Subtitling taboo language: Using the cues of register and genre to affect audience experience?

Abstract

Using French-English/English-French examples, this article puts forward the hypothesi that, in the film genre of social realism (depicting low socio-economic groups), subtitler use linguistic and visual cues which are embedded in genre to trigger audience reaction to representations of taboo language. Examples of the subtitling of taboo language ar drawn from three films and the hypothesis above will be explored along three main interrelate axes: i) the value of treating subtitles as an entire system; ii) the relationshi between the specific film genre of social realism (depicting low socio-economic groups and audience perceptions of taboo language use; and iii) discourse representation through register and its effect on characterisation. Nuances are brought to evidence fro existing research which argues that the choices relating to taboo language made in th oral to written mode shift are subject to politeness restrictions in terms of register, an that these choices have a homogenising/levelling effect on characterisation (Lamber 1990; Taylor 2006a; Mailhac 2000 for example).