Subtitling multilingual films. The case of "Inglorious Basterds"

Rooted in the Descriptive Translation Studies paradigm, this paper starts by discussing some of the main subtitling constraints that impinge on the translator's task and moves on to analyse the various strategies employed in the subtitled Spanish version of Tarantino's multilingual film Inglourious Basterds. Bearing in mind that the film was made with English, as the predominant language, and is peppered with German, French and Italian scenes, this analysis aims to examine how the combination of the SLs is reflected through subtitles. In order to resort to triangulation, a quantitative analysis of data is contrasted with a subtitler's interview of the Spanish version, analysed qualitatively. In doing so, it is hoped to shed some light on what the final product received by the audience is like as far as multilingual films are concerned.