Acceptance of the Norm or Suspension of Disbelief: The Case of Formulaic Language in Dubbese

This paper presents the results of an experimental study aimed at investigating audience perception of a specific aspect of dubbing in Italy, namely the influence of source language structures and expressions on target language audiovisual texts. Viewers were first shown selected examples of Anglicisms and dubbese found in US TV programmes and were subsequently tested on their perception of such expressions, with particular focus on an assessment of their likelihood of occurrence in everyday Italian. Data collected by means of questionnaires following viewing proved that, on average, respondents found the expressions and phrases quite unlikely to occur, with the sub-sample composed of audiovisual translation (AVT) professionals indicating the lowest levels of likelihood.