STEREOTYPING ARABS THROUGH VERNACULARS IN DUBBING INTO ARABIC: SPACE JAM A NEW LEGACY AS A CASE STUDY

Abstract

Dubbing as an audiovisual translation (AVT) modality relies on domesticating audiovisual materials, which means using the target audiences’ languages or dialects. Hence, dubbing might disseminate stereotypes and create prejudgments towards the speakers of the used dialects. Stereotypes that could revolve around gender, race, appearance, skills, beliefs, character, interests, social class, languages, and dialects. This research examines the Arabic dubbed version of the American movie Space Jam: A New Legacy (2021) as its case study to investigate how its use of six dialects; Egyptian, Lebanese, Gulf, Iraqi, Tunisian Syrian, and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) engages with stereotypes in the Arab World. This is achieved by adopting Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA) as a theoretical framework with which to analyze the linguistic features and semiotic codes. Additionally, this study considers whether the choice of Arabic dialects and MSA reflect or break (disrupt) existing stereotypes in the Arab World. The findings show that the chosen dialects and MSA encouraged (reproduced) certain stereotypes and misrepresentations of Arabs. Those stereotypes were the furious, reckless and stupid Upper Egyptian men “Al-Sa’idi men”, the foreign thief, the evil Gulf man, the Gulf man without identity, the frowning, intimidated Iraqi hunter, and MSA which is portrayed as an outdated language variant The only dialect that broke the prevailing stereotype was the Lebanese dialect as it gave a positive representation of Lebanese women as successful, independent, and powerful.

Date of Award	2023
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	HBKU College of Humanities and Social Science