Straight from the horse’s mouth: children’s reception of dubbed animated films in Spain

Abstract

Reception studies in the field of audiovisual translation (AVT) have increased considerably in the last two decades, including the target viewer in the picture. This paper presents the results of a study exploring young children’s reactions to some of the translation strategies regularly adopted in dubbed animated films. A total of 163 participants were shown nine animated film clips dubbed from English into Spanish, which included cultural references, colloquial language, educational content and songs. Data were then collected through a questionnaire adapted to the participants’ level of cognitive development and the analysis was based on two independent variables: the participants’ year in school and the number of previous viewings of the films. The results show that children do not seem to have much trouble understanding cultural, educational and musical content that is specific to the source culture and is kept in the target text. Interestingly, having previously watched the films does not appear to be a determining factor in children’s ability to identify these elements.