Will Subtitles Suffice? An Exploration of Spanish to English T/V Pronoun Translation in Modern Television

Will Subtitles Suffice? An Exploration of Spanish to English T/V Pronoun Translation in Modern Television

Gabriela Lloyd Pérez

The T/V distinction refers to the grammatical differentiation between formal and informal second-person pronouns, a linguistic feature absent in modern English. In the realm of language translation, there are various strategies aimed at conveying the semantic nuances of directly untranslatable terms. However, the inherent confinement of television subtitles to written text poses limitations to these strategies, offering a distinctive challenge in accurately capturing the full meaning of original dialogue. This article examines various translated subtitles from a T/V distinctive language to a non-T/V distinctive language and investigates whether certain semantic and cultural nuances are compromised in the translation process. By analyzing the historical evolution of pronominal address and contemporary linguistic conventions of (in)formality in both English and Paisa Spanish (the principal dialect spoken in Medellín, Colombia), the study lays a foundation for understanding the semantic complexity confronting translators. Additionally, through the analysis of Paisa dialogue excerpts and their subtitled translations from two popular Colombian television series, the study demonstrates various intricacies involved in translating Spanish T/V pronouns to English. The results of this study indicate that, as subtitling strategies currently stand, restricted to the realm of text, certain semantic and cultural nuances of T/V distinctive pronouns in Spanish may be lost when translated to English.