(Almost) marginal aspects of audiovisual translation

This work is part of audiovisual translation studies (TAV) within the discipline of translation studies; specifically, it deals with the study of the subtitling of television series. Three aspects that appear relatively frequently in this field are studied: i) the translation of informal language in the dialogues of the series; ii) the translation of vulgar language; and iii) the translation of the African American Vernacular English (AAVE) variant. In order to provide a comprehensive overview, the relevant theoretical foundations are provided in which the state of the art of subtitling practice and the three selected textual aspects are reviewed. The theoretical principles are then illustrated by analyzing the translation of several scenes for each of these three aspects of the American series The Wire, in which these three translatological problems are encountered from the very first dialogue. The English original is compared with the subtitled translation by HBO, which owns the rights to the series, and suggestions to these translations are offered in order to help better understand the theoretical discussion that complements each analysis.