Ideological manipulation in interlingual subtitling: the Japanese-Italian translation of a nyūhāfu genderlect in the movie ‘Close-Knit’ by Ogigami Naoko.

This study focuses on the translation of the genderlect uttered by the transgender protagonist of the Japanese movie Close-Knit directed by Ogigami Naoko (2017) within the context of interlingual subtitling in the Japanese-Italian language pair. According to recent research in the field of AVT, gender translation may disclose important clues about the way identity-related issues are perceived in a source and in a target language. In particular, the rendition of «liquid» genderlects challenges the belief that Japanese society is naturally divided into two sexes/genders and that there are two separate linguistic codes for female and male speakers. By utilizing a constructionist framework which treats gender as a complex and fluid cultural construct, this study intends to stress the importance of disentangling gender norms from dominant heterosexist discourses and how sociocultural markers of the spoken language, need effective transposition in subtitles. Especially, when gender issues emerging from Japanese movies must be translated for non-English speaking target audiences.