The translation of Neapolitan mafia nicknames in the TV series Gomorra into English and Spanish

Abstract

This study deals with the translation for subtitling and dubbing of a type of Italian expressions called contronomi, which refer to the nicknames traditionally used by members of the Neapolitan mafia. We have focused on this special kind of nickname used in the Italian series Gomorra to identify and describe the techniques employed in the translation of these meaningful linguistic cultural elements found in the series into English and Spanish. To this end, a contrastive analysis of the source text in the Neapolitan dialect and the subtitled version in English and the dubbed version in Spanish of the first season has been carried out. The results obtained showed that the translation tendencies regarding the handling of the contronomi of the main and secondary characters of this audiovisual product greatly differ in the two target languages and cultures. While the English version tends to make them understandable to its target audience, the Spanish version favours keeping them in their original form as if they were proper names.