2026-10-14T01:01:20Z https://api.figshare.com/v2/oai

oai:figshare.com:article/32805098 2026-10-01T16:18:24Z portal_1172 item_type_8 month_year_10_2026

Profanity and policy: investigating the subtitling of taboo and offensive language from English into Arabic on Netflix Nuha Khalid M Al-Muhareb (24292217) PUREID: 660697977 AVT taboo offensive Arabic This thesis investigates the subtitling of offensive and taboo language from English into Arabic on Netflix, focusing on how global translation policies interact with Arab cultural and religious norms. While Netflix’s official subtitling guidelines promote direct and uncensored subtitles of dialogue, Arab subtitlers traditionally operate within conservative frameworks that favour omission, euphemisation, or cultural substitution. This tension provides a rich context for examining how subtitling norms evolve within globalised audiovisual media. <br> <br>Grounded in Toury’s (1995/2012) Descriptive Translation Studies and Brown and Levinson’s (1987) Politeness Theory, and drawing on Ávila-Cabrera’s (2023) taxonomy of taboo and offensive language, this thesis identifies and analyses the operational norms (subtitling strategies) applied in Arabic Netflix subtitles. It compares Netflix’s subtitling policy, as stated in its Arabic Timed Text Style Guide, with traditional Arab subtitling norms to determine whether Netflix Arabic subtitles tend to follow adequacy-oriented strategies (prioritising fidelity to the source text) or acceptability-oriented strategies (prioritising cultural and social norms). <br> <br>The analysis is based on 909 English–Arabic “coupled pairs” of taboo and offensive expressions extracted manually from two Netflix original series, Orange Is the New Black and Grace and Frankie. The results <br>reveal that adequacy-oriented strategies dominate (68.21%) compared to acceptability-oriented ones (31.79%). Literal translation (33.88%) and dysphemism (21.90%) are the most frequently used strategies, showing a marked departure from traditional Arab subtitling practices. Conversely, omission appears in only 4.84% of cases, highlighting a major shift in Arab audiovisual translation norms. <br> <br>This thesis contributes to the growing body of Arabic audiovisual translation research by evidencing a gradual movement away from euphemisation towards greater textual fidelity, shaped by the institutional influence of global streaming platforms like Netflix. <br><br><i>Thesis is embargoed until 31 December 2030.</i> 2026-10-01T16:18:24Z Text Thesis 10.17034/32805098.v1 https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/Profanity_and_policy_investigating_the_subtitling_of_taboo_and_offensive_language_from_English_into_Arabic_on_Netflix/32805098 All Rights Reserved Open Access after 2030-12-31