Abstract

This paper delves into the analysis of the adaptation of Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale for the screen. Bruce Miller’s TV adaptation of the book on Hulu in 2017 inspired a revival of interest in Atwood’s work, topping the world’s bestseller lists and winning a Golden Globe and eight Primetime Emmy Awards. In this study, aimed at investigating the quality of the Italian subtitled version of the TV show, an approach inspired by a set of taxonomies within Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) related to domestication and foreignization (Venuti 1995), translation equivalence (Nida 1964; Toury 1995), subtitling quality (Gottlieb 2009), and good subtitling practice (Carroll and Ivarsson 1998) was employed in order to identify the main categories adopted, while Remael and Robert’s quality parameters in subtitling (2016) also contributed to the discussion of the results of our study. Based on the results of the quality assessment, it was determined that the Italian subtitled version of The Handmaid’s Tale exhibited high quality in terms of content and transfer (e.g., accuracy, completeness, logic), and style and form (e.g., grammar, spelling, and punctuation), with only a few minor errors observed in terms of formatting, some major issues related to the technical dimension (e.g., spotting), and adherence to the dubbing script, a peculiar phenomenon we have extensively described.

Keywords: audiovisual translation, streaming video on demand, subtitling, Translation Studies, TV adaptation

Introduction^[1]

Since the 1970s, scholars have written profusely about Margaret Atwood; yet most research has solely focused on her literary production, rather than on the screen adaptations of her books. More recently, the regained popularity of Atwood’s dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), produced by Bruce Miller’s TV adaptation on Hulu in 2017, has sparked a resurgence of interest in her work, topping bestseller lists around the world. The second and third seasons, an elaboration of Atwood’s vision that covers the story beyond the ending of the novel (Kröller 2021), followed in 2018 and 2019. While season 4, announced for 2020, was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and then released in 2021, season 5 was broadcast in 2022. Therefore, the present article will cover seasons 1-5, while a final season of the show (6) is currently being shot with a slight delay due to the strike of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) supported by the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). 

After premiering on 26 April 2017 with a cameo by Atwood herself, the series became a global phenomenon. It concurred with Donald Trump’s election as 45th US president and the rise of the #MeToo movement (referenced in episode 9 season 2), ad-hoc timing to showcase dystopian America narrated from a female perspective and ruled by the theocratic Republic of Gilead (Bertrand 2019). The great success of Miller’s adaptation with its most iconic markers, the maiden’s red coat and white wings, symbols of female empowerment, has enthused Atwood to respond by transforming Offred’s story from a novel of repression into a narrative of rebellion with her 2019 sequel, The Testaments (Danneil 2022).

The popularity of The Handmaid’s Tale goes well beyond the realm of entertainment: in 2018, a group of feminists dressed as Handmaids lined up to protest the U.S. Supreme Court confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh following allegations of sexual misconduct (Moeggenberg and Solomon, 2018), and the same year, a supportive letter from Atwood was read at a rally of Handmaids in Argentina.

The ‘visual impact of the Handmaids’ red dresses and winged white caps was also widely acknowledged as “powerful and important” when women began to appear in the costume at rallies across the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Poland, Croatia, Costa Rica, Australia, and Argentina in protest against evidence of systemic misogyny. (Kröller 2021: 196)

The visual appeal of The Handmaid’s Tale is largely derived from the faithful adaptation of some key passages into ‘painterly, cinematic, and other intertextual allusions’ (ibid.: 194). Such aspects of the adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tales for the media will be included in our analysis along with a list of categories, such as the treatment of religious Newspeak (Orwell 1949) – a peculiarity in the exchanges of the people of Gilead – conveying the imbalanced relationships between men and women through specific gendered expressions, as well as the register and style of the show, and the powerful influence of the Italian dubbed version on the creation of the subtitled version of The Handmaid’s Tale, a rather unusual practice in interlingual subtitling.

This study is focused on the analysis of the Italian subtitled version of The Handmaid’s Tale Seasons 1-5 available on Amazon Prime Video in order to evaluate the transposition of content across a specific set of categories. This paper will ultimately report on the assessment of the overall quality of the linguistic and technical dimensions of the subtitled version through a series of examples.

1. The Handmaid's Tale (1985)

Atwood's dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985) takes place in an imaginary future United States after a coup d'état led by a group of men known as the Sons of Jacob. The newly established ruling class has successfully instituted restrictions, abrogated essential individual liberties, and supplanted the former democratic framework with a dystopian regime that subjugates women and deprives them of their autonomy, all while enforcing Christian legislation and claiming divine authority.    

The primary goal of the new regime is officially to increase natality in order to reverse the decline in birth rates that is allegedly caused by the Western world's prioritisation of women's professions over parenthood and pollution chemicals. As a result, the Sons of Jacob prohibits women from participating in paid labour and classified them based on their social status and fertility. Young women from wealthy families are assigned the role of Commanders' Wives, whereas those from poorer backgrounds are married to labourers and relegated to the status of Econowives. Infertile women can either become Marthas, who serve as household servants for the Commanders, or Unwomen, who are sent to the Colonies to dispose of radioactive waste. Women who are still fertile but have had abortions or were previously married to divorced men, are considered offenders, and are given the opportunity to atone for their sins by becoming Handmaids (incubators for the Commanders). Young women who refuse to obey and defy authority, are forced to work in a state-run brothel for Commanders known as the Jezebel’s, or declared Unwomen. A distinct group of women is referred to as the Aunts. They collaborate with the regime to control and coerce other women in return for the assurance of not being deported to the colonies or compelled a to assume the status of sexual objects. They are also allowed to read and enjoy some degree of power.

The narrator of The Handmaid's Tale is Offred, the central character, who has been deprived of all agency, identity, and even her name. In a society that values women exclusively based on their reproductive capabilities, she is diminished to a mere instrument of procreation. Offred describes her transformation into a Handmaid, including a period of ‘education’ at the Rachel and Leah Centre. Aunt Lydia and the other Aunts at this facility teach women how to become Handmaids in the biblical sense, as described in the book of Genesis, where Rachel begs her husband to give her a child through her handmaid, Bilah. This biblical passage is read prior to the Ceremony, a strictly regulated monthly ritual (during the Handmaids' fertile days) in which the Commander rapes the Handmaid while his wife holds her down.

Offred recalls her previous life with her husband, Luke, and their daughter, whom she wishes to rescue after being kidnapped. Before the coup, she had a career, personal funds, and access to information. This, however, is no longer the case. She is left with nothing, not even a proper name, as her given name, Offred, comes from her Commander, Fred Waterford, whose wife, Serena Joy, coerces her into having sexual relations with Nick, the Commander's driver, out of fear that Fred is sterile. Offred agrees, understanding that if she does not conceive, she may be sent to the colonies. As a result, Offred forms a covert partnership with Nick, and they conceive a child together. A black van arrives at the end of the novel to pick  Offred up. Nick informs her that the people in the van have arrived to her aid; she accepts his word and travels to either her place of confinement or her place of release.

Atwood's own take on the novel has evolved. In 1985, she assured her readers that her story was realistic, delving into details that had already happened in our world. However, in 2003, she stated that the novel possesses a universal appeal because  “the inclination towards tyranny, the wielding of absolute power by the few over the many, knows no ideological boundaries and is not confined to one time or space" (Atwood, 2003: online). Similarly, Hutcheon affirms that reading The Handmaid's Tale is always unique and rewarding because of the novel's ability to match "the varied social, historical, political, and aesthetic contexts in which it occurred" (2021: 252) to those of the reader. As a result, following the airing of season 1, which retells the novel's plot, there was a desire for a more empowering ending for Offred's (dis)adventures — and those of her fellow Handmaids — and the new series were written to describe Offred's attempts to protect her daughters and her  becoming the leader of the rebellion against Gilead. In the television series, Offred and her daughters regain their names and identities: Offred was previously known as June Osbourne and her first daughter as Hannah, and the child she bore with Nick as Nichole. June eventually succeeds in smuggling Nichole to Canada, where Luke and Moira look after her. Later, June escapes to Canada and is granted asylum. She even manages to bring Fred and Serena to court with the help of Marc Tuello, who represents the United States and tries to help refugees in Canada while also coordinating the resistance in Gilead.

Miller authored the initial five seasons in close collaboration with Atwood as consulting producer, as he himself has stated in numerous interviews (see Wigler 2018; Feldman 2019). The final series will be written by Yahlin Chang and Eric Tuchman, who collaborated with Miller on previous seasons and will co-showrun The Handmaid’s Tale season six.

2. Subtitling The Handmaid's Tale for an Italian Audience

The practice of subtitling poses a set of key challenges due to its peculiar nature, particularly when it comes to the adaptation of a novel such as The Handmaid’s Tale for the screen. Interlingual subtitling – from a source language into a target language – is a mode of transfer in which a range of technical, linguistic, and cultural features are enmeshed to convey the original message through a twofold approach, a mix of verbal and non-verbal content, and through a double channel, the audio-visual. As a result, the set of limitations subtitlers must face when working on an audiovisual program is rather challenging in terms of spatial and temporal constraints.

Díaz Cintas and Remael argue that “subtitling [is] an unusual form of translation because it is added to the source text [and] it also stands out as a unique translational genre because it renders speech in writing, in a counter-movement from film dialogue, which is written to be spoken” (2020: 88). It is also peculiar in that both the original dialogue, or source text (ST), and the subtitled version, or target text (TT), coexist on the screen during the viewing process, as opposed to dubbing, for example, which replaces the original soundtrack altogether, zeroing the chance of being exposed to criticism: the original cannot be heard, therefore the audience cannot compare it to the translation provided. Among the main norms and conventions to be followed as per Amazon Prime Video style guides, subtitlers working from English into Italian have a specific number of lines (2), characters per line (42) and positioning (centre-justified at the bottom of the screen). The minimum duration of a subtitle event is five-sixths of a second (20 frames for 24fps), and the maximum duration is set to 7 seconds. The reading speed for adult programs is 17 characters per second, the average reading speed commonly used on other streaming platforms such as Netflix and Disney Plus nowadays. However, in the Italian subtitled version of The Handmaid’s Tale that we have examined, the aforementioned conventions are not consistently adhered to,  especially regarding synchronisation and line break treatment.

In the following section, the methodology implemented for this research study will be provided along with its related theoretical framework that enabled the creation of a set of macro and micro categories described below.

2.1 Methodology, data collection and theoretical framework

This section is focused on the methodology and theoretical framework devised prior to the analysis of the Italian subtitled version of The Handmaid’s Tale seasons 1-5. As far as the methodology is concerned, the audiovisual material was retrieved on Amazon Prime Video from both a British and an Italian account to verify that the Italian subtitles provided were exactly the same. Once verified, we noted that while on the Italian Amazon Prime Video account all the episodes were available for free, on the UK account season 4 was not included in the Prime membership and had to be purchased. We also realised that for season 4 UK, no Italian subtitles were provided, while this option was instead available on the Italian account.

The first phase of the data collection entailed the viewing of each episode in English with Italian subtitles. It was a guided process organised into a set of tasks: 1. collecting data on the linguistic and extra-linguistic aspects of the Italian subtitles (e.g., containing grammatical, morphological or spelling mistakes, mistranslations, etc.); 2. when an issue was found, the player was paused to switch the audio from English to Italian as a way to check whether the same issue or incongruence was retrievable in the dubbed version; 3. if that was the case, taking notes of the chunk of text of the Italian dubbing script related to the specific subtitle under scrutiny; 4. progressively populating a pre-prepared Excel file divided into a set of categories containing all the notes as described in task 1, 2 and 3 (see fig. 1 below).

Fig. 1 – Data collection phase

Before embarking on the note-taking part, we looked closely at the technical aspects of the subtitled version of each episode. A screenshot was taken whenever the screen presented a visible anomaly, for example the inappropriateness of the line breaks produced, untranslated information manifested into missing subtitles, or the incorrect implementation of standard conventions. The screenshots were subsequently stored in an online repository for the purpose of illustrating specific examples about the multi-semiotic nature of subtitling. 

The analysis of the data collected led us to devise four macro categories namely, 1. linguistic and extra-linguistic aspects, 2. technical dimension, 3. influence of dubbing, 4. religious newspeak, which report on the linguistic and technical issues  encountered during the data collection phase. They were selected according  to the specific areas of interest identified during the post-viewing phase of this study which are at the core of Audiovisual Translation: the linguistic and technical aspects of this distinct field of Translation Studies. More specifically, a framework of reference was devised, and a first macro category (MC1) identified for the translation of linguistic issues and extra-linguistic references related to customs and traditions, food, institutions, people, places etc. (Pedersen 2011) belonging to the dystopian TV show. A second category (MC2) was created to address a range of technical issues, such as line break treatment and standard conventions, sometimes of a more visual nature, singled out during the analysis of the information collected and the screenshots saved during the data collection process. A third one, (MC3), was employed to categorise the influence exerted by the Italian dubbed version of the show.

A fourth and final category (MC4) was devised for the analysis of Gilead’s Religious Newspeak (GRN), a set of greetings, formulaic and gendered expressions, which Margaret Atwood created, reminiscent of Orwell's 1984 (1949), as a powerful means to depict the dystopian society of Gilead. This linguistic device, which intertwines biblical passages with fabricated everyday religious expressions typical of the characters' dialogues in both the novel and its television adaptation, not only aligns with the aims of Gilead's dictatorship but also fortifies its substantial control over linguistic and historical narratives. This reveals the regime's duplicitous strategies to manipulate the populace and stifle dissent, thereby being pivotal to the study of both the novel and the television series.

 

Table 1 – Macro and micro categories

The 12 micro categories (mC) selected were identified at a later stage and were based both on the typologies of error collected and in line with the theoretical framework adopted for the research study, keeping in mind that the main objective of the investigation was the assessment of the overall quality of the Italian subtitled version. Thus, the resulting structure shows a total of 12 mCs inspired by a set of  taxonomies of translation and subtitling strategies within Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS) aiming at “describing the phenomena of translation” (Assis Rosa 2010: 94) and by the approach on subtitling quality proposed by Remael and Roberts (2016), which have contributed to discussing the results of the analysis carried out. Remael and Roberts’ (2016) established four groups of translation quality parameters: (1) content and meaning transfer (including accuracy, completeness, logic); (2) grammar, spelling, and punctuation; (3) readability (i.e. ease of comprehension and coherence between individual subtitles); (4) appropriateness (socio-cultural features of the audience). We have retained the parameters 1-2-3 and left out the fourth as not relevant to the study and have added a fourth layer related to the technical dimension, which was not envisaged in their approach as not related to AVT specifically but translation in general, and thus of paramount relevance in the present study.

3 The Handmaid's Tale subtitled version into Italian: a selection of case studies

This section is meant to provide a selection of examples based on MC 1-4 and related to 12 micro categories (mCs) as discussed in section 2 of this paper. Each section will shed light on a set of specific case studies based on four topics featured in each MC (linguistic and extra-linguistic references; technical issues; influence exerted by Italian dubbing; religious newspeak) in order to offer clear-cut examples able to show how a specific linguistic item has been translated, the impact the issue encountered had on the overall viewing experience, along with the strategies employed by subtitlers for a particular linguistic or technical solution. Each case study also discusses potential options that could have been adopted to improve the quality of the overall output.

3.1 Linguistic and cultural references

Within the first macro category (MC1), we have identified the following micro categories: mistranslations, profanities, generalisation, idioms, slang and fixed expressions, calques, grammar, acronyms, additions, songs and rhymes, untranslated words, and register (see tab. 1 for a summary of both macro and micro categories).

The first example of the section will examine a mistranslation issue found in “Faithful” (season 1, episode 5). June and Luke, her future husband, have just met. In this scene, they are involved in a romantic exchange where they imagine their first sexual encounter. In order to understand the context of the excerpt under analysis, please see table 2 below:

Table 2 - Scene I.

Right after these exchanges, the subtitles appearing on screen are as follows (tab. 3):

Table 3 – Case study 1, example 1.

While in the ST exchange Luke makes a joke referring to the time needed to “get a restraining order” (in case June changes her mind and regards him as a stalker rather than a lover), the Italian subtitle  renders this as “for the perfect alibi”, a solution that manages to keep the linguistic domain of the English expression but changes the joke suggesting the possibility that he will be murdered as a result of their romantic encounter. It is not clear why the expression was so heavily manipulated to achieve this level of mistranslation. One might believe that the reading speed would not allow for a faithful translation, but this is not the case: the subtitle could have been literally rendered as “per un ordine restrittivo” which respects the constraints imposed by the medium. Yet, the most problematic aspect of this choice is that the following subtitle, “Yes, file the papers” is translated as “fill in the papers”, which has a totally different meaning. The subtitler seems to have misinterpreted the scene, resulting in a cascading effect of multiple translation errors stemming from the initial misunderstanding.

In the second scene selected from season 1, episode 2, “Birth Day”, we propose an exchange between June and a fellow Handmaid, Ofglen, who tells her (tab. 4 below):

Table 4 – Case study 1, example 2.

The Italian version shows a rather strong manipulation of the original expression with: “È pericoloso fidarsi di chiunque, specialmente di una lesbica traditrice” (back translation: it is dangerous to trust anyone, especially a lesbian traitor). The reference to “carpet-munching” (a person who performs cunnilingus) in Italian is totally absent, toning down the strong expression, a choice that ends up spoiling the dialogue of the original flavour and style of the show. Nevertheless, in line with this tendency, in the third scene selected from season 1, episode 4, “Other Women”, we provide an example of how profanities are generally treated in the Italian subtitled version of The Handmaid’s Tale (see tab. 5). Here, June is in chains, detained in the Red Centre after she has just been captured for trying to escape. Aunt Lydia comes into her room and turns to June, saying: “Blessed be the fruit. I see you’ve eaten well, Offred.” referring to her name as Handmaid (that is ‘property of Fred Waterford’, her commander). June then replies:

Table 5 – Case study 1, example 3.

The Italian subtitle reads “You know my name very well” with no trace of the profanity in the original. This tendency to censor or tone down swear words, or strong and loaded expression (Bucaria 2024), is maintained throughout the seasons in the Italian version although we know from Amazon Prime Video guidelines that subtitlers should not censor or manipulate the text and are required to render the dialogue as faithfully as possible into the target language. It may be a case of self-censorship on the part of subtitlers, a phenomenon that seems, at times, to be still rather frequent, at various levels, in some adaptations and subtitled versions for the screen from English into Italian. However, little do we know about all the LSPs selected for the subtitling of The Handmaid’s Tale seasons 1-5. The only information available is related to the dubbing studios: Studio Hamburg Synchron GMSH (German), Candiani Dubbing Studio (Spanish); MG Estudios (Brazilian) and the many professionals credited at the end of the episodes (see table 6).

Table 6 – Translators’ credits

3.2 Technical issues

In the seasons analysed in this study (1-5), some instances of asynchrony can be retrieved. They mainly involve the IN-time of the Italian subtitles provided by Amazon Prime Video: more specifically in season 2, episode 1, 3 and 4 and season 4, episode 10. While on the whole said instances might be regarded as minor issues sparsely found in the show, it is worth noting that season 2, episode 3 stands out for the almost total lack of synchrony of the Italian subtitled version.

Season 2, episode 3, “Baggage”, opens with the protagonist, June, hiding from her commander after escaping. She is left alone in a building where she is jogging and thinking to herself. Her inner dialogue starts  as she remembers her mother. From the first couple of minutes, one realises that the IN-time of the Italian version is completely out of synchrony: specifically, the IN of the subtitles comes rather later than due, roughly 7-10 frames. However, the asynchrony is not consistent throughout the episode: it can be appreciated for a long portion of the video, then the synchrony returns to normal for a while (roughly 1-3 frames) to return to complete asynchrony.

The technical issue seems only to affect the Italian subtitles, while the English SDH subtitles provided on the streaming platform are in perfect harmony with the video. There are many reasons for these issues to happen. While we were unable to get in touch with our contacts at Amazon Prime when we reached out to them, we have reflected on what might have gone wrong in the post-production phase. Allegedly, the subtitle version provided for season 2, episode 3 was produced for a video file format with a different frame rate, and or video encoding and extension, resulting in a visible offset for the audience. The subtitle file under analysis, belonging to a different video file/format, would actually be perfect but only when associated with the correct video content, yet not the one available on the streaming platform. We propose this interpretation with some degree of certainty as the IN-time is almost systematically set 7-10 frames after the correct IN-time, creating a consistent pattern in the asynchrony which shows that it is not a singularity in the spotting, but rather a matter of offset that could have been fixed during the Quality Check (QC). As for the QC, in this case it was either not performed or not performed accurately enough to avoid such a blatant mistake.

Another category of technical issues we have encountered during our analysis regards the line break treatment in the Italian subtitled version throughout the whole show. As shown in tab.1, 32 instances of wrong line breaks were retrieved, a rather high number considering the relevance and popularity of the TV series. In season 1, episode 6, “A Woman’s Place”, shown in tab.6, the subtitle reads:

Table 7 – Case study 2, example 1.

Fig. 2 below shows how the last word of the first line contains the article “una” (BT: “one”) and the second line contains the noun referred to it “di quelle purghe anti lesbiche”  (BT:  of the dyke purges). Subtitling conventions establish that the article and noun are not to be separated as “it is advisable for each subtitle [line] to make sense in itself” (Díaz Cintas and Remael 2020: 171), to allow the viewers to read comfortably.

              Fig. 2 – Example 1 (S01-E01)

A similar issue was found in season 2, episode 3 (fig.3) where the second line is visibly much shorter than the first, the lines are not self-contained, and the line break could have easily been improved as per Amazon Prime Video’s Italian (Italy) Timed Text Style Guide (as well as Netflix’s Timed Text Guide) which clearly state that line breaks should ideally match a logical and grammatical break in the dialogue. This norm is systematically broken in specific sets of subtitles throughout season 1-5.

Fig. 3 - Example 2 (S02-E03)

The third category devised within the technical dimension of this study is related to the use of italics. Italics in subtitling serve a specific purpose, and the conventions related to its use are rather unanimous in the localization industry. In line with Díaz Cintas and Remael (2020), Amazon Prime Video’s Italian (Italy) Timed Text Style Guide clearly states that dialogue heard through electronic media, such as a phone, radio, or television should be displayed in italics. In the example provided below from season 2, episode 8, “Women’s Work” (fig. 3), Moira and Luke are at home in Canada watching TV as the Waterford are travelling to Canada for the first time after the coup. The Italian subtitles should have been displayed in italics as they recount the voice of the journalist during the news. Yet, as shown in fig. 4, the font of the subtitles is regular as if the voices were coming from the characters rather than from the TV set.

Fig. 4 – Example 3 (S02E08)

3.3  Influence exerted by dubbing

Interestingly, MC1 and MC2 are intertwined with MC3, as some of the mistakes found are sometimes due to a strict adherence to the dubbing script created for The Handmaid’s Tale, a pattern that can be observed throughout seasons 1-3. It is a rather peculiar feature of the Italian subtitled version of the show, the almost total reliance on the dubbing script created for Amazon Prime Video. It appears as if the subtitled version was not performed from scratch but rather as a deliberate manipulation of the Italian dubbed version, a modus operandi simply not aligned with good subtitling practices.

Dubbing, famously referred to as traduction totale (Cary 1960), is a mode of transfer presenting a set of constraints that greatly differ from subtitling limitations (see section 2), as they serve a different purpose: “dubbing’s ultimate fabrication is to make viewers believe that the characters on screen share the same language as the viewer” (Díaz Cintas and Remael 2020: 8). In order to create this illusion, dubbing replaces the original soundtrack altogether while respecting three types of synchrony:

1. isochrony, to ensure that the source and the target text dialogue coincide in length;

2. kinetic synchrony, to make sure that the target text is in harmony with the action and characters’ gestures;

3. lip synchrony, to match the translated sounds to the original ones, especially when shown in close-up.

As a result, using the dubbing script of The Handmaid’s Tale as a guide to perform the subtitled version has generated a plethora of errors, mistranslations, and utter translation mistakes. In table 1, for each micro category we have reported the errors due to the reliance on the dubbing script: additions (1 out of 2); generalisation (4 out of 10); mistranslations (8 out 36); profanities (1 out of 9); songs and rhymes (1 out of 2); idioms, slang & fixed expressions (1 out 9); calques ( 1 out 6).

The reasons behind this peculiar practice may lie in the way professionals were hired for the subtitling project in question. Interestingly, the national contract regulating dubbing practices in Italy^[2] also regulates subtitling rates (fig. 5) which amount to 50% of the total rate provided for dubbing adapters. Such a low rate would potentially call for extreme measures on the part of professionals working in the dubbing industry, such as reworking and or modifying the translation used for the dubbing script instead of producing a subtitled version from scratch.

Fig. 5 – Subtitling rates

The only instance in which such a practice works in the audiovisual translation (AVT) industry is when producing intralingual subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing (SDH) for a dubbed version: in this case the subtitles have to match the Italian soundtrack, as the main skopos of the translation (Vermeer 1989) is shifted to meet the needs of a specific audience. In the case of The Handmaid’s Tale (seasons 1-3), the practice employed is pointless in terms of efficiency and efficacy overall, as shown in the examples below (tab. 8).

Tab. 8 Case study 3, example 1.

However, from season 3 episode 9 on, the reliance on the dubbing script suddenly stops as the dubbing script solutions are disregarded suggesting that the subtitling of the show might have been outsourced and commissioned to a different Language Service Provider (LSP) the name and nature of whom still remains unknown.

3.4 Gilead’s Religious Newspeak

The fourth and final category (MC4) investigates the rendering of Gilead's Religious Newspeak (GRN), a set of greetings, formulaic and gendered expressions unique to the novel and TV show, in which biblical passages are mixed with made-up day-to-day religious formulas and utterances that characterise the characters' exchanges. The main features of Gilead’s Religious Newspeak (GRN) in both the television series adaptation and the novel encompass, for instance, the employment of neologisms (e.g., ‘Birthmobile’), standardised expressions (e.g., ‘we've been sent good weather’), and the dehumanising categorisation of individuals (e.g., Marthas, Wives, Eyes). In addition, the employment of gender-specific terms (e.g., Aunts, Handmaids), as well as the introduction of possessive forms (e.g., Offred and Ofglen), strongly emphasise the sexism of the regime and the control exerted by the dictatorship over women. Through the reuse of religious expressions (e.g., Ceremonies, Salvagings), symbolism and allusions to the Bible (e.g., Jezebel), the government efficiently establishes its power over its subjects, impacting not just their speech but also their own perception of reality and identity.

The process of translating these items into subtitles was the focus of our study in the 4th macro category (MC4). An evident breach of translation rules is observed in the rendering of the Gileadean name of the Handmaids; for example, Offred becomes ‘Difred’ in both the Italian subtitles and dubbing script, while proper names of people are typically not translated. This apparent violation further emphasises the effect of Atwood’s invention: by translating a first name, it is made transparent that, despite being capitalised, it is not a proper name intended to identify an individual but rather a common name used to refer to all the Handmaids who belong to a certain commander. Afterall, Offred is just a patronymic derived from the preposition ‘of’ and the Commander’s name, Fred. Therefore, it is accurately rendered as ‘Difred’ into Italian.

The translation of neologisms, shown in table 9 below, must have posed particular difficulties for the subtitlers, who had to deal with the limitations imposed by the medium and ensure that the Italian renditions would convey a similar effect in the target language. These neologisms are capitalised both in the English version of the novel and in the Italian, in order to signify their uniqueness in the Gileadian world.

Tab. 9 - Case study 4, Example 1 – Neologisms.

The cases of ‘Birthmobile’ and ‘Particicution’ are particularly significant. The Italian version for ‘Birthmobile’ is ‘Partomobile’, a morphological calque formed by combining ‘birth’ (parto) and ‘mobile’ (mobile). The employed word order is essential, as in Italian, the premodifier typically follows the noun, resulting in connotations of variation. In this case, however, the translation is effective as it aligns with other compound terms ending in ‘mobile’, which are  loanwords from English, including automobile, and Batmobile, for example. The only difference with the novel is that in the subtitled version, ‘partomobile’ – as well as other Newspeak words - is not capitalized. ‘Particicution’ refers to the act of executing someone accused of heinous crimes, such as rape, by means of a circle of Handmaids. This distressing moment, reminiscent of the Orwellian 'Two Minutes Hate' is defined in English by a word that combines participation (partecipazione) and execution (esecuzione), thus lessening the inherent intensity of the second term’s lexical root that exposes the brutality of the activity.

The Italian translation used in the TV series, both in the dubbed and subtitled version, is ‘partecicuzione’. This translation is, once again, a morphological calque. However, the Italian translations of the term in Atwood’s novels differ: while in Il racconto dell’Ancella (2017 [1985] Milano: Ponte alle Grazie translated by Camillo Pennati) it is translated as ‘Partecipazione’, in I Testamenti (2019 Milano: Ponte alle Grazie translated by Guido Calza), written and subsequently translated after the release of the first series, it is rendered as ‘Particicuzione’, carrying a more unsettling connotation, and suggesting a potential etymology composed of "party" + "esecuzione" (execution), although it could simply be an adaptation of the English spelling.

The primary characteristic of GRN is the inhibition of independent thought through the use of standardised language, frequently derived from Christian religious terminology, seemingly intended to emphasise the purity of the speaker, of which a sample is given in the table here below.

Tab. 10 - Case study 4, example 2 – Formulae.

A number of biblically derived phrases are deftly altered in the television adaptation to emphasise that the regime's doublethink is of the same distorted nature as the language it uses. Among the instances listed in table 10 above, ‘Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum’ stands out. This fabricated expression in mock Latin, which has assumed an autonomous existence as a feminist rallying cry for women, could be literally translated as “don’t let the bastards grind you down.” But as Atwood herself said, various forms of the phrase go back much further than The Handmaid’s Tale itself, as the motto was already a joke during her academic years (Bradley 2017). Differently from the other formulae, and quite curiously considering its relevance in the novel, in the TV series, and in the outside world, ‘Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum'’ has not been translated consistently throughout the seasons. In series 1, episode 4, “The Wilderness",  when Fred translates the motto for the first time to Offred, both in the subtitles and in the dubbed version, it is rendered as “non permettere ai bastardi di schiacciarti” (BT: don’t let the bastards crush you). On the contrary, in series 5, episode 1, when Mark Tuello says it to June in Canada while trying to console her, it is translated with a more empathetic and gentler “non si abbatta per quei bastardi” (BT: don't beat yourself up over those bastards), indirectly empowering and making her the protagonist of the action. This translation is not influenced by the dubbing script (“non si lasci sottomettere dai bastardi”) or by the novel “che i bastardi non ti schiaccino.”

The first time the motto appears in the TV series (S01 E04) is when Offred finds it written in Latin inside her wardrobe. No translation is given into English or Italian. The same happens in series 2, episode 13 when Offred is running away from the Waterfords home with baby Nichole. But, in series 4, episode 10, where it appears as a graffiti under the dead body of Fred Waterford, killed in a sort of Particicution by former Handmaids and other women who had been captive in Gilead, it is translated as “non permettere che i bastardi ti annientino” (BT: don't let the bastards annihilate you). The verb ‘’annihilate” (destroy, nullify) is much more intense than the former translations.

4. Discussion

A revised version of Remael and Roberts’ approach (2016) was employed for the quality assessment made up of four groups of parameters: (1) content and meaning transfer (including accuracy, completeness, and logic); (2) grammar, spelling, and punctuation; (3) readability (i.e., ease of comprehension and coherence between individual subtitles) and (4) technical dimension (e.g., spotting, line break). Against this background, we argue that of the 12 micro categories related to the 4 macro categories emerging from the data collection phase, the majority of errors encountered belong to MC1 (linguistic and extra-linguistic issues) related to Remael and Roberts’ first and second categories: a total of 36 severe mistakes. To MC2 (technical issues and conventions) are attributed 43 mistakes overall: we have aligned MC2 to a new category as Remael and Roberts have not devised a specific parameter to evaluate technical issues. All in all, seven micro categories show a range of issues belonging to MC3 (influence of dubbing) complicating the picture even further. As for the fourth MC (religious newspeak), we have selected a range of peculiarities that we do not categorise as issues tout court and to which we have devoted a separate section.

Interestingly, MC1, and MC2 are intertwined with MC3 as some of the mistakes found, at times, are due to a strict adherence to the dubbing script, something that can be retrieved rather frequently throughout seasons 1-3. However, from season 3 episode 9 on, the modus operandi appears to be changed and the dubbing script solutions are disregarded, which suggests that the subtitling of the show might have been outsourced and commissioned to a different Language Service Provider (LSP). As for MC2 related to parameter 4, it is important to stress that most of the issues logged in this study, are mainly found in season 2, episode 3, where both the IN-time and OUT-time of the Italian subtitles are utterly out of synchrony, suggesting that the spotting was not produced following the minimum standards of accuracy and quality expected from the streaming platform and as per Amazon Prime Style Guide. From episode 4 on, the technical issues seemingly disappear to reappear in a scattered and rather contained fashion, throughout the rest of the seasons.

5. Conclusion

This research provides insight into the complex difficulty of translating a work that is nuanced while still maintaining the tone and intention of the original. To this end, we have carried out a qualitative analysis of the Italian subtitled version of the TV adaptation of Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, originally broadcast on Hulu and later on various other streaming platforms and among them Amazon Prime Video, which is the version selected for the analysis.

The framework devised for this study falls within DTS and is inspired by a variety of approaches related to domestication and foreignization (Venuti 1995), translation equivalence (Nida 1964; Toury 1995), subtitling quality (Gottlieb 2009) and good subtitling practice (Carroll and Ivarsson 1998). Their taxonomies have inspired the creation of a system of macro- and micro-categories able to identify the main issues found in the collection data phase, both linguistic and technical in nature, while Remael and Robert’s revised approach on quality parameters in subtitling (2016) served as our benchmark for the discussion of the results.

While the subtitling into Italian for The Handmaid's Tale is of very good quality overall, the sets of examples provided illustrate the challenges that translators encountered and how some of the solutions offered could have been improved to ensure that the translation complies with the norms and conventions to be followed both linguistically and technically speaking. In addition, it is worth noting that, as shown in table 6, the number of professionals involved in the translation of seasons 1-5 is significant: in seasons 3 and 4, ten different people in total worked at the translation of The Handmaid's Tale. These numbers suggest that the workflow was particularly inefficient having so many hands on the project at the same time, which hinders translation fluency, style and terminological standardisation. However, it is also true that season 5 of The Handmaid's Tale was solely translated by one individual, Giovanna Noce, and it shows in the overall quality of the Italian subtitled version of the TV series, which is exceptional as compared to the rest of the seasons analysed. As for season 1-3, of which we have less information as regards the translators involved, the influence exerted by the dubbed version of the show played a central role in the overall lower quality of the subtitled version analysed, as discussed in this paper (section 3.3).

About the author(s)

Simonetta Falchi (PhD) is currently Associate Professor of English Language and Translation at the University of Sassari, Sardinia (Italy). In 2012–2017, she was a researcher of English Literature and Culture at the University of Sassari, Sardinia (Italy). In 2008–2009, she was an academic visitor in Cambridge at the Faculty of English and Lucy Cavendish College. She has been a member of the editorial board of the Journal of English Studies, The Grove (University of Jaen), and the cross-cultural journal Annali della Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere (Università di Sassari). She is a member of the Governing Board of the I-Land Research Center and the National Correspondent for the ESSE Gender Studies Network. Her main research interest is the intertwining of technology, language, literature, and translation. On these topics, she has so far published three books and several articles.

Serenella Massidda is Senior Researcher at the University of Chieti Pescara (IT) and Honorary Research Fellow at University College London (UK). Professional translator and subtitler, she holds a European Doctorate in Audiovisual Translation (AVT). She is executive board member of the European Association for Studies in Screen Translation (ESIST), Media for All Conference member of Scientific Committee, and Editorial Board Member of Linguistica Antverpiensia (LANS – TTS). She is the author of Audiovisual Translation in the Digital Age, the Italian Fansubbing Phenomenon, and has published widely on audiovisual translation and subtitling. She has carried out international research projects and academic consultancies with the media localization industry on subtitling quality, technologies and professional development such as the Netflix Hermes Project (2016–17), the Isub Project (2020–22), and the AVT Pro Subtitling Certification Project currently under development (2022–).

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