Swearing and the vulgarization hypothesis in Spanish audiovisual translation
Abstract Drawing on the insights of pragmatics and translation studies, this article aims to probe the so called vulgarization hypothesis in audiovisual translation (AVT) of Anglophone products into Spanish 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 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. The analysis shows that the number of swearwords is increased by means of three strategies (namely addition, replacement of neutral words/expressions by swearwords, and 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 contemporary AVT in Spain tends to vulgarize the original version.