Cultural Manipulation of Children’s Literature Dubbing: A Translation Quality Assessment of Extralinguistic Cultural References in The Simpsons

The audiovisual translation of animated content involves a complex interplay between linguistic accuracy and cultural acceptability, especially when the source text is rich with cultural items and the target audience includes children. This study therefore aimed to investigate the cultural manipulation of the Arabic dubbing of the animated cartoon The Simpsons to create a dubbed version that suits Arab children. Using Pedersen’s (2017) FAR model of Translation Quality Assessment, the study aimed to assess how the extralinguistic cultural references (ECRs) are transferred, adapted, or obscured in the Arabic dubbed version of the series. To achieve these objectives, a mixed-methods approach is followed combining qualitative and quantitative methods. The study sample included 11 examples selected purposefully from the first and second seasons of The Simpsons. A high frequency of dubbing errors was found in the Arabic dubbed version, particularly in terms of the functional equivalence parameter, with a rate of 63.63%. Regarding the acceptability parameter, grammar and idiomaticity errors were observed, with a rate of 42.42%. Given the nature of the medium of communication (i.e. spoken discourse) to be evaluated, the two parameters of spelling errors and readability were excluded from the analysis due to their irrelevancy. This study then concluded with a recommendation for a quality assurance mechanism designed to safeguard target Arab children from harmful foreign cultural elements by effectively domesticating such elements into an appropriate local narrative.