Vocatives in Subtitles: a Survey across Genres

Abstract

The purpose of this contribution is to investigate the function of vocatives and their translation in interlinguistic subtitles over different film genres. Our previous investigation (Bruti, Perego 2005) was based on a small corpus that included 2 British and 2 American films, belonging approximately to the same genre, i.e. COMEDY (with the exception of "The Talented Mr Ripley", which begins as a COMEDY but turns into a DRAMATIC MYSTERY STORY). This project aims to investigate the various roles vocatives play in the construction of the narrative according to the different needs that different film genres aim to fulfil. The corpus has therefore been extended to include: a full-length animated feature from Walt Disney Pictures ("Bambi", D. Hand, 1942), an action film ("Lethal Weapon 4", R. Donner, 1998), an adaptation from a literary masterpiece ("Sense and Sensibility", A. Lee, 1996), a popular comedy series (two episodes of "Sex and the City", Season 4, “The Agony and the Ex-tasy”, M.P. King, 2001 and “I heart NY”, M.P. King 2002) and an animated series (two episodes of "The Simpsons", “Homer in the night”, R. Moore, 1989-90; “Homer the Moe”, J. Kamerman, 2001-02).