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[In: M. Freddi, M. Pavesi (eds), Analysing Audiovisual Dialogue. Linguistic and translational insights, Bologna, Clueb (ISBN 978-88-491-3159-8), 143-163] Translating compliments and insults in the Pavia Corpus of Film Dialogue: two sides of the same coin? Silvia Bruti University of Pisa 0. Introduction Film dubbing is a process of linguistic and cultural transfer in which it is necessary to make dialogues fit the target culture, a task that is not always easily achieved as the linguistic habits and the socio-pragmatic scenarios established in a source language and culture may not work in the target culture and may therefore be perceived as unnatural. The studies on dubbing have so far devoted scanty attention to socio-pragmatic meaning, which is most often jeopardised when moving across languages and cultures. It is only recently that areas such as syntax (among others Pavesi 2005) and pragmatics (among others Bruti 2007) have begun to be investigated. In film translation, where contextualised communicative events have to be transposed, the socio-pragmatic aspects of face-to-face interaction largely contribute to depicting realistic cultural settings through a wide range of situational variables. However, when turning from one language into a different one, perfect correspondences (i.e. equivalent linguistic signs to represent comparable socio-cultural meaning) rarely occur. The constraints due to the plurality of codes at work in audiovisual texts on the one hand and the customary difficulties of mediating between source- and target language and culture on the other often cause inevitable clashes when conveying social and cultural meanings, if not their complete deletion. This contribution aims to analyse and evaluate the translation (from the English soundtrack into the dubbed version in Italian) of compliments and insults, both ubiquitous and widely researched speech acts, contributing to the expression of politeness or impoliteness. These speech acts belong to the same category, i.e. that of expressives (Searle 1969), but are characterised by an opposite polarity. Despite this apparent discrepancy, it happens that with both acts the illocutionary aim may be reversed and the perlocutionary effect may therefore

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turn out to be the opposite of what it is normally expected. Thus a compliment, usually a “face-enhancing act” (Manno 2005), may become somehow face-threatening and cause embarrassment/uneasiness in the complimentee, whereas an insult, usually a face-threatening act, becomes an instrument to increase solidarity and enhance proximity. The analysis is conducted on the Pavia Corpus of Film Dialogue, collected and fully transcribed by the group of researchers at Pavia University as a first step in an interuniversity research project (cf. Freddi and Pavesi this volume). 1. Compliments Compliments are speech acts that are primarily aimed at maintaining, improving, or supporting the addressee’s face (Goffman 1967). They can in fact be used for a variety of reasons: to express admiration or approval of someone’s work/appearance/taste; to establish/confirm/maintain solidarity; to replace greetings/gratitude/apologies/congratulations; to soften face-threatening acts such as apologies, requests and criticism; to open and sustain conversation; to reinforce desired behaviour. On the basis of several socio-pragmatic studies, it is evident that speech acts are subject to cultural and socio-linguistic variations (Blum-Kulka et al. 1989). Apart from macroscopic cultural and linguistic differences in the giving and accepting of compliments, some interesting changes can also be observed depending on sociolinguistic variables (age, gender, status, etc.). So far compliments and responses have been studied in a wide number of languages. The majority of the studies are devoted to varieties of English (cf. on American English Herbert 1991; Holmes 1986, 1988 and Wolfson 1981, 1983; Wolfson and Manes 1980 among others; on British English Lewandowska-Tomaszcyk 1989 and Creese 1991; on New Zealand English Holmes 1986, 1988, 1995)1. In Italian, to my knowledge, there are up to now only a few published studies (Frescura 1996, Alfonzetti 2006). Frescura has examined a corpus consisting of 979 compliment events, from whose examination it emerges that the main preoccupation of Italian speakers seems to be that of finding a balance between the “agreement” and “modesty” maxims (Leech 1983), whereas for example, American speakers are mainly concerned with agreement and Chinese speakers with modesty. Alfonzetti (2006), on the other hand, offers the most extensive and complete survey of compliments and compliment responses in Italian and 1 For a complete survey of the studies on compliments in different languages cf. Golato (2004: 213). A briefer review is also in Bruti 2008.

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addresses several interesting theoretical and methodological issues, but she does not proceed to identify patterns of frequency. 1.1 Compliments in discourse Even though compliments can serve a plurality of functions in different contexts, there is widespread agreement on their nature of “social lubricants” (Wolfson 1983: 89), i.e. strategies that aim to establish or reaffirm common ground, mutuality or social solidarity. Often compliments – or the compliment event if we also mean to include the response to the compliment – are quite independent from the linguistic environment in which they occur, although they are frequently related to the topic of the exchange. This independence makes them suitable tools to use in opening sequences such as greetings or in thanks. Like any speech act, compliments are embedded in a larger discourse structure. As Golato (2004) claims, despite their flexibility, compliments need to have some “hooks”: in fact, when the speaker pays the addressee a compliment, he/she needs to know and recognise the “assessable”, that is the “object/talent/character trait” the compliment is about (Golato 2004: 27). Golato shows how this aspect is closely related to careful choice of referential expressions. Secondly, a certain degree of “positiveness” also needs to clearly appear in the utterance. This aim can be achieved through semantic and syntactic means, but also – and to a larger extent – through the context in which they are uttered. It often happens that compliments do not differ significantly from general assessments. In fact, there are utterances whose positive meaning is to be gleaned from the context and that, pragmatically speaking, count as compliments even though they do not look like them. Furthermore, there are also utterances that employ semantically positive material but turn out not to be attending to a praising function (e.g. if uttered ironically, they may count as reproaches). 1.2 Compliments: syntax and semantics Research on compliments, no matter in which language, has incontrovertibly shown that they are quite formulaic in nature. The most interesting results on compliments in American English are those that emerge from the studies by Manes and Wolfson (1980; Wolfson and Manes 1980). On the basis of their investigation of a corpus of 686 compliments collected by the authors and their

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students at the Universities of Virginia and Pennsylvania from a wide range of everyday interactions, Manes and Wolfson recognise the repetitiveness of both lexicon and constructions and identify nine syntactic patterns that account for the majority of the structures in their data. In particular, the first three patterns cover 85% of the compliments in their corpus. The patterns are presented in table 1 below, together with those identified by Holmes (1988). Manes and Wolfson Holmes 1. NP is/looks (really) ADJ

Your sweater is really nice

1a. NP be (INT) ADJ

That coat is really great

1b. NP be looking (INT) ADJ

You’re looking terrific!

2. I (really) like/love NP

I like your car 2. I (INT) like NP

I simply love that skirt

3. PRO is (really) (a) ADJ NP

That’s a good question

3a. PRO be a (INT) ADJ NP

That’s a good question

3b. PRO be (INT) (a) ADJ NP

That’s really great juice

4. You V (a) (really) ADJ NP

You did a great job

5. You V NP (really) ADV

You sang that song very well

6. You have (a) (really) ADJ NP

You have a beautiful living room

7. What (a) ADJ NP! What a pretty shirt! 4.What (a) (ADJ) NP!

What lovely children!

8. ADJ NP! Good shot! 5. (INT) ADJ (NP) Really cool ear-rings

9. Isn’t NP ADJ! Isn’t that ring pretty! 6. Isn’t NP ADJ! Isn’t this food wonderful!

Table 1 – Syntactic patterns of compliments according to Manes and Wolfson (1980) and

Wolfson and Manes (1980) and Holmes (1988) The same formulaicity that has been recognised in syntactic patterning is also to be observed in the limited choice of vocabulary. Manes and Wolfson observed that nice and good, two adjectives that are characterised by low specificity, cover together 42% of adjectival occurrences in compliments. If beautiful, pretty and great are added to the group the percentage increases to reach the two thirds of all adjectival compliments. Among verbs, like and love are the most frequent and occur in 90% of verbal compliments. Semantically

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positive nouns and adverbs (e.g. genius, well) are very exceptional, showing that compliments are preferentially expressed with a positive adjective or a verb of liking (Manes and Wolfson 1980: 400-401). Intensifiers (really, very, such) often accompany verbs of liking to emphasise the expression of appreciation, whereas the presence of deictics (mainly this and that) helps establish reference to the object of the compliment. As compliments can occur at any stage of an ongoing conversation, quite independently from the choice of the current topic, Wolfson and Manes argue that it is their formulaic quality that allows speakers to understand them as an expression of solidarity and to recognise them in any context (1980: 405; cf. also Herbert 1991: 382)2. Holmes (1988: 453) proposes a schema with six syntactic patterns based on her analyses of compliments uttered by males and females in New Zealand English. Holmes’s corpus was collected with the same methodology used by Manes and Wolfson, i.e. field observation. Apart from the fact that some of the patterns identified by Manes and Wolfson are not frequently used in New Zealand English, in Holmes’s proposal type 1 and 3 accommodate subtypes (see table 1). The distribution of the syntactic patterns according to sex does not show marked differences for the first three most frequent formulae. A more remarkable difference is instead to be observed when comparing the use of patterns 4 and 5 – in Holmes’s taxonomy – by women and men. Pattern 4 (What lovely children!) is used significantly more by women than men. This can be explained with the rhetorical emphasis due to its exclamatory word order and intonation. Pattern 5, on the other hand, is syntactically reduced (e.g. Really cool earrings, no determiner, no verb phrase) and seems therefore to attenuate the addressee-oriented function of the compliment. It is in fact preferentially employed by men. 1.3 Variation according to topic and gender Studies on compliments conclude that even though an ample variety of topics would at least be possible, only a few account for the majority of compliments in the data (Holmes 1986, 1988). The topics that occur with high frequency are: appearance, ability, skill or performance, possession, personal traits or qualities. Compliments on appearance are the top-rank items but it is of particular significance that they have their highest proportion in female-to- 2 Similar results pointing to the use of a limited number of lexical and syntactic formulae emerge from studies on South African English (Herbert 1989) and Polish (Herbert 1991).

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female interactions. In New Zealand English (Holmes 1988), differently from American English, males are often complimented on their appearance. Complimenting on appearance across sexes may yet be perceived as too intimate or containing seductive overtones; therefore, males prefer to compliment females on performance or skills, not only or not always as a sign of their superior social status, but so as not to be perceived as inappropriate or sexually biased. In addition, there are several correlations between complimenting and gender. On the whole, it appears that women tend to compliment more than men and normally perceive complimenting as affiliative or cooperative, whereas men sometimes see it as competitive and face-threatening. However, if on the one hand women are deemed to be better addressees of compliments because of their lower social status (Wolfson 1984: 243), it is also true that women see compliments as an appropriate strategy to strengthen rapport in a wide variety of contexts. Men, on the contrary, seem to express solidarity and in-group membership in different ways (cf. the use of slang, swear words, insults; Holmes 1995: 10). 1.4 Some distinctions within the class of compliments The speech act of complimenting is not only versatile in that it can achieve different perlocutionary effects, but it is also characterised by a variety of sub-types. Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni (1987) draws some distinctions within this class: first of all she discriminates between direct and indirect compliments, the former concerning the addressee, the latter given to a person who is associated with the addressee and therefore metonymically reverberating on him/her. She also differentiates between different degrees of explicitness: usually in explicit compliments there are performative formulae or assertions where the judgement is openly expressed (You are really beautiful)3; in implicit ones (see also Bruti 2006), on the other hand, this judgement is either presupposed (e.g. Hi, beauty), or implied (e.g. Your husband has very good taste). It is evident that the notions of addressee – the receiver of a turn of speech – and that of complimentee – the person who is praised for some reasons – may coalesce but may also be different. Types of compliments are not always neatly separated and many combinations are possible. For instance, an indirect explicit compliment like the following also contains a direct presupposed compliment: Your daughter is very nice. She

3 Examples are from Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1987 and have been translated from French into English.

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has the same beautiful eyes her mother has. In the case of the so-called “cruel compliments” (compliments perfides in Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1987: 7) an explicit praising content may hide a more implicit anti-compliment: How can it be that your children are so intelligent? or This dress really suits you. It makes you look slimmer. Another interesting difference is that between solicited and unsolicited compliments. Solicited compliments do not deserve the status of real compliments, as real compliments are expected to be spontaneous and the act of “fishing for compliments” is in fact socially sanctioned. Furthermore, a compliment that somehow responds to a request is a reactive act and not an initial intervention in a sequence. In what follows (see especially 4), attention will be paid to all compliment types, excluding indirect compliments and solicited compliments as less prototypical instances within the class. 2. Insults As hinted at above, insults are generally conceived as face-threatening acts that most times somehow endanger the addressee’s face. So they are acts whose illocution is meant to affect the addressee’s face: they are often provocative and their perlocution inevitably brings about social clashes. Such view, as shall be seen, is however reductive, in that insults, similarly to compliments, can be used with reversed illocutionary and perlocutionary aims, thus turning into banter or, more generally, into forms of solidarity talk. A basic distinction drawn in the literature is that between swearing and insulting, whose common denominator can be located in their common feature of releasing tension, claiming power and impressing the addressee. The former is defined as the outburst of strong emotions such as anger or frustration which is not addressed to anybody in particular. It is in fact reflexive (i.e. automatic), non-targeted, non-reciprocal and neurologically motivated. In some taxonomies, for instance the one put forward by Andersson and Hirsch (1985), swearing in turn comprises several phenomena, such as cursing, profanity, vulgarity, abusiveness and expletives. Insulting, on the other hand, is both targeted and reciprocal, as insults have precise addressees and elicit some reaction from them. Both swearing and insults are often described as “reflexive” (Azzaro 2005: 2-3) because of the observed tendency to employ stretches of pre-fabricated language, or ready-made expressions that, in some cases, are no longer analysed as the sum of their single components (more or less like idioms, which are processed automatically as wholes). Yet, if on the

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one hand quite a wide repertoire of formulaic language provides the lexicon for insults, on the other, insults may also be couched in very creative and even idiosyncratic language, as is often the case in film scripts (Azzaro 2005, 2007: 71-73, Bruti and Perego 2005, Pavesi and Malinverno 2000, Perego and Bruti in press; cf. 5.1 below), where they contribute to a precise, vivid description of the addressee. In their taxonomy Andersson and Trudgill (1990: 61) do not draw distinctions between swearing and insults but differentiate between various uses of swearing, which thus becomes a sort of umbrella term (a role that in much of the relevant literature is most often covered by cursing, cf. Jay 1992): a) expletive, used to express emotions but not directed towards others, e.g. Hell!, Shit!, God damn it!; b) abusive, directed towards others, derogatory; includes name-calling and various types of curses e.g. You asshole!, You bastard!, Go to hell! and then secondary uses, i.e. c) humorous, directed towards others but not deprecating; as the authors themselves recognise, this type takes the form of abusive swearing but often has the reverse function, i.e. that of banter (Leech 1983), e.g. Get your ass in gear!; and d) auxiliary, directed neither towards a person nor a situation; swearing, as a way of speaking (“lazy swearing”), a sort of verbal habit, e.g. this fucking X, bloody Y. In this proposal, boundaries between categories are quite mobile and flexible, which well captures the ambivalent nature of swearing, but also, I think, of expressive language in general. 3. Compliments and insults in film language Before delving into the analysis of compliments and insults in dubbed language, some reflections on film language are in order. In his ample study on compliments in film language Rose (2001) builds his investigation on a very important premise, i.e. the fact that film language is representative of naturally-occurring exchanges, especially from a pragmalinguistic perspective (perhaps less so from a sociopragmatic one, especially if the scenarios are somewhat idealised and stereotypically played out) and that therefore films, with the due limitations and reservations, provide ample material to be used in the teaching of pragmatics. Among some of his interesting findings in support of the originality and creativity of film language, there are the low representativeness of some expected syntactic patterns for compliments, e.g. the type I (really) like/love NP – one of the three most frequent patterns according to Manes and Wolfson’s studies –, and the emergence of a certain number of “new” syntactic patterns.

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Most importantly, Rose also shows how positive adjectives in films tend to vary a great deal and are thus not limited to the restricted selection indicated in the literature. Nice, he argues, occurs less frequently in films than in the reference database, on account of its semantic vagueness and scarce informativity in a compliment event. Another interesting detail is that the distribution of compliments in relation to gender shows that a high proportion of compliments are exchanged between male characters, contradicting once again some of the findings in the sociolinguistic literature (at least for American English). Apart from the bearing of these findings on the study of compliments, what seems to be especially significant is that in the performance of ritualised speech acts film language seems to be more creative than repetitive, especially if verisimilitude with real-life interaction is pursued and if language is relied on to better develop characters. Likewise, studies on insults in film dialogue (see Azzaro 2005, 2007, but also Pavesi and Malinverno 2000 and Perego and Bruti in press for offensive vocatives) have adequately drawn attention to creativity in the utterance of offensive epithets, which thereby become useful instruments of characterisation of both senders and addressees. 3.1 A survey of compliments and insults in the Pavia Corpus of Film Dialogue Since one of the objectives of the research project was especially to study the rendering of pragmatic meaning, this explains why we felt the need to work with faithful transcriptions (and not those helpful but somewhat incomplete scripts/transcripts which are available online. For Italian there was – and there is still – almost no material available on the net). The variety of films in the corpus, purposely chosen as specimens of close dialogic interaction, offers the analyst the opportunity to observe a wide range of situations in which compliments and insults are exchanged, with variation along the sociolinguistic parameters of gender, age, social class, nationality. When politeness is at stake, it is necessary to evaluate how polite/impolite behaviour is perceived by interactants, as is shown in the most recent critical developments in politeness theory, which all advocate for a “situated” notion of politeness. Politeness is thus considered in a specific situational context and the interlocutors’ reactions are taken into account (Eelen 2001, Mills 2003, Locher 2004, Holmes and Stubbe 2003). In this regard, film dialogue, although it is embedded in a fictional event, provides the necessary situational frame – with a plurality of communicative codes – which makes it possible to evaluate the

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impact of certain utterances on rapport (e.g. establishing, strengthening or interrupting, destroying). The task of analysing compliments and insults in a corpus of film language and dubbed language can partly rely on automatic corpus queries, which may grant some quantitative results, but, more importantly, on qualitative analysis of complimenting/insulting sequences identified by the analyst in the corpus, integrated with the viewing of the corresponding extracts of the film. It is only by considering the contribution of all the communicative channels that it is possible to evaluate the impact of politeness phenomena both in the original text and in its dubbed version (cf. on the necessity of integrating codes Chaume 2004). Furthermore, as proven by Rose 2001, expressive speech acts in films are not as formulaic as could be expected on the basis of results for spontaneous English4. Consequently, querying the corpus for certain typical structures, e.g. lexical units frequently used in compliments, would result in missing out a whole series of examples where more creative expressions have been used. To lend strength to this argument, a pilot quantitative analysis has been carried out for the adjective nice with the following results. FILM TITLE TOTAL

OCCURRENCES COMPLIMENTS TRANSLATED

COMPLIMENTS Ae Fond Kiss 3 Ø Ø Bend it like Beckham 8 2 1 Billy Elliot 2 2 2 Crash 4 2 1 Dead Man Walking 2 Ø Ø Erin Brockovich 19 6 6 Finding Forrester 7 Ø Ø Notting Hill 19 8 7 Ocean’s Eleven 9 4 3 One Hour Photo 8 6 6 Secrets and Lies 35 12 11 Sliding Doors 9 2 2 TOTAL 143 44 39

Table 2 – Occurrences of the adjective nice in the Pavia Corpus of Film Dialogue

The most striking trend emerging from table 2 above is that, out of the total number of occurrences of nice, quite a small quantity appears in compliment sequences. When the adjective nice appears in a compliment it is most often translated, even though some deletions also occur. In addition, generally

4 Similar remarks apply to insults, cf. paragraph 2 above.

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speaking, nice is more frequent in British films like Secrets and Lies and Notting Hill, with the notable exception of Erin Brockovich. Focusing more specifically on its occurrences in Notting Hill some other remarks are in order: pure compliments are indeed very rare, as nice often features in utterances of phatic communion which are ritualised and rather fixed in nature and tend to appear as conversation openings or closings (Bonsignori, Bruti, Masi 2008). In other words, when positive lexis is employed in such sequences, its praising function is supposedly rather blurred. If these cases were left aside, a conspicuous drop in frequency would occur, with only 4 true cases of real, genuine compliments. The focus of this paper will therefore be limited to a qualitative analysis aiming to observe: a) the most typical trends in the use of compliments and insults in film language; b) their translation in dubbed Italian. 4. Compliments in the Pavia Corpus of Film Dialogue In the literature mentioned and discussed above (cf. 1, 1.1 and the following), compliments have variously been classified., e.g. direct vs. indirect, solicited vs. unsolicited, implicit (of various types, cf. also Bruti 2006). Indirect and solicited compliments have been excluded from the analysis on the ground that they are less prototypical compliments. Investigation of data in the Pavia Corpus of Film Dialogue evidences that the most typical types are the following: - Overt compliments (direct compliments in Kerbrat-Orecchioni’s taxonomy 1987), that is utterances with semantically positive lexical material (applying to different parts of speech, such as nouns, adjectives, verbs), whose function is most typically face-enhancing, praising, but which may embarrass the addressee; - Covert compliments (direct implicit in Kerbrat-Orecchioni’s terms), utterances where the expression of a positive evaluation is implicated, as there are few or no traces of “positiveness” in the verbal texture. Their function is equally face-enhancing and they often cause less embarrassment, although they show the speaker’s involvement and sincerity; - Dishonest compliments, that is utterances that look like compliments on the surface but betray a different illocutionary point. They are inserted in aggressive and face-threatening sequences. 4.1 Overt compliments

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Overt compliments are the most typical option for this speech act and do not in themselves represent a difficulty in dubbing (exx.1 and 3). Some other studies have shown a certain tendency to compliment people on their deeds in English and on their qualities in Italian (Bruti 2006 and 2008), but the data are too few to grant statistical accuracy. One such case can however be seen in ex. 2 below. In general, sociological studies have pointed out that British culture does not favour forms of exaggeration and hyperbole, but rather opts for mitigation and understatement (Brown and Levinson 1987). In what follows I compare the distribution of overt and covert compliments in the English component of the Pavia Corpus of Film Dialogue to verify whether the preference for more covert expressions of feelings is actually the case (see 4.2). (1) Notting Hill5 HONEY I absolutely, totally and utterly adore

you. And I just think... you are the most beautiful woman in the world.

Io, io sono una tua devota, entusiasta, sfegatata ammiratrice. E, guarda, trovo… ah, che sei la donna più meravigliosa del mondo.

(2) Ae Fond Kiss CHARLES That’s none of my business, Roisin,

and as far as I’m concerned, it’s none of that old fanatic’s business either. You’ve done a first-class job here. Look, do I have to forge that signature for you?

La questione non mi riguarda, Roisin. E per come la penso io, non riguarda neanche quel vecchio fanatico. Tu sei un’ottima insegnante. Allora, se è necessario falsificherò la firma per te.

(3) Secrets and Lies STUART Well, it’s a big place. È un posto grande. MONICA That’s true. È vero. STUART Too fucking big. You’re looking as

gorgeous as ever, Monica! Cazzo, anche troppo. E tu sei una bellezza, come sempre, Monica!

4.2 Covert compliments The examples of more covert forms of complimenting in the corpus are quite different from one another. Here we present a very small selection of different types. In ex. 4 from Billy Elliot the compliment, both in source- and target-text

5 Compliments are signalled in italics.

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is entrusted to a comparison with a very famous, world-known dancer, Gene Kelly. So “positiveness” is alluded to via encyclopaedic knowledge of both interlocutors – on internal axis, i.e. within the film, – and audience – on the external axis. (4) MR WILKINSON I’ve heard a lot about you.

Durham’s little Gene Kelly, eh? Your dad worked down the pit, then?

Ho sentito parlare di te, il piccolo Gene Kelly di Durham eh? Insomma, tuo padre lavora in miniera?

In ex. 5 there is no explicitly positive element, but the expression to be someone means in both languages that the person being talked about is quite important for a number of different reasons, here mainly emotional ones. (5) Erin Brockovich ERIN You are living next door to a real,

live fucking beauty queen! And I still have my tiara. And I thought it meant I was gonna do something important with my life, that, that it meant I was someone.

Tu abiti accanto a una vera reginetta di bellezza in carne e ossa, cazzo! Ah, ah… Ho ancora il mio diadema. Pensavo che grazie a quello avrei fatto qualcosa di importante nella mia vita, che grazie a quello ero diventata qualcuno.

GEORGE You’re someone to me. Tu sei qualcuno per me. In ex. 6, on the contrary, source- and target-text differ considerably. In the original Jamal’s outstanding achievements are described as something which caught attention, even though the understatement has been overtly signalled (to put it mildly), whereas in Italian, quite appropriately, the expression of praise is more overt. (6) Finding Forrester MR BRADLEY Jamal, your test scores, to put it

mildly, caught our attention. I’m here to see if you’d be interested in attending our school.

Jamal, i tuoi voti, detto senza mezzi termini, ci hanno sbalordito. Io sono qui per sapere se ti interessa frequentare la nostra scuola.

Likewise, example 7 also shows a discrepancy between source- and target text, but the picture is more complicated. In fact, the verbal texture of the compliment – you’re actually dressed all right tonight – initially induced me to

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classify the compliment as a covert compliment. However, the atmosphere (the characters are in a pub, joking and having fun), Hammid’s tone and Annie’s reaction reveal that the utterance is being used playfully. This shows how often it happens that utterances have mixed illocutionary forces, which makes it difficult to neatly pigeonhole instances of speech acts. Ex. 7 has some features of covert compliments and some others of dishonest compliments, without being necessarily unfavourable and disparaging (cf. 4.3 below). The translation in the Italian dub is too explicit and creates a clash with the visuals, as Casim is wearing bright casual clothes. (7) Ae Fond Kiss HAMMID to CASIM You’re actually dressed all

right tonight. Ti sei vestito da damerino, stasera?

ANNIE to CASIM Don’t take him on, don’t take him on!

Casim, non dargli retta!

In other studies on compliments (Bruti 2006, 2007)6, I came across a more varied repertoire of covert compliments, some of which are worth being briefly described. In (8) there is a compliment obtained through a sort of comparison, in (9) reference is made to a group to which the speaker belongs. (8) Sabrina LINUS How do you say in French, “My sister

has a yellow pencil”? Come si dice in francese “Mia sorella ha un lapis giallo”?

SABRINA “Ma soeur a une crayon jaune”. “Ma soeur a une crayon jaune”. LINUS How do you say, “My brother has a

lovely girl”? E quest’altra frase, “Mio fratello ha una deliziosa ragazza”?

SABRINA “Mon frère a une gentille petite amie”.

“Mon frère a une gentille petite amie”.

LINUS And how do you say, “I wish I were my brother”?

E come si dice “Vorrei essere mio fratello”?

In (8) Linus asks Sabrina how to translate some sentences into French. He starts with a neutral textbook sentence like My sister has a yellow pencil but then goes on with My brother has a lovely girl, referring in fact to Sabrina. The compliment is further reinforced by Linus’s personal appreciation when he says that he would like to be in his brother’s place (hence the comparison). The

6 Details for the films not included in the Pavia Corpus of Film Dialogue are as follows: Eyes Wide Shut, 1999, Stanley Kubrik, UK; Sabrina, 1954, Billy Wilder, USA; Shallow Hal, 2002, Farrelly Brothers, USA; There’s Something about Mary, 1998, Farrelly Brothers, USA.

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Italian dub closely follows the original and obtains the same effect on the complimentee, which is not linguistically expressed but conveyed by the smile on Sabrina’s face. 4.3 Dishonest compliments Few words need finally to be added on dishonest compliments. Unfortunately they are not immediately identifiable as such, because they often belong in complex and mixed sequences, where positive and negative appraisal are placed side by side. Ex. 9 from Finding Forrester clearly illustrates this point. (9) PROF. CRAWFORD

Your recent work? I liked it very much. No, Mr Wallace, the question concerning your most recent work isn’t whether it’s good, it’s whether it’s too good. […] I’m faced with drawing one of two conclusions. Either you’ve been blessed with an uncommon gift that it suddenly decided to kick in, or you’re getting your inspiration from elsewhere. Given your previous education and your background, I’m sure you’ll forgive me for coming to some of my own conclusions

Il suo ultimo lavoro? Mi piace moltissimo. No, signor Wallace, il problema riguardante il suo lavoro più recente non è se è buono, è se è troppo buono. […] Mi trovo a dover trarre una di due conclusioni: o lei è benedetto da un non comune talento, che a un tratto ha deciso di manifestarsi, oppure lei trae la sua ispirazione da qualche altra fonte. Considerando il suo precedente curriculum, nonché il suo ambiente, lei certo mi perdonerà se giungo ad alcune mie personali conclusioni.

Professor Crawford actually gives vent to his appreciation of Jamal Wallace’s writing skills (e.g. I liked it very much, too good, uncommon gift), but his argumentation is turned upside down at the end of his speech, when he insinuates that Jamal has been cheating by plagiarising someone else’s work. In actual facts, the seeds of suspect are already there at the beginning of his talk, in the expression your recent work … is too good. The unusual collocation of the adverb too with the adjective good signals that something is wrong. The argumentative path is the same in the dubbed text, where Professor Crawford’s scheming ways are revealed through an insightful use of modal verbs: the expression mi trovo a dover trarre una di due conclusioni represents the situation as if Professor Crawford were in a way obliged by circumstances to

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conclude that Jamal cheated. The use of the modal thus serves the purpose of not claiming full responsibility. Another interesting example belonging to the same category is ex. 10 below. (10) One hour Photo LARRY Sy, are you kidding me? Mi stai prendendo in giro? SY PARISH What? Scusa? LARRY I’ve got three of these

fucking machines down today. I’ve gotta be in Heber Springs by three.

Ho tre di queste fottute macchine da riparare, oggi. E devo anche essere a Heber Spring per le tre.

SY PARISH Larry, all I’m asking you to do is look at these prints!

Larry! ti chiedo solo di dare un’occhiata a queste stampe.

LARRY Are you fucking threatening me? You’re breaking my balls over a plus three blue shift. Fuckin’ asshole. Next time you call me out here, that thing better be belching fire!

Cosa vorrebbe essere, una minaccia? Mi rompi le palle per una dominante blu dello zero tre percento. Ma vaffanculo! E non mi chiamare più, a meno che quella cazzo di macchina non vada in pezzi.

SY PARISH That’s a great attitude, Larry. Thanks for your precision work.

Gran bel modo di fare, Larry. È questa la tua professionalità?

Here we have a very tense exchange between Sy Parrish, a clerk in a one-hour photo shop and a technician. Sy is trying to get Larry’s attention to correct a problem in the printing of photos, while Larry dismisses the defect as a minor thing because he is needed elsewhere to settle more serious problems. Larry reacts aggressively to Sy’s request, as can be seen from the accumulation of bad language in his turns, which is most often addressed to Sy (are you fucking threatening me?, you’re breaking my balls fuckin’ asshole). Interestingly in the Italian dub the amount of foul language employed is increased in comparison with the original (the neutral expression that thing becomes quella cazzo di macchina), a trend that Pavesi and Malinverno 2000 have shown to be the opposite, as in Italian foul language is generally less acceptable and less accepted than in English and therefore the so-called “saturation level” (Pavesi and Malinverno 2000: 82, i.e. the limit beyond which the use of foul language is perceived as excessive, disturbing, unnatural; cf. also Chiaro 2007) is reached before. Sy’s reaction in his last turn can be regarded as a dishonest compliment, in that he seemingly appreciates Larry’s behaviour and even thanks him but is being ironic and actually means the opposite. The irony of the original is subverted in the Italian dub, as the first utterance in the turn is

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equivalent, but the dubitative tone of the question È questa la tua professionalità? betrays the speaker’s real attitude and intention. In other studies on compliments (Bruti 2006, 2007), I came across a more varied repertoire of dishonest compliments, i.e. acts that first seem compliment but turn out to have a different illocutionary point. An example is briefly discussed below. (11) Shallow Hal MRS SHANAHAN

Nice to meet you, Hal. Piacere di conoscerti, Harold.

HAL The pleasure is mine, Mrs. Shanahan. Wow. I can see where Rosemary gets her figure.

Molto lieto Signora Shannone. Wow, adesso capisco da chi ha preso Rosemary.

In (11) the praise of Rosemary’s figure seems to be a covert compliment paid to her mother. In actual fact, the plot of the film turns it into a speech act that has different illocutionary forces depending on two different communicative axes7: an internal character-to-character axis, with two modalities, for Hal sees his own reality; and an external one, from character to audience, for it is a true, heartfelt compliment for Hal, who is under a spell and therefore actually sees Rosemary and her mother as two lovely, slim ladies; whereas for both the intended addressee, Mrs Shanahan, and the film audience it is a cruel form of mockery. The Italian dub is less explicit, as no reference is overtly made to Rosemary’s figure, and thus it is less impolite. 5. Insults in the Pavia Corpus of Film Dialogue An analysis of insults in the corpus has brought to light a more varied array of types in comparison with compliments. In particular, the following types have been identified as most recursive8: Derogatory insults, i.e. utterances with clearly observable semantically negative meaning, that turn out to be aggressive and whose purpose is the expression of contempt and derision;

7 In Shallow Hal the protagonist, Hal, is hypnotised so that he sees ugly, fat women as if they were beautiful models. The spell is removed only at the end and he discovers that he has really fallen in love with the fat but sweet Rosemary. 8 Where possible, the same labels employed to classify compliments have been used.

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Racial insults, which are actually a subclass of the preceding as they have to do with ethnic discrimination. They do not necessarily contain negative terms, but are most often aggressive and convey stereotypical social evaluation; Covert insults, that is utterances where the negative evaluation is implicated, often containing semantically neutral lexical material. The overall illocutionary nature has thus to be drawn from a whole sequence. They are aggressive, but they can only be perceived as such retrospectively, when their real nature has been uncovered; Certain insults are forms of impoliteness only on the surface as they are in fact solidarity markers, in-group strategies, i.e. “banter” (cf. Leech 1983: 144; Culpeper 1996: 352). They are not meant to cause offence but foster solidarity and camaraderie (Nobili 2007)9. 5.1 Overt insults The large majority of insults are mainly obtained through the use of vocatives/epithets. They are exchanged between any kind of interactants (i.e. gender, class, role do not affect the use of insults because they appear in unmediated, reactive speech acts). Building on results obtained elsewhere (cf. Perego and Bruti in press), it can be argued that insults may become a source of difficulty in dubbing when they are structurally complex descriptors (i.e. consisting of creative, heavily modified noun phrases) that strongly depend on the situation for their interpretation, and “when they belong to a marked subset of the language” (signalling diastratic and diaphasic variation; cf. Perego and Bruti in press). In example 12 below from Billy Elliot the two offences have been rendered with the same lexeme, thus simplifying and weakening the colloquial, informal tone of the original. (12) BILLY What about your mom? Does she not

have sex? E la tua mamma? Davvero non fa sesso?

DEBBIE No, she’s unfulfilled. That’s why she does dancing.

No, è insoddisfatta. E’ per questo che fa danza!

BILLY She does dancing instead of sex? Your family’s weird.

Cioè fa danza invece che sesso? Ah, che strana famiglia!

DEBBIE No, they’re not. No, non è vero! BILLY They are though. They’re mental. Sì che è vero! Sono matti!

9 Delocutive insults, i.e. insults that are uttered when the addressee is not present have not been considered in the current analysis.

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DEBBIE Get off! Smettila! BILLY See? You’re a nutter, you. Vedi? Sei matta anche tu! The change in example 13 is less striking, but nonetheless worth noticing. In English the offence revolves around the term cripple, which describes the physical defect of being lame or disabled and is then metaphorically extended to mental deficiency as well. The same metaphorical path is pursued in Italian, with an expression that does not sound particularly frequent in spoken Italian. In fact, there are other locutions that derive from the same metaphorical extension and are usually uttered to offend the interlocutor: handicappato (meaning that someone has behaved irresponsibly or stupidly; this item would be subject to censorship so it is probably purposely avoided) or the negative phrase non sei (mica) normale, equally alluding to silly behaviour more than permanent flaws. (13) Sliding Doors LYDIA That’s what I am trying to do, you

cripple! E adesso sai qual è il mio scopo, microcefalo!

5.2 (Overt) racial insults As detailed above, racial insults belong to the category of overt insults, but they constitute a special subgroup in that they especially revolve around well-known sociocultural stereotypes. Thus they are used intentionally to offend and debase the interlocutor (Nobili 2007: 29) and are therefore less immediate and more premeditated than insults in the previous group. Racial insults are particularly well-represented in the Pavia corpus because of the variety of ethno-linguistic groups that are portrayed in the films. Examples 14 to 16offer some interesting instances referring to different ethnic groups. In 14, for example, offensive language is exchanged between a Mexican and a Chinese woman who had a crash. The Chinese woman, who does not master English completely, as evident not only from her faulty pronunciation but also from the various morphosyntactic substandard forms she uses, ascribes the cause of the accident to the fact that Mexicans do not drive properly, whereas Ria, the Mexican detective, reiterates the offence, claiming herself that nationality has a bearing on driving. Quite interestingly, in both source- and target-text Ria mimics the Chinese woman’s pronunciation defect, /l/ for /r/, an articulatory difficulty typical of Chinese speakers, and also Kim Lee’s substandard features are equally deviant from the standard in the dub, with the

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due systemic adaptations. In fact, the zero-inflection for third person singular she do this becomes an instance of wrong word order Non è mia colpa, è sua colpa and the use of the passe-partout infinitive instead of tense inflection is rendered with the past participle. (14) Crash POLICE OFFICER I need to see your registration

and insurance. Mi dia il libretto e il tagliando dell’assicurazione.

KIM LEE Why? It not my fault! It’s her fault! She do this!

Pelché? Non è mia colpa, è sua colpa! Lei ha fatto!

RIA My fault? Colpa mia?! POLICE OFFICER Ma’am, you really need to wait

in your vehicle. Signora, le ho detto di aspettare nel suo veicolo.

RIA My fault? È colpa mia? KIM LEE Stop in middle of street!

Mexicans no know how to drive. She blake too fast.

Lei felmata in mezzo a strada. Mexicana no sa guidale. Flenato di colpo.

RIA I “blake” too fast?. I “blake” too fast!. I’m-I’m sorry, you no see my “blake” lights.

Io “flenato” di colpo? Io “flenato” di colpo? No, no, no, è lei che non ha visto le luci dei miei “fleni”!

POLICE OFFICER Ma’am... Signora… RIA Officer, can you please write in

your report how shocked I am to be hit by an Asian driver!

Agente, nel suo rapporto la prego di menzionare il mio shock per essere stata tamponata da un’Asiatica.

In (15) the racial insults are hurled at Jess, the protagonist, who is of Punjabi origin. Her opponent calls her Paki, a clipping for Pakistani, which is for her especially offensive as it entails being a Muslim. Being of Punjabi origin, she is not a Muslim, as is made clear in several scenes of the film. In Italian dubbing Paki is translated as Hindi, which removes the religious implication. The adjective brutta, which modifies Hindi, shifts the offense to another level and is probably a compensation for the loss of the ethnic insult. (15) Bend it like Beckham GIRL (playing in the rival team)

Piss off, Paki! Vaffanculo, brutta Hindi!!

JESS Sod you! ((pushing her)) Vacci tu!

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In (16), still from the film Bend it like Beckham, the first insult is in the third person, which does not mean that it is an insult in absentia, but that the speaker is actually degrading the addressee of the offence to the role of a side participant by not addressing her directly. The term gora is a derogatory expression used by Indians (of various ethnic groups) to refer to white people. It is here rendered as stronza (= she’s a bitch), with similar aggressive overtones but no racial implications. In the subsequent lines then the sexual offense is intertwined with an ethnic one, as the old Punjabi women misunderstand the word lesbian and interpret it either as a sign of the zodiac (cf. I thought she was a Pisces), or as an adjective of nationality, i.e. Lebanese, given the reasonable phonetic similarity. The association lesbian/Lebanese is not made explicit in Italian, where the equation of the word lesbian with a nationality can only be inferentially reconstructed. (16) PINKY What the bleeding hell’s

going on, eh? What’s that gora going on about you being a lesbo? I thought you fancied your coach!

Si può sapere che cavolo succede? Eh? Perché quella stronza dice che sei lesbica? Ma non ti piaceva l’allenatore?

MRS PAXTON Take your lesbian feet out of my shoes!

Leva di corsa quei piedi da lesbica dalle mie scarpe!

INDIAN WOMAN Lesbian? Her birthday’s in March. I thought she was a Pisces.

Lesbica? Che segno è? Jess è nata di marzo. Credevo fosse dei pesci.

TONY’S MOTHER Huh uh, she no Lebanese. She Punjabi!

Non è lesbica, è Punjabi!

5.3 Covert insults This category has been introduced into the classification partly for symmetrical reasons, as there are covert compliments, and partly because such cases can in fact be hypothesized, even though a few examples have as yet been identified in the Pavia corpus. This type seems to have much in common with dishonest compliments, but further research into the matter is needed. In ex. 17 the exchange is between two religious persons, but it is hardly reciprocal in terms of power. Sister Helen is in a subordinate position because she is a woman and because she is not acquainted with the rules of the game in jail, where Chaplain Farley has been working for long. Farley has therefore a patronising attitude, typical of those who have power and want to exert it

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(already evident from the first meeting with Sister Helen, in which he reprimands her for not wearing the religious habit). He therefore questions Sister Helen in a way that sounds polite by using apparently neutral rejoinders to her answers but he actually insinuates that she is not up to the role she has undertaken. The low esteem in which he holds Sister Helen is hidden in the interrogative form, even though it is quite clear that this is his own personal conviction. In Italian the question is more genuine, in that the Chaplain asks Sister Helen whether she thinks she is – and not if she is tout court – up to the role of spiritual advisor. (17) Dead Man Walking FARLEY So, you’ve put in a request to

be the spiritual advisor to Matthew Poncelet.

Così lei ha fatto domanda per essere il consigliere spirituale di Matthew Poncelet.

SISTER HELEN Yes, father. Sì padre. FARLEY Why? Perché? SISTER HELEN He asked me. Perché me l’ha chiesto. FARLEY This is highly unusual. È una cosa alquanto

insolita. SISTER HELEN Why? Perché? FARLEY Well, you would be the first

woman to do it. Ecco, sarebbe la prima donna a farlo.

SISTER HELEN Really? Davvero? FARLEY This kind of situation

requires an experienced hand. This boy is to be executed in six days and is in dire need of redemption. Are you up to this?

Questo genere di interventi richiedono una buona dose di esperienza, l’esecuzione avverrà fra sei giorni, come lei sa, quell’uomo ha bisogno di redimersi. Si sente all’altezza?

5.4 Banter Offensive language can in fact appear in sequences that are not intended to be impolite and are not perceived as such. This happens irrespective of film genre, when the speakers are both social equals and quite close to one another, e.g. between lovers, friends, workmates, especially members of lower/middle classes. Examples 18 to 21 describe respectively an interaction between workmates, one between lovers and one between siblings. In 18 a group of

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friends use foul language and banter to release tension as they lift a heavy piano over a flight of stairs. (18) Ae Fond Kiss CONTROLLARE ALLINEAMENTO TURNI DANNY Come on! Avanti, ragazzi, datevi una

mossa. WEE RODDIE Jesus! Attento. Attento, così tocca. DANNY All right, right. Sta’ tranquillo, ci passa. […] DANNY Come on! Just take the

fucking weight, you fat bastard!

Ma ti vuoi caricare un po’ di peso, brutto ciccione?

BIG RODDIE I can’t, Danny! My arms are fucking three feet long!

Non ci riesco, le braccia mi si sono allungate di un metro.

WEE RODDIE Hold on! Hold on! I can’t feel my fingers!

Fermatevi! Non mi sento più le dita!

BIG RODDIE I’m turning into an octopus! Mi sento un polipo! […] […] DANNY You useless fucking bastard,

Rod! Sei il solito stronzo, Roddie!

Example 19 still from Ae Fond Kiss contains a typical love-centered speech situation, where the two lovers engage in a verbal duel, which closes off with the colloquial expression you mug, which has been removed in dubbing. (19) CASIM You’re strong, aren’t you? Sei forte, sei molto forte, sai?

ROISIN For a wee Irish girl, I am. ((she giggles)) 2-1 to me!

Per essere un’irlandese mingherlina. ((she giggles)) 2 a 1 per me!

CASIM Never! Neanche per idea. ROISIN ((laughter)) Ok, truce then, ok?

Yeah. Va bene, tregua. Va bene.

CASIM Truce? Promise? Tregua? ROISIN Swear to God. Sì. CASIM Promise me. Prometti? ROISIN Over my dead body, you mug! Te lo giuro. Ci hai creduto? Come mi

dispiace Ø! Example 20 from Billy Elliot illustrates instead two brothers arguing good-humoredly over typical daily matters, with none taking offense. The slangy, vulgar quality of their exchange has been preserved in dubbing, but the

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substandard syntactic features (e.g. double negation, lack of auxiliary) have been standardised. (20) TONY Fuck. You been playing my records,

haven’t you, little twat? Vaffanculo! Hai messo i miei dischi, no? Testa di cavolo!

BILLY I never played naught! Ah! Io non ho messo niente! Ahi! TONY Knobhead! Deficiente! BILLY If Dad knew you smoked that stuff,

he’d go mental. Se papà sa quello che fumi, diventa una bestia!

TONY What? Fuck off, will ya! Little twat! Oh! Vaffanculo, eh? Testa di cavolo! The conciliatory quality of banter can also be observed in ex. 21, in which Anna and Helen discuss love matters and Anna feels free to openly criticise Helen’s behaviour. Helen reacts with a vulgar expression, which is completely devoid of aggressiveness and is in fact meant to be jocular and light-hearted. The same pragmatic value is in fact maintained in the Italian version, despite the lack of vulgarity. (21) Sliding Doors ANNA Well, two things really. One, you’re

still counting how long you’ve been apart in days. And probably hours and minutes. But … the big flashing red light way of telling you’re not really over someone, is when you’re still reading their horoscope, in the hope they’re going to be wiped out in some freak napalming incident

Bè, ci sono due cose. La prima è che ancora conti da quanto non vi vedete in giorni e probabilmente ore e minuti. Poi non ci vogliono le luminose per capire che non hai chiuso con uno, quando continui a leggere il suo oroscopo nell’ardente speranza che uno strano incidente col napalm lo incenerisca.

HELEN 2 Smart arse! Saputona! 6. Concluding remarks This study is mainly exploratory in nature and the scope of investigation should be broadened both with quantitative (viz. checking the frequency of prototypical structures and lexemes for compliments and insults, on the basis of the studies conducted so far) and qualitative analyses (exploring more in depth such categories as dishonest compliments and covert insults). However, trying to generalise what has emerged so far, this study has shown that compliments tend to occur quite frequently, both as overt routine patterns

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and as covert patterns. Specimens of the latter type are quite effective because they embarrass neither the addressee, who thus does not need to downplay the received “verbal gift” (Kerbrat Orecchioni 1987), nor the speaker (cf. the role of understatement in British culture). More data are needed to ascertain translation patterns, for example if understated praise is rendered with more superlative forms in Italian on a regular basis. For insults the picture is more complex as mismatches in translation occur in all classes. The most common ones are especially shifts in register and style, in particular in racial insults, where deviance may alter the picture of the whole social network. On the whole, however, analyses of this type confirm that inventories of politeness/impoliteness markers out of context are of no consequence. Compliments are in fact inserted within aggressive sequences, whereas insults can create rapport, and indirectness may be used for different, even cross purposes. As attempted here and strongly advocated in the most recent studies in politeness theory, politeness is to be evaluated on single occasions, as something that is currently negotiated, taking all situational factors into account (cf. the interplay of such factors as race, gender, class, etc.) and, possibly, the recipient’s perspective (Eeelen 2001, Mills 2003: 110), with a conspicuous shift in focus from a micro- to macro level (the whole interaction/text and not the single speech act). References Alfonzetti, G. 2006 I complimenti nella conversazione. Roma: Editori Riuniti Andersson, L., R. Hirsch 1985 Perspectives on Swearing. Göteborg: Publications of the Göteborg University Department of Linguistics Andersson, L., P. Trudgill 1990 Bad Language. Oxford: Blackwell Azzaro, G. 2005 Four-letter Films. Roma: Aracne Azzaro, G. 2007 “Insultare l’altro sugli schermi anglo-americani”, in Insulti e pregiudizi. Discriminazione etnica e turpiloquio in film, canzoni e giornali. P. Nobili, ed., Roma: Aracne, pp. 71-127 Blum-Kulka, S., J. House, G. Kasper, 1989 Cross-cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter

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Bonsignori, V., S. Bruti, S. Masi “Formulae across languages: English greetings, leave-takings and good wishes in dubbed Italian”, paper presented at the International Conference on Audiovisual Translation, Montpellier, 20-22 June 2008 Brown, P., S. Levinson 1987 Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Bruti, S. 2006 “Cross-Cultural Pragmatics: The Translation of Implicit Compliments in Subtitles”, JosTrans (http://www.jostrans.org) Bruti, S. 2007 “Complexity in audiovisual translation. Some reflections on the speech act of complimenting”, in Lexical Complexity: Theoretical Assessment and Translational Perspectives. M. Bertuccelli, G. Cappelli, S. Masi, eds., Pisa: Plus, pp. 101-120 Bruti, S. 2008 “Translating compliments in subtitles”, in A. Baldry, M. Pavesi, C. Taylor Torsello, C. Taylor, eds., From Didactas to Ecolingua. An Ongoign Research Project on Translation and Corpus Linguistics, Trieste: Edizioni Università di Trieste, pp. 91-110. Bruti, S., E. Perego 2005 “Translating the expressive function in subtitles: the case of vocatives”, in Research on Translation for Subtitling in Spain and Italy, J.D. Sanderson, ed., Alicante: Publicaciones de la Universidad de Alicante, pp. 27-48 Chaume, F. 2004 Cine y traducción, Madrid: Cátedra Chiaro, D. 2007 “Not in front of the children? An analysis of sex on screen in Italy”, in A Tool for Social Integration? Audiovisual Translation from Different Angles (= Linguistica Antverpiensia, 6), A. Remael, J. Neves, eds., pp. 255-276 Creese, A. 1991 “Speech Act Variation in British and American English”, Penns Working Papers in Educational Linguistics, 7, (2), pp. 37-58. Culpeper, J. 1996 “Towards an anatomy of impoliteness”, Journal of Pragmatics, 25, (3), pp. 349-367 Eeelen, G. 2001 A Critique of Politenes Theories, Manchester, St. Jerome

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Frescura, M. 1996 “The Conflictual Behaviour of Italian Speakers in Responding To Compliments”, Rassegna Italiana di Linguistica Applicata, 28, (3), pp. 89-110 Gardner, R. 1997 “The Conversation Object Mm: A Weak and Variable Acknowledging Token”, Research on Language and Social Interaction, 30, (2), pp. 131-156 Goffman, E. 1967 Interaction Ritual. Garden City: Doubleday Golato, A. 2003 “Studying Compliment Responses: A Comparison of DCTs and Recordings of Naturally Occurring Talk”, Applied Linguistics, 24, (1), pp. 91-121 Golato, A. 2004 Compliments and Compliment Responses. Grammatical structure and sequential organization, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Herbert, R.K. 1989 “The Ethnography of English Compliments and Compliment Responses: A Contrastive Sketch”, in Contrastive Pragmatics, W. Oleksy, ed., Amsterdam/Philadephia: John Benjamins, pp. 3-35 Herbert, R.K. 1991 “The Sociology of Compliment Work: An Ethnocontrastive Study of Polish and English”, Multilingua, 10, (4), pp. 381-402 Holmes, J. 1986 “Compliments and Compliment Responses in New Zealand English”, Anthropological Linguistics, 28, (4), pp. 485-508 Holmes, J. 1988 “Paying Compliments: A Sex-preferential Politeness Strategy”, Journal of Pragmatics, 12, (3), pp. 445-465 Holmes, J. 1995 Women, Men and Politeness, London/New York: Longman Holmes, J., M. Stubbe 2003 Power and Politeness in the Workplace, London: Longman/Pearson Education Jay, T. , 1992 Cursing in America: A psycholinguistic study of dirty language in the courts, in the movies, in the schoolyards, and on the streets, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins

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Kerbrat-Orecchioni, C. 1987, “La description des échanges en analyse conversationelle: L’example du compliment”, DRLAV - Revue de Linguistique, 36/37, pp. 1-53 Leech, G. 1983 Principles of Pragmatics. London: Longman Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk, B. 1989 “Praising and Complimenting”, in Contrastive Pragmatics, W. Oleksy, ed., Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins, pp. 73-100 Locher, M.A. 2004 Power and Politeness in Action. Disagreement in Oral Communication. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter Manes, J., N. Wolfson 1980 “The Compliment Formula”, in Conversational Routine, F. Coulmas, ed., The Hague, Mouton, pp. 115-132 Manno, G. 2005 “Politeness in Switzerland: Between Respect and Acceptance”, in Politeness in Europe, L. Hickey, M. Stewart, eds., Clevedon, Multilingual Matters, pp. 100-115 Mills, S. 2003 Gender and Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Nobili, P. 2007 “Indignazione e satira nel film Lenny. Dalla parolaccia all’insulto etnico tradotto”, in Insulti e pregiudizi. Discriminazione etnica e turpiloquio in film, canzoni e giornali, P. Nobili, ed., Roma: Aracne, pp. 169 Pavesi, M. 2005 La traduzione filmica. Aspetti del parlato doppiato dall’inglese all’italiano, Roma: Carocci Pavesi, M., A.L. Malinverno 2000, “Usi del turpiloquio nella traduzione filmica”, in Atti del convengo “Tradurre il cinema” (Trieste 29-30 novembre 1996), C. Taylor, ed., Trieste, Dipartimento di scienze del linguaggio dell’interpretazione e della traduzione, pp. 75-89 Perego, E., S. Bruti in press “Audiovisual genre and the translation of vocatives in interlingual subtitles”, in Proceedings of Intermedia 2007 Conference (Lodz, 13-14 April 2007), L. Bogucki, K. Kredens, eds., Bern, Peter Lang Rose, K.R. 2001 “Compliments and Compliment Responses in Film:

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Implications for Pragmatics Research and Language Teaching”, IRAL, 39, pp. 309-326 Searle, J.R. 1969 Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press Wiggins, S. 2002 “Talking with Your Mouth Full: Gustatory Mmms and the Embodiment of Pleasure”, Research on Language and Social Interaction, 35, (3), pp. 311-336 Wolfson, N. 1981 “Compliments in Cross-cultural Perspective”, TESOL Quarterly, 15, (2), pp. 117-124 Wolfson, N. 1983 “An Empirically Based Analysis of Complimenting in English”, in Sociolinguistics and Language Acquisition, N. Wolfson, E. Judd, eds., Rowley, Ma., Newbury House, pp. 82-95 Wolfson, N. 1984 “Pretty Is as Pretty Does. A Speech Act View of Sex Roles”, Applied Linguistics, 5, (3), pp. 236-244 Wolfson, N., J. Manes 1980 “The Compliment as a Social Strategy”, Papers in Linguistics: International Journal of Human Communication, 13, (3), pp. 391-410