The translation of swearwords: A pragmatics perspective

This special issue brings together European researchers that have carried out studies into the translation of swearwords from English into Danish, Greek, Italian and Spanish. The articles analyze the strategies used by the translators in a variety of genres, including television series, films, novels and plays. This introduction surveys the most important publications on the translation of swearwords, a subarea of research within translation studies that has gradually attracted the interest of researchers and practitioners, as the abundance of articles, book chapters and M. A. and Ph D. theses available in the past two decades attest. The contributors to this special issue analyze the pragmatics of swearing in translation by considering aspects such as emotional force, level of offensiveness, intended inferences of the original texts and their translation, and perlocutionary force.