Neutering the Camp: An Analysis of the Spanish Translation of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK

Abstract

[eng] This dissertation investigates the use of queer slang and gendered terms in the Spanish translation of several episodes of the British reality show Rupaul’s Drag Race UK from World of Wonder. The main purpose of this research is to examine how some features of language usage by British LGBTIQ+ community are transferred to another culture, considering the increasing amount of original version audiovisual content which is consumed currently in Spain and its effects on the use of English loanwords. Although it might be argued that the Spanish LGBTIQ+ community has a fairly large vocabulary of its own and that various translation resources can be used to adapt emerging vocabulary from one language to another, the increasing use of machine translations in audiovisual content entails a loss of meaning in terms of identity, as aspects such as gender identity and the influence of English-speaking cultures on Spanish language are not considered. For this reason, this paper discusses the need to invest not only in post-editing specialists and translators, but also the advisability to incorporate translators who belong to the LGBTIQ+ community, or who have a deep knowledge of how these identities are reflected in English and Spanish.