Swearing and the vulgarization hypothesis in Spanish audiovisual translation

This article has been accepted for publication in Journal of Pragmatics. Drawing on the insights of pragmatics and translation studies, this article discusses the so-called vulgarization hypothesis in audiovisual translation (AVT) of Anglophone products into Spanish and aims to test it for the period 2006-2016. The hypothesis posits that contemporary American and British programs dubbed into European Spanish tend to increase the use of swearwords. To test this hypothesis I selected four different series, a sitcom (The IT Crowd), a police drama (Chicago PD), a family drama (Brothers & Sisters) and a thriller (Eyewitness). After identifying a total of 412 coupled pairs in which swearwords were used in English, Spanish or both, I analysed the translation strategies used. The analysis shows that the number of swearwords is increased by means of three main strategies (addition, replacement of neutral words/expressions by swearword, intensification) in 53.14% of the cases. In contrast, toning down and omission strategies occur in 13.88% of the coupled pairs, thus supporting the hypothesis that AVT in Spain tends to vulgarize the original in the dubbed version.