Paolo Virzì's glocal comedy in English subtitles: an investigation into linguistic and cultural representation

Paolo Virzì's film production is deeply rooted in Italian (often Tuscan) contemporary society, with a focus on the daily lives of ordinary people and the difference between their true selves and their public persona. The language spoken by his colourful characters, which includes regionalisms,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Perspectives, studies in translatology studies in translatology, 2019-03, Vol.27 (2), p.283-298
Main Authors: Bonsignori, Veronica, Bruti, Silvia, Sandrelli, Annalisa
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Colloquial language
colloquialisms
Cultural identity
English language
idiolects
Irony
Italian language
Language culture relationship
Motion pictures
regionalisms
representation
Slang
subtitles
Subtitles & subtitling
Translation
Virzi, Paolo
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Summary:Paolo Virzì's film production is deeply rooted in Italian (often Tuscan) contemporary society, with a focus on the daily lives of ordinary people and the difference between their true selves and their public persona. The language spoken by his colourful characters, which includes regionalisms, slang, colloquialisms and a vast array of idiosyncratic traits, is the quintessence of Virzì's world and of his bittersweet irony. In this contribution, we aim to illustrate how these culture-specific scenarios are transposed in the English subtitled versions of three recent Virzì films, namely La prima cosa bella [The first beautiful thing] (2010), Paolo Virzì, Italy, Tutti i santi giorni [Every blessed day] (2012), Paolo Virzì, Italy, and Il capitale umano [Human capital] (2014), Paolo Virzì, Italy. We identify the indices of regional or Italian identity, linguistically or culturally expressed, in the three aforementioned films, with a view to elucidating the difficulties behind their translation in the English subtitles.
ISSN:0907-676X
1747-6623
DOI:10.1080/0907676X.2018.1439511