An Account of the Subtitling of Offensive and Taboo Language in Tarantino’s Screenplays

Abstract

Offensive and taboo language presents a challenge for subtitlers, given the impact that it can have on an audience, particularly in its written form (Díaz Cintas 2001b). The present paper contains a descriptive analysis of the subtitling of offensive and taboo language, mainly from English into Spanish, from a translational, linguistic and technical point of view. Based on three of Quentin Tarantino’s films – Reservoir Dogs (1992), Pulp Fiction (1994) and Inglourious Basterds (2009) –, particular attention is paid to the way in which these terms and expressions were subtitled for the benefit of a Spanish audience. By using a multi-strategy design in which mostly quantitative and some qualitative data are combined, the main goal of the paper is to look into the way this type of language was subtitled in these films, thereby enabling other scholars to use this same methodology when undertaking research on similar projects, in the same or in different language combinations.