Non-standard varieties in American sitcoms and their Spanish dubbing: a descriptive study

Abstract

When it comes to the creation of humorous sequences or to character building within an audiovisual fiction text, dialects and accents turn out to be one of the most valuable resources for scriptwriters. Bound as they are to a specific society and culture, these varieties instantly rouse the researcher’s curiosity as to how they could be dealt with by translators. This article sets out to shed some light on the issue by summarising the findings of a descriptive study carried out on the use of language variation in two American sitcoms, Friends and Will & Grace, both in their original and their Spanish dubbed version. In keeping with the goals outlined at the outset of this research, two sets of conclusions have been reached: one on linguistic varieties in the source text, their frequency, function and underlying stereotypes; and another on dubbing strategies through which dialect-marked fragments are translated, with a view to identifying a series of translation tendencies vis-à-vis language variation in audiovisual fiction texts