La Traducción Para El Doblaje Del Inglés Afroamericano Del Discurso Femenino

Abstract

The core of this thesis is the analysis of the translation for dubbing of African American English (AAE) into Spanish in Spain, specifically, the variation known as African American Women’s Language (AAWL), applying the methodology of Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS). In order to achieve this goal, we have done research on the background of all the topics that converge in the present study: audiovisual translation (AVT) –primarily dubbing–, linguistic variation –focusing on AAE in general, and AAWL in particular–, and DTS. Additionally, and in the interest of getting a general vision on the current state of audiovisual productions centred around the African American community in the USA, we carried out a historical review of the presence of this community in Hollywood, both on cinema and television, and how it influences the racial identity of this segment of society. Furthermore, we analyse the way the use of AAE has evolved over time on screen, as well as how the presence of African American women in this industry has increased due to a number of factors. Our dissertation explores the way translators deal with such a distinct dialect in a country like Spain, where an equivalent language does not exist. The specificity of this variety lies on the historical ties of the African American population to slavery, and its main characteristics have been thoroughly studied through the years (Wolfram & Thomas, 2002). However, there has been a surge in recent decades to focus on aspects of it that remain largely unexplored, such as variations within the dialect (AAWL, for example) and some of its linguistic features (e. g., prosody). Following a series of steps that Chaume Varela (2018) devised to help researchers who choose to apply the methodology of DTS to their investigations, we compared the source text of our object of study, the first season of the HBO series Insecure (2016–2021), to the dubbed version broadcasted in Spain, focusing on how the distinct features of the AAWL (which we had previously identified and organised in three categories: phonological, lexical and grammatical) have been transferred. We classified the instances according to two strategies: whether there was an effort to convey the original features in the translated version (preservation) or not (neutralization). Subsequently, we analysed the techniques used in the translation process and extracted the data, presenting them both quantitatively (in the form of tables and graphics) and qualitatively (discussing examples). This process allowed us to formulate translation norms and, eventually, the translation method in accordance with them. Finally, we compared our findings to previous works on the same topic and explored further lines of research.