence, the strategies used to solve the problems. This may result in omissions or neutralizations of the taboo words, which at the same time affect the perception that the target audience has of the audiovisual text.
This research paper describes the translation problems caused by taboo words in the film Deadpool (2016) and the strategies used in each case, by comparing the English source text and the official subtitles in Spanish for the Latin American region. The analysis consists of a semantic and pragmatic description and a multimodal transcription as presented by Baldry & Thibault (2001, 2006) and Taylor (2003, 2013) in order to bear in mind the different meaning making resources that compose an audiovisual text.
Andrea Silva Riederer is a MD’s student of Magíster en Traducción at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and is currently working on her master’s thesis in the field of audiovisual translation (AVT). Previously, she graduated from English studies (Licenciatura en lingüística y literatura inglesa) at the same university.