Strategies in Subtitling Jordanian Dialect on Netflix: A Case Study of AlRawabi School for Girls

Ahmad Al-Harahsheh, Mona Malkawi and Rasha Al-Motlak

SAGE Open, 2025, vol. 15, issue 1, 21582440241304190

Abstract: This study explores the challenges faced by Netflix subtitlers and the strategies used to translate Jordanian dialectal expressions into English in the Netflix miniseries AlRawabi School for Girls . The corpus of this study consists of 50 authentic examples extracted from the series. Adopting a descriptive approach to translation studies, as suggested by Gideon (1995), our analysis reveals three major findings relevant to subtitling Jordanian dialectal expressions in English: (a) Some dialectal expressions are omitted or altered by replacing them with standard language to fit the Netflix target audience; (b) the Netflix subtitler applied a variety of subtitling strategies, most commonly pragmatic translation; and (c) the subtitling in most of the examples conveyed the intended meaning, albeit with a considerable loss of cultural context from the source language. Finally, this study concludes that the Netflix subtitler adopted a target-oriented translation, thus depriving the target audience of experiencing the cultural characteristics of the Jordanian dialect.

Keywords: descriptive approach; Jordanian dialect; Netflix; subtitling strategy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:15:y:2025:i:1:p:21582440241304190

DOI: 10.1177/21582440241304190

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