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Title: Netflix versus Google Translate: A case study of the English-Arabic translation of scatological terms

 

Vol. 13(2), 2025, pp. 77-95.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.46687/BCAY5747.

 

Author: Reem Fahad Alshalan

About the author: Maram Al-Darabee is an MA holder in Audiovisual and Mass Media Translation at the Applied Science Private University. Her main areas of interest include corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, and translation studies.

е-mail: mema842009@gmail.com         

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-2799-4822

Author: Mohammed Farghal

About the author: Mohammed Farghal (PhD in General Linguistics, 1986) is currently Professor of Linguistics and Translation/Department of English and Translation/ Applied Science University. He has authored/coauthored more than 100 scholarly papers in linguistics and translation studies, which have been published in highly recognized international linguistics and/or translation studies journals. He is also the author of many books. Also, he has made many translations of important literary works, including Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (2006).

e-mail: mfarghal56@gmail.com            

ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5012-8550

Author: Ahmad S Haider

About the author: Ahmad S Haider is a professor in the Department of English Language and Translation at the Applied Science Private University, Amman, Jordan. He received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Canterbury/ New Zealand. His current research focuses on how political events are socially, discursively, and linguistically represented in media, combining Corpus Linguistics and (Critical) Discourse Analysis. His main areas of interest include corpus linguistics, discourse analysis, and translation studies.

e-mail: a_haidar@asu.edu.jo                                

ORCID iD: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7763-201X

 

Link: http://silc.fhn-shu.com/issues/2025-2/SILC_2025_Vol_13_Issue_2_077-095_19.pdf

Citation (APA): Al-Darabee, M., Farghal, M., & Haider, A.S. (2025). Netflix versus Google Translate: A case study of the English-Arabic translation of scatological terms. Studies in Linguistics, Culture, and FLT, 13(2), 77-95. https://doi.org/10.46687/BCAY5747.

 

Abstract: This study examines Netflix and Google Translate’s renditions of English scatological taboo expressions into Arabic. The corpus consists of 110 items extracted from the movie The Wolf of Wall Street. The findings reveal that Netflix prioritizes cultural sensitivity and appropriateness by employing understatement (58.18%), explicitation (27.27%), and omission (14.55%) as subtitling procedures to either tone down or eliminate scatological offending language. For its part, GT proves to be even more attentive to using understatement (90.91%), albeit it is far less competent than Netflix in terms of language fluency (64% vs. 100%). GT is also less prone to employing omission (6.36%), a Netflix mishap (14.55%) which adversely affects discursive tone and emphasis. The findings also show that Netflix, in contrast with GT, effectively utilizes explicitation and does not produce instances of incomprehensible transliteration. On the one hand, the study concludes that the omission of some scatological terms by Netflix, which can be readily captured by non-flagrant Arabic counterparts, can mar the tone of dialogic discourse. On the other hand, GT, while it is adequately trained to detect scatological terms and tone them down, it seriously falters in terms of linguistic accuracy.

Keywords: Netflix, Google Translate, scatological terms, translation procedure, English-Arabic

 

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