A reflection on the translation of sex-related language in audio-visual texts. The Spanish version of J.K. Rowling’s "The casual vacancy"

Studies on the way sex-related language has been approached in audio-visual translation are still rather limited. This article documents the range of solutions given in Spanish to the sex-related language present in the British TV series The Casual Vacancy (2015), based on the novel of the same title by J.K. Rowling. In order to do so I will cursorily follow the sex-related items on their way from the original novel (The Casual Vacancy, 2012) to its Spanish translation (Una vacante imprevista, 2012) and, later on, to the Spanish screen. For my analysis, the TV script for the BBC One series (February 2015) and the Spanish dubbed version for Canal Plus (May 2015) will be considered. The study shows that patterns of sexual terms, and of how sexual terms are translated, are key indicators of a society’s attitude towards sex/sexuality, (im)morality, (in)decency, the body and gendered/sexual ideologies.