Anàlisi de la subtitulació del llenguatge col·loquial i formal de la sèrie The Walking Dead

Abstract

Although colloquial language abounds in audiovisual translation, most of the times it is translated incorrectly. Moreover, there is a lack of clear criteria to determine in which situations the Spanish formal pronoun usted should appear instead of tú and the other way round. On the one hand, the objective of this paper is to analyse the subtitling from English into Spanish of different colloquial features in order to determine the adequacy of translation proposals. On the other hand, to analyse the elements that the translator should take into account when choosing between tú or usted. The methodology used for this study consisted of a compilation of examples extracted mainly from the first three seasons of the series and a subsequent classification of the results. The analysis is divided into two parts: an observation of the translation of a group of swear words (God, Hell, asshole, damn, etc.) and the comment of the decisions taken to translate the formal language. To be consistent in such long series is of the utmost importance in order to avoid translation mistakes. The most important conclusion reached by this work is that the communicative situation and the audiovisual context are essential elements for a translation to sound natural. To achieve a good result, the translator has to be capable of detaching from the purely linguistic elements.