Swearing and Translation: A Study of the insults in the filims of Quentin Tarantino

Abstract

This thesis analyses the insults in Quentin Tarantino’s films and their translation into Spanish. The insults in Tarantino’s films can be considered very interesting from a social point of view as I have gradually developed during this research. First, I have highlighted the possible problems when translating insults into Spanish. Secondly, I have provided the reader with specific examples in English of the insults collected from the seven films I have analysed [Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Four Rooms, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill vol. I and II, Death Proof and Inglorious Basterds]. Finally, my intention was to demonstrate that the level of swearing in Spanish was inferior by showing the translation of these insults in Spanish as they appeared in the films. Then, I divided my work into two sections, the first one being theoretical: Quentin Tarantino (chapter 1); Characterization of Swearwords (chapter 2); and Translation Studies: The Singularity of Audiovisual Translation (chapter 3), where I have presented the theory to support the conclusions drawn in the second part; and the second one practical: Description and Methodology (chapter 4); and Analysis and Results (chapter 5). I have divided chapter 5 into two (sub) sections. In the first one, “Analysis of the Insults in Quentin Tarantino: An Initial Typology”, I have presented the insults culled in seven of Tarantino’s films and have classified them into twelve categories: (1) sex related; (2) excrement and human waste; (3) body parts; (4) religious; (5) incest; (6) prostitution; (7) racist; (8) cross-categorized; (9) physically or mentally disabled; (10) bodily functions ; (11) animal related; and (12) homophobic insults. In the second sub-section, ‘Case Study: Sex-Related Insults in Quentin Tarantino and Their Translation into Spanish’, I have focused on the sex-related insults and more specifically, on the most frequently repeated expletive, f-word and its morphological variants, alongside its translation into Spanish. This second part of my study, thus, will illustrate the results obtained during my research. Regarding methodology, I first culled all insults found in the original version of the seven films of Tarantino I have based my data on [Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Four Rooms, Jackie Brown, Kill Bill vol. I and II, Death Proof and Inglorious Basterds], briefly mentioning four of the most critically acclaimed films within which he has had an important input on, but not directed: True Romance, Natural Born Killers, From Dusk Till Dawn and Sin City; secondly, I selected the ones which appeared more frequently, the sex-related ones, and have compared them with the sex-related insults in the Spanish dubbed versions. It is important to mention that I encountered 1526 examples of bad words in Tarantino’s work, which I organized in 1117 tables. In order to complete my work, I dealt with issues such as taboo behaviour and obscenity, which include sex, death, bodily functions, specific emotions, racism, and religion. Then, I introduced the concept of swearing, and explored possible causes for it: social, linguistic, and psychological reasons. I have dealt with questions related to the discipline of translation studies, and the problems with the translation of swearwords in films in order to apply it to Tarantino’s work. From a linguistic perspective the defining characteristic of Tarantino’s films is his ability to introduce bawdy language in every film bypassing American censorship. Therefore, I felt that it would be important to discover whether this phenomenon also takes place in the Spanish translation, or whether censorship and self-censorship would be applied following the government’s regulations of bygone eras whose influence might, nevertheless, still be felt implicitly or explicitly in the present.

Quentin Tarantino, representante del cine moderno independiente, se hizo popular con su opera prima, Reservoir Dogs, estrenada por primera vez en 1992. Dos años más tarde, obtuvo la Palme D’Or en el Festival de Cannes con su segunda película, Pulp Fiction. Después de tres años de ausencia, dirigió una de las cuatros historias de Four Rooms, film dirigido junto con Allison Anders, Alexandre Rockwell y Robert Rodríguez. En 1997, Tarantino realizó un film basado en la novela de Elmore Leonard (Rum Punch, 1992), llamado Jackie Brown. Durante 2003 y 2004, el director norteamericano estrenó los dos volúmenes de Kill Bill (I y II). En el año 2007, estrenaba Grindhouse: Death Proof y, finalmente, en el 2009 Tarantino presentó la que es su última película en el Festival de Cannes, Malditos bastardos. De estas siete películas se deriva el corpus sobre el cual he basado mi trabajo: un análisis de los insultos que aparecen en los siete filmes dirigidos por el cineasta norteamericano, Quentin Tarantino, y cómo estos insultos han sido traducidos (doblados) del inglés al español prestando especial atención a aquellos que más se repiten: los insultos sexuales. La conexión entre Tarantino y los insultos se establece desde que el cineasta estrenara su primera obra, ya que introdujo un número bastante significativo de lenguaje soez y no ha cesado de hacerlo desde que emprendiera su carrera cinematográfica. Como resultado, ha hecho de su manera de trabajar un campo peculiar y extremadamente interesante desde el punto de vista académico.