Overcoming Cultural Constraints in Translating English Series: A Case Study of Subtitling Family Guy into Arabic

Abstract

Subtitling and dubbing foreign animation in Arabic have been growing since TV screens reached Arab homes. This imposes stricter control and ethical supervision of the used language. This study examines the cultural constraints in subtitling the American animated sitcom Family Guy into Arabic. Family Guy addresses sensitive matters, such as sex, alcohol, religion, and politics, and so it is viewed with concern and caution in the Arab world. The researchers classified the cultural constraints in translation into three main categories: religious remarks, jokes & humour that revolve around proper nouns, and taboos. The analysis shows that the strategies used in translating religious remarks were scene deletion, words omission, and words omission with justifications. For jokes and humour, the translator opted for three strategies, namely, retain unchanged, retain unchanged with added guidance and retain unchanged with detailed explanation. Euphemistic expressions and word omission were the two strategies followed in translating taboos. The study concludes that the target audience has a vital role in determining the appropriate constraints on translation that go in line with their ideology and culture.

Subtitling strategies of swear words and taboo expressions in the movie “Training Day”

“…However, it was found that omission and euphemistic translation are the most common strategies used by the subtitler. These findings are similar to those findings of Dabbas and Haider (2020) , Almijrab (2020) , Al-Yasin and Rabab'ah (2019) , who found that omission and euphemism are the most common subtitling strategies. This study also concludes that some subtitling strategies overlap.…”

“…Some studies investigated the strategies employed in subtitling Arabic movies. Dabbas and Haider (2020) examined the cultural difficulties in subtitling the American animated sitcom Family Guy into Arabic and the strategies used in subtitling the cultural references especially taboo and swear words, and they found that there are constraints in subtitling these words. These constraints are governed by the nature of the audience.…”

A Corpus-Assisted Translation Study of Strategies Used in Rendering Culture-Bound Expressions in the Speeches of King Abdullah II

“…The term 'translation strategies' is frequently used in the context of translation studies. Translators need to follow a strategy when they face a problem while translating specific text (Debbas & Haider, 2020). Baker (2018) suggested some translation strategies to deal with the challenges that may arise while translating a text from one language into another:…”

Censorship as enabling: importing, distributing, and translating foreign films in the Arab Middle East

“…To illustrate, Gamal (2008 , 2009) has extensively investigated the progress of this industry and the emergence of the cinema industry in Egypt in the early twentieth century and the progress of subtitling for both television and cinema. Furthermore, subtitling and dubbing as the two major AVT forms in the Arab world have been reviewed to account for the pros and cons of each form in the context of translating AV material into Arabic ( Mazid, 2006 ; Gamal, 2008 ; Alkadi, 2010 ; Thawabteh, 2011 ; Khalaf and Rashid, 2016 ; Debbas and Haider, 2020 ). In the case of subtitled AV programmes into Arabic, Khuddro (2000) , Mazid (2006) , Alkadi (2010) , Thawabteh (2011) , and Debbas and Haider (2020) have highlighted some errors AV translators make due to linguistic, technical, and cultural issues they might encounter in the AV text.…”