Subtitling of Jordanian Culture-Specific Expressions in “The Alley” Movie

This study investigates and describes the subtitling strategies used in subtitling Jordanian culture-bound expressions in the Jordanian Movie The Alley. In addition, it examines whether the subtitling was Source text oriented or target text oriented, i.e. if the subtitler sacrificed the cultural meanings at the expense of conveying the message to the target audience. The study relied on subtitling strategies of culture-bound expressions suggested by Baker (1992). The sample of the study consisted of 120 authentic examples that are extracted from the movie, only 26 examples were used to avoid repetition. The subtitling was appropriate in most cases and in a few cases, it was not. The most applied strategy in subtitling the movie was translation by paraphrase using a related word with 43.3%, and the least was translation by omission with 1.6%. Translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation was not used by Netflix subtitler. In addition, the analysis showed that the translation was target-oriented rather than source-oriented. The study concluded that the subtitling was appropriate and served the target audience.