Alsharhan, Alanoud Faisal; (2022) The effects of the Netflix no-censorship policy on subtitling taboo language from English to Arabic: a case study based on Kuwait. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

In recent years, the internet has revolutionised the way in which individuals watch television and has provided many people around the world with access to content they have never had access to before. Netflix, which has become available worldwide in over 190 countries, thrives on providing its audience with the freedom of choice when it comes to genres of audiovisual entertainment, devices that can be used, and the time and location of streaming. A core part of the company’s aim is to eliminate outdated policies and restrictions that are applied on linear television locally and globally. Accordingly, individuals who have access to Netflix’s content in a country such as Kuwait, where content on linear TV and cinemas is heavily scrutinised and censored, can watch uncensored audiovisual material, which includes subtitles. Subtitling uncensored audiovisual materials for Arabic-speaking audiences is a new phenomenon given the long history of using euphemisms and, most often, omission strategies. Creating Arabic subtitles under such a policy may indicate that this would have some effects on the subtitling strategies applied as well as on the reception of the target audience. Yet, this new trend has attracted limited attention so far within the field of audiovisual translation (AVT). Therefore, in an attempt to occupy this research niche, this research study aims to closely examine these subtitles, particularly the instances that include taboo language. The methodological approach followed is descriptive-experimental, in which the former involves the translation strategies applied being identified, described, and analysed in terms of how successfully they maintain the functions of taboo language in the dialogue. Furthermore, the current subtitling strategies used for subtitling extralinguistic cultural references (ECRs) are modified in an attempt to establish a new taxonomy of strategies for subtitling taboo language that represents the two languages and cultures under analysis. The experimental part is conducted to serve the other objective, which is to investigate the target audience’s reception of subtitled taboo language regarding maintaining the functions of characterisation, expressing emotions, and delivering humour. By following this methodological approach, this study aims to contribute to the field of AVT, particularly subtitling, because it investigates taboo language from a cultural perspective and examines the reasons for including it in the media, how it is subtitled into Arabic, and if the subtitling strategies applied serve the same intended functions in the source language. It also addresses the issue of the scarcity of reception studies in AVT by including members of target audience in Kuwait to take part in the experiment. The findings of the corpus analysis indicated that a variety of subtitling strategies are used to render taboo language into Arabic on Netflix shows. This has resulted in the modified taxonomy of taboo language subtitling strategies consisting of eight baseline strategies and two additional changes, euphemisms and a shift in register, which occur along with some subtitling strategies. The results of the experimental case study revealed that the role of the subtitling strategies is most prominent in delivering humour, while in the other two conditions, other semiotic codes may play a more significant role along with the subtitling strategy in maintaining the functions of the taboo language.

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