Cursing and bantering in English subtitles

Fujioka Asako asakof at tkd.att.ne.jp
Thu Oct 24 12:32:49 EDT 2002


Hello. During my work subtitling Japanese films into English, I've been
wondering how the international film community (film festival programmers,
sales agents, general audiences, journalists) reacts to explicit language in
subtitles. Understandably, having to "read" too many curse words in the
subtitles leaves a negative effect very different from "hearing" the
colloquial language of bantering. Aside from this issue of communicating a
film and its nuances properly, are there any kinds of guidelines that major
film festivals or movie companies follow in the use of explicit language in
subtitles?

"come" or "cum" is a word I've used often, now I'm faced with translating
cursing: "fuck" and "goddamn" "dick" etc...

Any advise would be helpful. Thanks.

Fujioka Asako




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