Taboo

The treatment of taboo language in translation poses a challenge to translators given that each language has its own stylistic and linguistic resources to describe things or actions that are considered prohibited, strong, offensive or vulgar. Not only is taboo language an important concept often analysed in translation studies (TS), especially in descriptive translation studies (DTS), but it is also addressed by other disciplines and branches that are interrelated and help us understand this concept from different angles, such as semiotics, pragmatics, semantics, (im)politeness, cultural studies, psychology, sociology, sociolinguistics, etc.

When translating a source text (ST) into a target text (TT) and culture, finding the most appropriate term(s) is not an easy task and the strategies or techniques employed may not transfer the load that the term has in the ST and, accordingly, its function may not be properly addressed. The purpose of this entry is to briefly describe, from a multidisciplinary approach, the following aspects of the translation of taboo language: its origins, names and meaning, its taxonomies in broad terms; the various cultural views applied to taboo topics, swearing, etc.; the way the load of taboo terms can be modulated; the difficulties taboo language entails when being translated and the diversity of translation operations to deal with this type of rendering and, finally, its research potential.