A reflection on the translation of sex-related language in audio-visual texts: the Spanish version of J.K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy

ABSTRACT

Studies on the way sex-related language has been approached in audio-visual translation are still rather limited. This article documents the range of solutions given in Spanish to the sex-related language present in the British TV series The Casual Vacancy (2015), based on the novel of the same title by J.K. Rowling. In order to do so I will cursorily follow the sex-related items on their way from the original novel (The Casual Vacancy, 2012) to its Spanish translation (Una vacante imprevista, 2012) and, later on, to the Spanish screen. For my analysis, the TV script for the BBC One series (February 2015) and the Spanish dubbed version for Canal Plus (May 2015) will be considered. The study shows that patterns of sexual terms, and of how sexual terms are translated, are key indicators of a society’s attitude towards sex/sexuality, (im)morality, (in)decency, the body and gendered/sexual ideologies.

KEYWORDS:

• A Casual Vacancy (J.K. Rowling)
• Una vacante imprevista (J.K. Rowling)
• translation of sex-related language
• TV translation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

José Santaemilia is associate professor of English language and linguistics at the Universitat de València, as well as a legal and literary translator. His main research interests are gender and language, sexual language and translation. He has edited Género, lenguaje y traducción (Valencia, 2003) and Gender, sex and translation: The manipulation of identities (Manchester, 2005). With José Pruñonosa, he is author of the first critical edition and translation of Fanny Hill into Spanish (Editorial Cátedra, 2000). He has recently co-edited Gender and sexual identities in transition: International perspectives (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), with Patricia Bou, and Woman and translation: Geographies, voices and identities (Monographs on Translation and Interpretation, 2011), with Luise von Flotow. He is currently managing editor of the journal Monographies on Translation and Interpretation.