Spotlighting likely losses of meaning in culturally marked audiovisual translation. The case of Ocho Apellidos Catalanes

Abstract

This study analyses the translation difficulties encountered in the dubbing of Ocho apellidos catalanes, a comedy film in which the humour relies heavily on cultural references known to the recipient of the source language version. To convey this richness of meaning, the brief for the dubbing of the film into British English and European French prescribed that the translator should adopt a strategy of foreignisation. Possible instances of loss during transfer to other languages and cultures are here explored by extracting text from a corpus and then categorising and providing examples of the translation problems found.