A Norm-Based Analysis of Swearing Rendition in Professional Dubbing and Non-Professional Subtitling from English into Persian

This study takes a norm-based approach to analyzing the dubbing and non-professional subtitling of English swearing into Persian in an American movie. The article revolves around three main theoretical frameworks, i.e., Wajnryb (2005), Toury (1995, 2012a, 2012b), and Chesterman (1997). After analyzing the strategies in rendering the original swearing into Persian, the researchers achieved a model of four basic strategies: (a) direct translation with strong force, (b) direct translation with weak force, (c) deletion, and (d) foreignization. On the whole, the results of this research showed that both dubbed and non-professional subtitled versions were target language-oriented with deleting the original swearing as the most frequent strategy. But, the vulgarity and the degree of offensiveness of swearing in the original version were to some extent euphemized in the dubbed version. On the other hand, the non-professional subtitled version, in comparison with the dubbed version, employed more direct translation of the original swearing with strong force. The article then proceeded to delve into why these strategies were employed by the dubbed and non-professional subtitled producers, and why there were remarkable differences between the two versions. The findings provided useful information within descriptive translation studies nevertheless, they cannot be generalized since the study was limited by a relatively small corpus and utilized a non-probability sampling procedure.