Subtitling sexual language into European Spanish. The case of "Succession"

Sexual language is one of the taboo topics that can have a strong impact on its written form (Díaz-Cintas, 2001). However, depending on the target audience’s culture, the level of acceptance to it can be more permissive. This study explores the subtitling of sex-related language into European Spanish of the third season of the TV series Succession (Jesse Armstrong from 2018 to 2023), broadcast by HBO España. Contrary to what happens with other taboo topics, such as religious referents whose treatment is normally more delicate and blasphemies are normally substituted by other offensive formulas (Rodríguez-Arancón and Ávila-Cabrera, 2024), our initial hypothesis is that the sex-related language of this TV series tends to be subtitled in faithful terms. This study, based on a linguistic approach following the Descriptive Translation Studies paradigm, aims to address three research questions: (1) if sexual language was subtitled faithfully in the target text (TT); (2) if this language was subtitled in the TT by using sexual language or other offensive/taboo phrases; (3) what translation techniques were more used (Ávila-Cabrera, 2023). This case study unveils the way sexual references were subtitled for the audience in Spain.