The ‘gook’ goes ‘gay’. Cultural interference in translating offensive language

Racial slurs and swearwords resonate through Gran Torino (2008). As lexical leitmotifs, linguistic taboos play a strategic role in constructing the film’s narrative. Their importance in the meaning making process thus require a scrupulous approach to their translation, above all for their potentially explosive semantic content. This paper reflects on the ideologically loaded issues implicit to the meaning transfer of offensive language; an effort must be made to distinguish the functional uses of these lexical fields and their impact when attempting the transfer of aesthetical content between linguacultures that have different societal values and taboos. Drawing on a syncretism of perspectives from politeness theory (Brown and Levinson 1978, 1987), linguistic anthropology (Allan and Burridge 2006), discourse analysis as adapted to translation by Hatim and Mason (1997), and methodological approaches falling within Descriptive Translation Studies (Toury 1995), the article focuses on significant examples from Gran Torino; derogatory racial utterances from the source linguaculture (North-American urban contexts) are compared with the target text renderings in the variety of Italian most commonly used in dubbed and subtitled films. The first part of the paper outlines the analytical, methodological and theoretical frameworks adopted. The second part examines the samples and the outcomes are discussed, forming tentative conclusions on the influence of cultural norms in the translation process.