Multi-Generational Language in AVT

In this paper, multi-generational language will be used as an umbrella term to refer to different features of linguistic variation such as colloquialisms, teenage/youth language, and taboo language- i.e., distinct phenomena showing similarities and overlaps. When it comes to marked language, special attention has been devoted to slang (^{Bruti, 2020}; ^{Mattiello, 2008}; ^{Tagliamonte, 2016}) and to the challenges this poses to the translation of AV products, mainly considering dubbing (^{Bianchi, 2008}; ^{Dore, 2017a}; ^{Mattiello, 2009}; ^{Ranzato, 2010}, 2015) and, to a lesser extent, subtitling (^{Hamaidia, 2007}; ^{Rittmayer, 2009}). Here we draw on ^{Partridge’s (1937)} concept of “slang and unconventional English”, re-proposed by ^{Dalzell (2008)}, who refers to “all unconventional English that has been used with the purpose or effect of either lowering the formality of communication and reducing solemnity and/or identifying status or group and putting oneself in tune with one’s company.” (p. vii). This may involve an “innovative, playful, metaphorical and short-lived” use of language that includes words ranging “below the level of stylistically neutral language” (^{Stenström et al., 2002}, p. 67, emphasis in the original). Since the identification and definition of slang with respect to the Italian language may be controversial, the focus here is placed on “unconventional teenage/youth language”. This decision was made in line with previous AVT research on the translation of English slang (^{Dore, 2017a}; ^{Ranzato, 2015}) into “the jargon of youngsters” in Italian (^{Ranzato, 2015}, p. 173) to convey “the in-group bonding” (^{Dore, 2017a}, p. 122) among people of similar age and experience.

Taboo language is also, albeit not exclusively, a major trait of teenage/youth language (^{Beseghi, 2016}), in which it generally performs a phatic or exclamatory function and may contribute to characterisation and realism in AV products. Although the phenomenon of swearing includes obscenities, profanities, blasphemy, name-calling, insulting, verbal aggression, taboo speech, vulgarisms, and scatological terms (^{Jay, 2000}, p. 9), this paper adopts the all-encompassing label of “taboo language”. As regards subtitling emotionally-loaded language from English in other languages, this might imply occasional omissions according to space/time constraints and the assumed sensitivity of the target culture. This is because the impact of taboo language is perceived to be stronger in writing than in speaking. Nonetheless, swearwords seem to be increasingly more common in subtitles in Europe (^{Díaz-Cintas & Remael, 2007}), and nowadays, they even tend to be added to the TL subtitles to compensate for the loss of other non-standard language features, especially in “downstream translation” (^{Gottlieb, 2009}, p. 28, cf. ^{Dore, 2017b}; ^{Valdeón, 2020}). Whether the same also happens in the other direction is still unclear.

Our Integrated Theoretical Framework

Viewing translation as an act of communication within a sociocultural context, this paper adopts the framework offered by systemic functional linguistics (SFL). For the analysis of language variation, we thus draw on the Hallidayan distinction between dialects and registers outlined above. However, while SFL views user- and use-related varieties as conceptually distinct despite their interconnections (Halliday & Hasan, 1985), we argue that, from a translational perspective, user-related variation could be analysed as intersecting with the contextual variable of use that focuses on the relationship between the participants in a communicative act (specifically, tenor). Furthermore, despite the debate around the differentiation between “standard” and “non-standard” (^{Gramley, 2012}; ^{Manfredi, 2021a}; ^{Murray & Simon, 2008}; Trudgill, 1999), for the purpose of our study, we consider “non-standard” those language characteristics typically entailed in sociolinguistic research on telecinematic discourse, i.e., vernacular elements, colloquial/informal features, “slang” (in our case study rather “teenage/youth language”) and swear/taboo words (^{Bednarek, 2018}).

In light of a functional view, in the forthcoming sections, instances of user- and use-related variation will be observed on the basis of their communicative purposes such as adding realism to the AV product, developing characterisation, and creating humour (^{Bednarek, 2018}). Finally, as both TS and SFL recommend (^{Ramos Pinto & Adami, 2020}), the verbal code will be seen as embedded in a wider multimodal context that contributes to the overall meaning-making of the episodes.

Generazione 56k

The series Generazione 56k, which IMDb classifies as comedy, drama, and romance, was released on ^{Netflix on July 1, 2021}. The one-season eight episodes revolve around the changes occurring in the so-called “net generation” or “millennials”, seasoned by technology, from the advent of the Internet connection through the slow and noisy, albeit exciting, 56k dial-up modem to the hyperconnected present, when smartphones and apps serve as tools for work and search for love. The story is narrated in two plot lines, one set in 1998, in the island of Procida, where the protagonists, Daniel and Matilda, live in their middle-school years; and the other at the current time, in Naples, where the same characters are torn between nostalgia for the past and complicated feelings and relationships.

The main characters’ adventures as kids and young adults in their 30s are accompanied by those of their families and friends. Ines, Matilda’s best friend from childhood to adult life, has chosen a traditional marriage and is the mother of a child. Luca and Sandro, Daniel’s mates and business partners, are interpreted by two members of The Jackals, a comic group from Naples that has reached success by creating web videos and series. A minor character who plays a significant role in the story is Ciro, the island’s bar owner and guardian of people’s desires and secrets. All characters, in various ways and to different extents, represent their Neapolitan identity. Magnificent views of the Neapolitan Gulf and the city of Naples with its traditional terraced roofs, typical yards, and baroque balconies, along with the picturesque island of Procida, with its multi-coloured buildings and narrow alleys, contribute to offering a stunning setting, animated by the seagulls’ call and popular Italian songs from the 1980s and 1990s.

Geographical Dialects

In Generazione 56k, the main geographical dialect used by characters is Neapolitan and, more broadly, a variety from the Campania region or sometimes Southern Italy. The dialectal variety is differently encoded in the characters’ speech.

For example, Daniel, who works as a creative director at a company that develops apps, generally speaks Italian, with an educated regional accent. However, both as a young boy and an adult man, some Neapolitan traits emerge in his speech, such as apocopes (e.g., pa’ instead of papà [dad] or ancora con sta’ storia? [this story again?]), the use of the popular and dialectal adverb mo’ [now], or regional grammatical features, which are mostly neutralised in the English subtitles. Only occasionally, Daniel uses dialectal expressions, especially when he is anxious, for instance, when his younger sister Raffaella makes fun of him by reading his schooltime diary twenty years later, and he silences her with the dialectal statte zitta [be quiet], standardised into “Stop it!”. More frequently, his sentences include dialectal structures, such as the inversion between the possessive and the noun, typical of Southern Italian, exemplified in È morta prima l’amica sua [It’s been first ‘her friend’ to die], which reads “her friend just died” in the English subtitles. The omission of “has” entails a partially compensatory solution regarding a shift from geographical variation to informal language. In the cited example, Daniel is talking about an app that helps people who are not satisfied with a blind date by offering a so-called “exit strategy”, i.e., a call from a friend who informs about a loss or urgent need. Along with Daniel, Matilda is the other main character in the series. After giving up her dream of doing a master’s degree in Paris, she works at a furniture restoration shop and is about to get married when she bumps into Daniel after many years. Matilda’s variety is more marked: although she does not use a dialect, she displays a marked Southern Italian accent, as in Devo anda’ da Punzo, devo paga’ ’e bollette, devo paga’ ’e bollette de mia madre, standardised in the English subtitles as “I have to see Punzo, pay my rent, pay my mom’s bills”. This shows a partial compensation strategy, i.e., the omission of the implicit subject “I” and the modal verb “must”, repeated twice in the Italian version; hence, it is a shift from the phonological to the grammatical level.

Luca and Sandro are Daniel’s friends and business partners. As far as Luca is concerned, he is a shy boy as a teenager and a sarcastic nerdy in his 30s. Despite his strong Neapolitan accent and use of a typically dialectal lexicogrammar, he seldom speaks the dialect but intermingles his speech with regional expressions and structures. A case in point is Capace che c’incontriamo quando vado a buttare l’immondizia, with a humoristic effect, which simply becomes “I might run into her when I’m taking out the trash or something” in the English subtitles. Conversely, the adult Sandro, a lively boy and later a funny young man, often uses the Neapolitan dialect, which is neutralised in the TL even if it is sometimes compensated with other codes, e.g., gestural expressiveness, thus providing a sense of realism. On the other hand, gestures may be perceived as typically Italian and not necessarily Neapolitan by an English-speaking audience. Significantly, the use of a dialect is thus not totally “associated with negative, minor, humorous, weak characters or characters that represent cultural stereotypes (while “standard” English may be associated with heroes or desirable qualities)” (^{Bednarek, 2018}, pp. 64‒65): Sandro is a humorous character yet not negative and not even properly “minor”. Ines, Matilda’s best friend, the most good-looking girl at schooltime and now an exuberant and chatty young woman, invariably speaks Italian with a strong regional accent (e.g., ma como fa? [but how does she do that?], completely omitted in the English subtitles), dialectal expressions (e.g., va buo’ or piglia il regalo, standardised into “okay” and “get a gift”), and also the Neapolitan dialect.

Interestingly, only adult characters, both from the outskirts and the city, use pure Neapolitan dialect, which functions as an important element of characterisation. In all cases, they are “older” characters in terms of age and way of life. In Procida Island, the wise and witty barman and Daniel’s godfather, Ciro, speaks Italian with a strong regional accent (e.g., O me fa’ turna’ a Napuli?! [Do you let me come back to Naples?!], subtitled as “Are you going to make me go back?”). Ciro also employs the Neapolitan dialect, with entire stretches of dialogue or through code-switching, for example, in the scene where he addresses his greeting to a customer with the Neapolitan colloquialism statte buono [stay good], subtitled as “take care”. When he refers to Daniel, he uses the dialectal word picciniello, in Che ha fatto il picciniello? [What has the picciniello done?], neutralised as “kid” and compensated in the clause with a colloquial form, i.e., “gotten” in “What’s the kid gotten into now?”.

As for minor, albeit supporting, characters, Matilda’s boss, the elderly Mr. Punzo, owner of a furniture restoration shop in Naples and named “Professor”―probably as an appellative of respect―speaks the Neapolitan dialect or a regional Italian with a very strong Neapolitan accent, which produces a humoristic effect. Humour deriving from his hilarious comments is compromised for instance when he uses the dialectal expression Mica ‘ncoppa a Marte―where the colourful ‘ncoppa means “on top of” ―which is rendered into a more standard “not flying off to Marte”. In this case, kinetics partly compensates for the loss since Mr. Punzo accompanies his talk with lively gesticulation, from pinching his fingers against the thumb to circling his hand and rolling his eyes. Daniel’s mother, Rosaria, who lives in Procida, and is often portrayed in the kitchen, also speaks the dialect or Italian with a strong Neapolitan accent, typically neutralised in subtitling. She plays the role of a “traditional” mother that is busy with cooking and scolding her son and daughter when they use dirty words. Her gestures and facial expressions, however, contribute to conveying her Neapolitanness.

As far as the youngest generation is concerned, Sandro and Ines both speak the dialect. They are in their thirties and married as if to suggest that they have embraced a more “traditional” way of life. Daniel’s father, Bruno, on the other hand, who is torn between his role of strict and companionable father, rarely uses the dialect. Nonetheless, his accent is Neapolitan, as is the lexicogrammar of his speech. This occurs, for instance, when he uses the typical Italian regional expression buono, buono, with a Neapolitan accent, standardised as “good, good”.

Overall, Neapolitan traits in the Italian dialogues are represented at all linguistic levels, from phonology through accents to the lexico-grammatical structure, fulfilling the functions of realism and characterisation. Elements traditionally subject to neutralisation such as accents are standardised and rarely compensated with other marked elements. For example, many characters use the typical phonological features of Italy’s Southern dialects, such as a’ mamma rather than alla mamma [to mum], a’ mmare rather than nel mare [into the sea], or apposto rather than a posto to mean “ok”, to name just a few examples. Characters’ names undergo the phenomenon of apocope, e.g., Lu’ for Luca and Mati for Matilda.

At the lexical level, culturally-specific references are not very frequent. When they are inserted in a dialogue and maintained in the English subtitles, comprehension for an English-speaking viewer might be problematic and the phonetic effect might not be necessarily humorous as is in Italian. The case of scarpariello (i.e., a recipe for a Neapolitan tomato sauce) mentioned by the elderly Punzo is an example. A slightly different solution is found in a dialogue between Bruno―Daniel’s father―and Cristina―Sandro’s wife―at a party, where Scusate, ma lo sentite questo odore di…. zeppoline me pare? [Sorry, but… can you feel this smell of… zeppoline it seems?] is subtitled as “Can you… can you smell that? It’s like, uh, zeppole pastry”. Here, the typical cake zeppoline, with the diminutive suffix “-ine” is translated into “zeppole pastry”, which shows a strategy of maintenance accompanied by an explanation. In general, dialectal terms are almost invariably neutralised without recurring to colloquial language for compensation. This is the case of the Neapolitan vocative guagliò or of the regional term capatosta, simply rendered as “guys” and “stubborn” respectively. In various episodes, characters use the expressive verb azzeccarci [have to do with], typical of Southern Italy, which is subtitled into standard English, with no marked trait, as shown in Table 1. Note that only “gotta” in Example 3 conveys an informal tone:

From a lexico-grammatical point of view, the regional use of verbs is very common, for example, stare [to stay] instead of essere [to be], and tenere [hold] instead of avere [to have] (see examples in Table 2).

In Table 2, the trait is simply neutralised (see examples 4, 6, and 7) and only rarely compensated with colloquial language (as in example 5). Even marked thematic structures in the Italian dialogues undergo standardisation in the English subtitles, for instance, the extremely frequent use of pure [too] in a marked position in the sentence, typical of Southern Italian varieties. This is evident in Young Raffaella’s Ci vediamo pure i cartoni [We watch cartoons too], standardised into “And we can watch cartoons if we want”. This feature is invariably neutralised and rarely compensated with an informal style such as in the case of Daniel’s Pure gli specchi? [Mirrors too?], subtitled as “You can restore mirrors?”, which contains a question without inversion.

A sociolinguistic aspect related to language use and intersecting with a geographical practise can be considered the old-fashioned courtesy form voi (second-person plural pronoun) to address adult people. It is used by Luca (both when he is young and adult) towards elders such as Mr. Ciro and Mr. Bruno as well as by adult Matilda towards “Professor” Punzo, which is standardised (see examples in Table 3).

Although the convergence of the Italian second-person singular and plural pronouns in the English “you” is clearly unavoidable for contrastive linguistic reasons, no compensatory solution is applied in these subtitles to render the formal way of addressing elders. Neapolitan is also featured, with a humoristic effect, in the English-accented Italian of Enea Greenwood, Matilda’s fiancé. He only occasionally switches to his native language (e.g., “There you go”, “Let’s go”) and also tries to imitate the Neapolitan dialect like in Nu mariuolo―where mariuolo means “rogue” ―subtitled as “The man is a crook, huh!” in which the geographical dialect is replaced with a colloquial style.

In the dialogues, Neapolitan humour is also conveyed through the Italian language with a redundant style that might function intertextually, possibly reminding viewers of the Italian comic Totò’s famous films, as the two examples in Table 4 suggest. In similar cases, cultural issues seem to go far beyond subtitling practises.

In the series, the geographical dialect also overlaps with other types of marked language, for instance, colloquialisms and multi-generational language, as in the following examples in Table 5.

In these examples, subtitlers do not undertake any compensatory solution. In Example 13, no marked linguistic feature compensates for Southern Italy’s lively verb impicciare (to swamp), whereas in (14), the Italian verb appendere (to hang) is used in the Neapolitan variety with the sense of “jilting” (a partner), losing the geographical trait while maintaining the colloquial tone. In (15), where “hung” (face) is unconventionally used in the sense of “long”, the final effect of the English subtitles is that they convey a moral judgement, while Ines vividly describes the man’s face. Likewise, the popular interjection mannaggia, typical of Southern Italy’s dialects, used by Bruno when scolding his young son and daughter who are fighting (Mannaggia, ragazzi [Mannaggia, guys]), is standardised as “Come on. Come on now”. Conversely, in another occurrence, the same interjection is used by young Luca, conveying it with an offensive swearword, i.e., “motherfuck”, thus involving use-related variation.

The series also includes a different geographical variety, i.e., the Veneto dialect from the North of Italy spoken by a minor character, Nando. He is an agent working for Matilda’s father―a film actor―who displays a strong accent and uses a typical taboo word in Ti se un mona [You’re a mona]. Mona, a vulgar term, acquires in the co-text the meaning of “idiot”, subtitled as “You’re a real joker”.

In sum, Neapolitan traits permeate the Italian dialogues and completely disappear in the English subtitles through a strategy of neutralisation and more specifically of discourse standardisation without any compensatory solutions. Admittedly, Naples and the island of Procida on the background multimodally convey the environment where characters live their adventures, and untranslated Italian popular songs underline a nostalgia for the 90s. Nonetheless, the characters’ identity expressed through the language they speak is fundamentally lost.

Multi-Generational Language

The language spoken by young, teen, and adult characters in the series is often marked and includes features of colloquialisms, informal and unconventional teenage/youth and taboo language, contributing to realism and characterisation.

Sometimes the colloquial language is maintained, as in the offensive cagasotto [shit-scared] of young Raffaella, which becomes “wuss” in the subtitles, thus informal. However, overall, the English subtitles do not show the same level of informality as the Italian dialogues. For instance, the colloquial style is toned down when the clause fa schifo [it sucks] is rendered into a neutral “it’s awful”. In the same vein, most characters frequently use the colloquial adverb manco, with an emphatic function, which is essentially standardised (as in Example 16 below). Let us consider further similar cases in Table 6 where the English subtitles have been neutralised and, therefore, have become unmarked.

The colloquial use of the pleonastic c’, as in C’aveva 60 anni [She was 60], is simply standardised as “She was in her sixties”. Discourse standardisation also occurs with the colloquialism coso (used for an unidentified object), which is omitted in the subtitles (in Dammi ‘sto coso [Give me this thing]/“Let go!”, referring to a cellphone). In this specific case, the visual code helps comprehension even though the function of realism is toned down. When it comes to interjections, the popular Italian porca miseria [blast!] used by Daniel is slightly softened into “jeez”. In turn, an exclamation implying a Catholic reference such as Madonna santa! is preserved in the English subtitles although comprehension may not be ensured, and thus humour might be lost. An interesting case of compensation of humour occurs when the Italian Quanto ti devo, Ciro? [How much do I owe you, Ciro?] is rendered as “What’s the damage?”, an expression used to ask how much one has to pay for something, with a shift from colloquial to informal humorous language. Compensation is also achieved with the insertion of “gotta/gotten”, to convey a colloquial tone in the English subtitles (e.g., Ma si può sapere che ti piglia? [What’s the problem with you?]/“What’s gotten into you?”). Such an insertion also reinforces the function of realism when the Italian dialogue does not feature any marked language (e.g., Devo proprio andare [I really must go]/ “I really gotta go”).

By the same token, a colloquialism in the English subtitles is used to pursue the function of humour, for example, when Ines shows disapproval for her friend Matilda and her boyfriend Enea who avoid technology. About this, Ines comments Ah certo, perché tu e Enea siete luddisti [Of course, because you and Enea are Luddites], which is subtitled as “Ah, I forgot you two suck with tech”, perhaps, for the sake of greater comprehension. Another humoristic effect is lost when Matilda, during her first blind date with Daniel, uses a ni―an Italian colloquial expression to mean “neither yes nor no”―, which is translated into “Mm, yes”.

Regarding youth language, the typical ma ci sei proprio finito sotto [but you really are head over heels] expressed by Rosa ―a secondary character presumably around her 30s― is rendered as “You’ve really got it bad for her”. Along the same lines, Table 7 offers three instances of unconventional use in the Italian version that seems to correspond to teenage/youth language.

In (21), the term tamarro, spread from Southern Italy to other regions as a juvenile term to refer to rough people, especially from the poorer areas, is neutralised as “brute”. Likewise, in (22), the use of the indefinite word “thing” to mean “drink” is completely lost, whereas in (23), the extremely colloquial expression in italics -conveying the meaning of a long and noisy talk- is shifted to a taboo choice.

Considering the multi-generational characteristics of the series, children’s language is instantiated in the word femmina [female], repeatedly used by the young protagonists in the 1990s to identify either “girls” or “women”, which are the general terms found in the English subtitles.

Moving along the cline of colloquial use, taboo language is widely present in the Italian dialogues and is one of the marked features that is majorly preserved yet not thoroughly. Direct equivalence is exemplified, for instance, by merda! [shit!], cazzo [cock], figlio di puttana [son of a bitch], etc. On the other hand, functional equivalence is achieved, according to the situation, in cazzo [cock], which becomes “shit” or “fuck”, che palle [what a drag], rendered as “shit” or “what a pain in the ass”, una marea di cazzate [a stream of bullshit] subtitled as “all that horseshit”, etc. Likewise, the functions of realism and characterisation fulfilled by the swearwords in the specific co-text are recreated (see example 24 in Table 8). Nevertheless, the strong value of taboo language also happens to be standardised, for instance, when the vulgar verb scopare is translated into “sleep with” and “get laid” (elsewhere, as “fuck”). Significant examples where the vulgar tone is neutralised involve both main and secondary characters, including Aurelio, Daniel’s boss, as the examples in Table 8 illustrate.

It might be noticed that, while Examples 25 and 27 shift to a merely colloquial tone, in 26 any connotation disappears from the subtitles. Additionally, in (28), the subtitled version is not only neutralised in terms of taboo language but also semantically changed: as a matter of fact, the not-so-serious mistake (conveyed by mezza [half]) becomes “huge”.

Blaspheme language is also partly neutralised, as in Punzo’s exclamation Gesù Cristo! [Jesus Christ!] rendered as “Jeez” with a shift from taboo to popular. A partial compensation, although at a different level of marked language, occurs when Young Raffaella rails against her brother with E tu mi hai rotto le palle! [And you’ve busted my balls!], which is softened from vulgarity to informality with “Why are you such a brat?”. The opposite strategy is applied when Daniel answers with a plain comment such as Non ti sopporto più [I can’t stand you anymore], which becomes a colloquialism in the subtitles: “You’re a brat”. Finally, and significantly, albeit not regularly, English subtitles contain more vulgar lexical choices than the Italian dialogue. A case in point is the male protagonist’s assertion Aurelio ci manda in mezzo a una strada [Aurelio throws us out on the street], subtitled as “Aurelio is gonna fire our asses”. Another example is Aurelio’s question È così che mi ringraziate? [Is this how you thank me?], rendered as “And in return you pull this shit?”. Similarly, when Matilda’s old car has stopped working, she exclaims, No, non va [No, it doesn’t work], which becomes stronger in the English subtitles with a taboo expression such as “No! It’s fucked”, proving again that taboo language is multi-generational in this series.