Discursive Shifts and 'Mis-premising' in the Representation of Male Homosexuality in AVT

Audiovisual translation (henceforth AVT), which is the focus of this work of researh, applies to any text which is transferred through two codes: the visual and the audio. An audiovisual text can be a film, an advertisement, a documentary, a YouTube video or any other source of information using audio, visual, verbal or non-verbal elements through different channels (cinema, television, internet...) whose technology is in constant evolution. AVT can reach the viewer in different ways: through subtitles which appear on the screen in the viewer's language (or in a language presumed to be understood by the viewer), thus adding an extra-diegetic semiotic dimension to the viewing experience; through 'voice-over' which commonly entails one single narrating voice but allows the original script to permeate; and through dubbing where actors belonging to the country of arrival recite the translated version of the original dialogues. Whereas subtitling and voice-over are considered to be overt forms of translation, as they allow the original sound track still to be heard, dubbing is in practice a covert form of translation as the substitution of the original source text/source dialogue can be conducive to more consistent manipulation. All three methods entail both affordances and constraints, and all three involve the key issues of ideology and stereotyping together with the more pragmatic but strongly interconnected question of linguistic and cultural transferal. This work of research focuses on the dubbing of the British television series Queer as Folk UK into Italian: the fact that the series is destined for a homosexual/homophilic audience makes the question of linguistic and cultural transferal particularly stimulating.