Attenuating obscenity of swearwords in the amateur subtitling of English movies into Arabic
The interlingual subtitling of swearwords poses problems to translators due to differences in the degree of tolerating the obscenity of such words by various speech communities. To account for the perplexities incurred in the intercultural transference of swearwords, translators adopt attenuation st...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Arab World English Journal
2016
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| Online Access: | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/55167/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/55167/1/Attenuating%20obscenity%20of%20swearwords%20in%20the%20amateur%20subtitling%20of%20English%20movies%20into%20.pdf |
| _version_ | 1848852730890682368 |
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| author | Khalaf, Abed Shahooth Rashid, Sabariah |
| author_facet | Khalaf, Abed Shahooth Rashid, Sabariah |
| author_sort | Khalaf, Abed Shahooth |
| building | UPM Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | The interlingual subtitling of swearwords poses problems to translators due to differences in the degree of tolerating the obscenity of such words by various speech communities. To account for the perplexities incurred in the intercultural transference of swearwords, translators adopt attenuation strategies that facilitate their mediating role between cultures. In line with this, the present study attempts to identify the strategies adopted by Arab amateur subtitlers to mitigate the obscenity of swearwords in English movies. It utilizes a corpus-based approach to identify the factors affecting the decisions made by these subtitlers. The content analysis method was used in categorizing swearwords and in the translation comparison process, Toury's (1996) ‘coupled pairs’ model was adopted to identify attenuation strategies. The findings revealed that the common strategies used to mitigate the obscenity of swearwords are deletion, change of semantic fields, register shift and the use of archaic words, using euphemistic expressions, generalization and linguistic substitution and ambiguity. Moreover, cultural norms play a significant role in choosing the translation strategy to handle swearwords. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-15T10:42:44Z |
| format | Article |
| id | upm-55167 |
| institution | Universiti Putra Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-15T10:42:44Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| publisher | Arab World English Journal |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | upm-551672018-08-13T08:25:35Z http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/55167/ Attenuating obscenity of swearwords in the amateur subtitling of English movies into Arabic Khalaf, Abed Shahooth Rashid, Sabariah The interlingual subtitling of swearwords poses problems to translators due to differences in the degree of tolerating the obscenity of such words by various speech communities. To account for the perplexities incurred in the intercultural transference of swearwords, translators adopt attenuation strategies that facilitate their mediating role between cultures. In line with this, the present study attempts to identify the strategies adopted by Arab amateur subtitlers to mitigate the obscenity of swearwords in English movies. It utilizes a corpus-based approach to identify the factors affecting the decisions made by these subtitlers. The content analysis method was used in categorizing swearwords and in the translation comparison process, Toury's (1996) ‘coupled pairs’ model was adopted to identify attenuation strategies. The findings revealed that the common strategies used to mitigate the obscenity of swearwords are deletion, change of semantic fields, register shift and the use of archaic words, using euphemistic expressions, generalization and linguistic substitution and ambiguity. Moreover, cultural norms play a significant role in choosing the translation strategy to handle swearwords. Arab World English Journal 2016-07 Article PeerReviewed text en http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/55167/1/Attenuating%20obscenity%20of%20swearwords%20in%20the%20amateur%20subtitling%20of%20English%20movies%20into%20.pdf Khalaf, Abed Shahooth and Rashid, Sabariah (2016) Attenuating obscenity of swearwords in the amateur subtitling of English movies into Arabic. Arab World English Journal, 7 (1). pp. 295-309. ISSN 2229-9327 http://www.awej.org/ 10.24093/awej/vol7no1.17 |
| spellingShingle | Khalaf, Abed Shahooth Rashid, Sabariah Attenuating obscenity of swearwords in the amateur subtitling of English movies into Arabic |
| title | Attenuating obscenity of swearwords in the amateur subtitling of English movies into Arabic |
| title_full | Attenuating obscenity of swearwords in the amateur subtitling of English movies into Arabic |
| title_fullStr | Attenuating obscenity of swearwords in the amateur subtitling of English movies into Arabic |
| title_full_unstemmed | Attenuating obscenity of swearwords in the amateur subtitling of English movies into Arabic |
| title_short | Attenuating obscenity of swearwords in the amateur subtitling of English movies into Arabic |
| title_sort | attenuating obscenity of swearwords in the amateur subtitling of english movies into arabic |
| url | http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/55167/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/55167/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/55167/ http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/55167/1/Attenuating%20obscenity%20of%20swearwords%20in%20the%20amateur%20subtitling%20of%20English%20movies%20into%20.pdf |