Revoicing vernaculars? Racialised and stereotyped characters in dubbing into Spanish and Catalan

This article is concerned with vernacularisation in original animated films in English, and their dubbing into Spanish and Catalan, with our sights set on the sociolinguistic significance of these transpositions. Taking into account the positioning of vernaculars in the media spaces in these three languages, as well as the social and semiotic constraints entangled with non-mainstream varieties in audiovisual media, we explore how different productions have resolved the culturally-anchored inclusion of vernaculars across audiovisual media spaces. Understanding the impact of these decisions can only be a positive move in the context of inclusion of varieties and vernaculars, whilst observing the cultural differences when it comes to their visibilisation across cultures. Our analysis covers four characters in the films Cars and Shark Tale, whose linguistic characterisation is achieved through distinction. We conclude that vernacularisation in dubbing can be achieved with successful outcomes from the perspective of non-stigmatisation, but that essentialist views on vernaculars tend to persist in the dubbing process. We identify three strategies that have been utilised in solving this ‘impossibility of translation’, which are to either replicate, dissipate or erase the linguistic stereotype, and propose that an active assessment of these choices is essential to fair and balanced language representation.