Traduzir ou omitir? O dilema dos tabus linguísticos na dublagem de duas cenas de Pulp Fiction.

Abstract

This monograph aims to analyze how taboo words are translated in the Brazilian dubbing of two scenes of Quentin Tarantino's film Pulp Fiction (1994), comparing them to the original dialogues in English. The analysis of taboo terms was developed considering strategies adopted to omit or minimize the effect of these terms in the dubbed dialogues. The theoretical framework is based on Venuti (2004, 2009) for the discussion of strategies focused on domestication and foreignization, also mentioning Lefevere (2002) on the importance of sociocultural knowledge necessary for audiovisual translation. Regarding dubbing, Martínez (2004) and Chaume (2006) are mentioned to describe the stages and the dubbing process, along with the technical challenges involved. Regarding linguistic taboos, the categorizations of Napoli and Hoeksema (2009) and Crystal (1987) are used, referring to the organization of taboo words into themes such as sex, bodily excretion, religion, and death. To address the difficulties in translating taboo terms, Laver; Mason (2018), Rittmayer (2009) and Campos (2024) are mentioned to address the Brazilian context of dubbing. The research methodology followed the qualitative and descriptive typology by Moreira and Caleffe (2006) and empirical research based on Williams and Chesterman (2002). Results show 36 utterances with taboo terms in the two selected and analyzed scenes of the film. The words were categorized based on the typology of taboo terms by Napoli and Hoeksema (2009) and the analysis presents the strategies adopted by Brazilian dubbing, such as omission, euphemism, and literal translation, omission being the most used strategy, highlighting the impacts of these choices on the final version. In total, 54 taboo words were found in the quotes analyzed in the two scenes. About these words, 38 were omitted (69.09%), 13 were replaced by euphemisms (23.64%) and only 3 were translated literally (5.54%), leading us to conclude that the Brazilian dubbing process in the scenes analysed has Strong the tendency to avoid the use of taboo words.