Vulgarism in Subtitles

exposed to objectionable materials they find appalling or offensive. On the other hand, to translate for cinema, it is inevitable to have to translate these offensive words.

Attached in the appendix is a list of swearwords used in the movie ‘Superbad’

based on the general categories suggested by linguistic scholars Andersson and Trudgill (1990: 55), i.e. ‘Religion’ (God, Christ), ‘Sex’ (fuck), ‘Excrements’ (shit),

‘Sexist terms of abuse’ (Bitch). Since the movie’s soundtrack contains many slangs relating to bodily organs, I will include these words in the fifth category ‘Bodily organs (dick).’

3.4 Vulgarism in Subtitles

There is only a small body of literature in Taiwan discussing vulgarism in subtitles. Huang (2006:39) argues in her master thesis that emotion-charged profane words are often omitted in subtitling translation for the sake for preventing miasma to children and teenagers, unless the movie is rated R. And out of the ten ‘Scheiße’

(‘Shit’ in German) uttered in the movie ‘Goodbye, Lenin’, only six of them are translated into a milder tone in Chinese. But since the movie is rated for general public, there are not many swearwords in her corpus and she didn’t go into exploring in-depth reasons.

Of the dozen master theses on subtitling in Taiwan, only one author attempts to analyze vulgar words in subtitling translation from English to Chinese. In his master thesis on subtitling vulgarism based on the Quentin Tarantino-directed film ‘Pulp

Fiction’, Chen (2003) explains in great details in his MA thesis on how to translate

different swearwords based on the contexts of which the words are uttered. I find some of his suggestions valuable. However, his explanation would befittingly serve as a reference for word-for-word base, since the analysis is solely based on his own

‘feeling’ as he admits in his conclusion.

As subtitling is a type of translation that converts spoken words into written form,

whether vulgar words should be translated to their meaningful equivalents (if there is any), is the question. Writers and directors add informal and colloquial dialogues into the scripts to give the characters some naturalness and realism. Their main purpose in doing so is not so much to shock but to make their characters more compelling (Dobao:223). As suggested by Andersson and Trudgill, the use of swear words is indeed unnecessary in many contexts. I argue that, to be faithful to the text, subtitle translator should not randomly omit swearwords just because these words are

‘unnecessary’ in the first place. Swearwords have their functions in the movie and their semiotic meaning should be reserved or why would they be written in the script.

However, the phenomenon of omitting swearwords is common in Chinese subtitles, in which oral speech has to be condensed to fit into the form of the written words.

Several scholars in the audiovisual translation studies observe the phenomenon and offer their views in explaining the possible reasons. Commenting on the Hong Kong Chinese subtitling on English swearwords, Hong Kong Polytechnic University professor Chapman Chen cites a veteran Hong Kong dramatist Can Zitman, who says

“although swearwords can be heard everywhere in everyday life, they appear much less frequently in texts of Chinese culture which stresses the importance of the cleanliness of written language” (qtd. in Chen, 2004: 138). Ivarsson and Carroll (1998:83) share the observation, believing that swearwords can be more unacceptable when written, in particular in subtitles, than when spoken, probably it is because written words seem more concrete and hard to deny than oral utterances (qtd. in Chen, 2004: 137).

Scholars in Hong Kong, such as Gilbert Fong and Chapmen Chan, have explored the reasons how English swear words are rendered into Chinese subtitling for Hong Kong cinema. Fong notes that under-translation of swearwords may be linked to the movie rating system in Hong Kong that the appearance of swearwords leads to the

movie being rated R and thus limits the demographic of movie-goers (2009: 49).

Chapman Chen has been dedicated to the promotion of adopting Cantonese dynamic equivalents in subtitling English-speaking movies, in particular, American swearwords and sexually-oriented words as Chen firmly believes the adoption of Cantonese dynamic equivalents would provide a better choice of wordings to render

“salty speech” in subtitling and keep local audience engaged. Chen also points out the several factors that will influence translators’ performance in rendering English swearwords into Chinese subtitles, such as linguistic, psychosexual, and religious differences between American and Chinese languages and cultures.

Real dialogues contain colorful language that may hijack viewers’ ears already and are more obscene to be read in written form, thus abusing audiences’ eyes. To address the reason why swearwords remain ‘unprintable’, Pinker describes in an article for the New Republic, referring to an experiment carried out by the psychologist Don MacKay, who found that ‘people are slowed down by an

involuntary boggle as soon as the eyes alight on each swear word. The upshot is that a speaker or writer can use a taboo word to evoke an emotional response in an audience quite against their wishes’ (Pinker, 2007).

Although so far, the government sources have not had a clear guideline on what words should not appear on screen subtitles. Therefore, translators’ personal styles and the translation agency’s or film distributors’ attitude will make a huge difference in the subtitle production process. Based on my previous experience, when

translating major movie productions, it always comes with a detailed dialogue list, which has close explanations on puns, word play and possible double entendre, as well as the meaning of slangs and other linguistic features that may confuse

translators. Sometimes, swear words are explained in the detailed dialogue list too.

This is to say, the original film production company already presupposes that these

linguistic features in English may cause problem in translation as they cannot be translated literally.

I argue that another factor that leads to the omission of swearwords in subtitles may be the unconscious, involuntary self-censorship by the translator. If English is not the first language of the translator, s/he may not perceive the strong emotional force of swearwords as would native English speakers. This can be observed by the example that bilingual people tend to swear in their second language. Also addressing the same point, Pinker offers his interesting observation on the issue regarding to written form of swearwords from a cognitive psychology point of view.

The emotional flavoring of words seems to be picked up in childhood: bilingual people often feel that their second language is not as piquant as their first, and their skin reacts more to hearing taboo words and reprimands in their first language than in their second (Pinker, 2007:332).