ISSN: 1579-9794
Hikma 24 (Special Issue) (2025), 1 - 20
Under His Eye! Translating The Handmaid’s Tale with the
Support of AV Materials
¡Con su mirada! Traduciendo El cuento de la criada con
ayuda de materiales AV
MAZAL OAKNÍN
mazaliya@hotmail.com
University College London
Fecha de recepción: 8/2/2024
Fecha de aceptación: 23/4/2025
Abstract: This paper aims to develop students' linguistic and plurilingual
abilities by utilizing The Handmaid's Tale, a transmedia text that blends fiction
and political reality, and that has been adapted into various media formats,
including series. The translation exercises are task-based and practical,
adhering to the CEFR (Council of Europe, 2001) and its Companion Volume
(2018), thereby fostering communicative competence and intercultural
awareness. As a result, a passage from the book is to be translated by
students. Supplementary materials include the corresponding scene from the
Hulu series and TV news segments featuring actual handmaid-style protests,
which provide authentic and multimodal input. While female subversion is
primarily expressed through language in the novel, cinematography plays a
significant role in the series as it highlights female defiance and champions
inclusivity. Drawing from Martínez-Sierra’s (2006) study, this AV support in the
form of costumes, casting, and acting (Hurley-Powell, 2020) allows learners
to gain a deeper grasp of the text, reflect on the main translation challenges,
attempt more creative practices (Pérez-Gonzlez, 2014a, and 2014b; O’
Sullivan and Cornu, 2018), and embrace diversity in both linguistic and cultural
dimensions. Likewise, the news clips foreground the series’ social relevance
and prompt students to tailor their translations to the readers’ expectations
and to the sociopolitical context.
Keywords: Transmedia, Translation, AV support, Feminism, Plurilingual skills
Resumen: Este artículo pretende desarrollar las capacidades lingüísticas y
plurilingües de los estudiantes aprovechando el valor que representa El
cuento de la criada como texto transmedia, que combina ficción y realidad
política, y que se ha adaptado a una amplia gama de medios de
comunicación, en particular series. Para ello se proponen una serie de
ejercicios prácticos de traducción siguiendo un enfoque basado en tareas,
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que buscan desarrollar las habilidades lingüísticas y plurilingües de los
estudiantes, en consonancia con el MCER (Consejo de Europa, 2001) y su
volumen complementario (2018), y fomentando así la competencia
comunicativa y la conciencia intercultural. Como resultado, los estudiantes
deben traducir un pasaje de la novela ayudándose del material
complementario de la escena correspondiente de la serie de Hulu, así como
de los clips de noticias televisivas que muestran protestas reales con
manifestantes disfrazados de criadas, lo que proporciona aportes auténticos
y multimodales. Mientras que en la novela la subversión femenina se expresa
principalmente a través del lenguaje, en la serie la cinematografía desempeña
un papel significativo al resaltar la resistencia femenina y promover la
inclusión. Basándose en el estudio de Martínez-Sierra (2006), este apoyo
audiovisual en forma de vestuario, elenco y actuación (Hurley-Powell, 2020)
permite a los estudiantes obtener una comprensión más profunda del texto,
reflexionar sobre los principales retos de traducción, realizar prácticas más
creativas (Pérez-Gonzlez, 2014a y 2014b; O’Sullivan y Cornu, 2018) y
abrazar la diversidad tanto en lo lingüístico como en lo cultural. Asimismo, los
fragmentos de noticias subrayan la relevancia social de la serie y motivan a
los estudiantes a adaptar sus traducciones a las expectativas de los lectores
y al contexto sociopolítico.
Palabras clave: Transmedia, Traducción, Apoyo AV, Feminismo, Destrezas
plurilingües
INTRODUCTION
The starting point of this article is Andrade-Velásquez and Fonseca-
Mora (2021) recommendation to apply transmedia narratives as an innovative
methodological technique in the educational context for the development of
the linguistic competences of a foreign language. Besides providing students
with the necessary tools to carry out successful translations, a well-rounded
translator training should also involve the development of professional and
personal abilities in the form of soft skills such as leadership, creativity, critical
analysis, autonomy, and cooperation (Sánchez-Vizcaíno & Fonseca-Mora,
2020). The suggestion made by Andrade-Velásquez and Fonseca-Mora
(2021) to use transmedia narratives as a novel methodological approach in
the educational setting for the development of foreign language proficiency
serves as the foundation for this article’s discussion of the pedagogical uses
of AV literary adaptations, in particular Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel
The Handmaid's Tale (1985), which has been serialised on Hulu. While
feminist themes such as the loss of women's reproductive rights, the
suppression of female agency and subjectivity in a patriarchal society, and
female resistance and solidarity were always present in the story, handmaid
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costumes were worn by protesters across several nations as a symbol of their
rejection of gender discrimination, and the violation of women's civil and
reproductive rights after the overwhelming success of the Hulu series. As this
approach takes on an ever-important role in university curricula, Andrade-
Velásquez and Fonseca-Mora (2021) defend that integrating transmedia
storytelling provides teachers with the opportunity to encourage our students
to carry out more creative activities through cooperation, teamwork, and
collaborative intelligence. To this, I shall add to the discussion that by working
with well-chosen transmedia materials, educators can also incorporate
equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) values into translation lessons. Thus,
to discuss the pedagogical applications of AV literary adaptations, I present a
pedagogical proposal based on Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The
Handmaid’s Tale (1985), and its immense popularity after Hulu serialisation.
My proposal is aimed at my module SPAN0034 Translation into
Spanish, a mandatory component of the BA Spanish and Latin American
Studies, which I teach at University College London’s Department of Spanish,
Portuguese, and Latin American Studies. This is an advanced Spanish
language module designed for finalists, consolidating level C1, and exploring
level C2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages
(CEFR). After a description of the module’s pedagogical aims and an
explanation of how its particular student composition allows for the fostering
of intercultural and plurilingual skills through the use of mediation, the choice
of The Handmaid’s Tale as a source text will be justified. Specifically, the
novel’s treatment of a series of feminist concerns that are still very prevalent
in the 21st century allows us to adopt a feminist approach towards translation
as a means of challenging different types of discrimination. In this sense, the
activity also provides students with the opportunity to familiarise themselves
with feminist literary translation history and with some possible strategies to
challenge patriarchal biases and traditional translation norms and include and
celebrate women's voices and experiences in literary and social spaces.
Feminist literary translation redefines translation as a political and ideological
act, rather than a neutral transfer of meaning. Rejecting traditional ideals of
fidelity and invisibility, feminist translators champion the active intervention in
texts to expose and challenge patriarchal language and structures. Influenced
by scholars like Luise von Flotow and Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood, and
shaped by the Canadian School of the 1980s, feminist literary translation uses
strategies such as footnotes, prefaces, and reinterpretations to foreground
gender and amplify silenced voices (von Flotow, 1991; de Lotbinière-
Harwood, 1991). In literary studies, the field of gynocritics recovers and
studies women’s writing, whilst feminist translation goes further by
transforming how texts are read and circulated, and scholars like Castro and
Ergun (2018) champion transnational and intersectional feminist engagement.
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Ultimately, feminist translation recovers space for women and marginalized
identities, asserting difference and disrupting dominant literary norms.
Additionally, given our students’ mastery of digital media, the different
transmedia adaptations of The Handmaid’s Tale equip them with the
necessary autonomy and creativity to produce a translation tailored to their
readers’ expectations. Drawing on Carreres, Noriega-Sánchez, and Calduch’s
(2018) guide to pre-translation textual analysis, students are presented with a
preparatory exercise to be carried out in groups. Through mediating with their
peers, students not only decide the most appropriate translation strategies but
also foster complex communicative skills. Lastly, the choice of text also
responds to an intention, embedding EDI values into translation lessons in
order to provide minority students with visions of possibility and strengthen
their sense of belonging.
1. TRANSLATING AN EXCERPT FROM THE HANDMAID’S TALE WITH AV MATERIALS
1.1. A pedagogical proposal: module objectives and student composition
SPAN0034 Advanced Translation into Spanish is a compulsory
English-to-Spanish translation course of the SPAN0034 Spanish Language III
module, an undergraduate course offered at UCL’s Department of Spanish,
Portuguese, and Latin American Studies (SPLAS), part of the School of
European Languages, Cultures, and Societies (SELCS) (UCL, 2025).
Typically, the BA Spanish and Latin American Studies includes a Year
Abroad, just as this is the case with the rest of the four-year language degree
programmes offered by UCL. SPAN0034 students will have spent this third
year in a Spanish-speaking country, and this experience should have
benefitted their linguistic and cultural understanding. For those students who
combine Spanish with another language, the year abroad is divided between
two different countries.
SPAN0034 Advanced Translation into Spanish is designed for finalists,
and it is taught entirely in Spanish. It is an advanced-level Spanish language
module that corresponds to levels C1-C2 of the Common European
Framework of Reference for Languages (UCL, 2025). The module’s key
pedagogical aims are:
• to develop students’ linguistic and translation skills (from
English into Spanish);
• to introduce students to a variety of textual types and
conventions (literary texts, film reviews, medical texts, and
consumer-oriented texts) and to allow them to work with
different linguistic registers and varieties;
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• to promote collaborative learning and teamwork;
• to train students to use reliable sources and to fine-tune their
dictionary and documentation skills; and
• to develop students' interlinguistic and intercultural abilities
(chiefly mediation) through the understanding of translation as
a valuable communicative skill.
Although in autumn 2023, the whole SPAN0034 cohort is composed of
70 students, language components are taught in smaller seminar groups
formed by ten students on average. According to UCL Student Registry
Services, in the academic year 2023/2024 the percentage of international
students in the university was 53% (University College London [UCL], n.d.).
This means that often, for more than half the students in a seminar group,
English is not a mother tongue. In fact, students often speak English as a
second or third language. In these plurilingual environments, students
possess different degrees of fluency, comprehension, cultural awareness, and
political knowledge. The use of mediation as a tool to understand students’
different perspectives and to bridge potential cultural, epistemological or
linguistic gaps cannot be underestimated in the translation class, and indeed
mediation has been key when preparing the ground for the translation of an
excerpt of The Handmaid’s Tale in this pedagogical proposal.
1.2. The Handmaid’s Tale: Transmedia storytelling bridging fiction and
political reality
The Handmaid’s Tale, published in 1985, is a highly acclaimed novel
that has received numerous awards, including the Governor General's Award,
the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Booker Prize and the Prometheus Award. In
this dystopian novel, the United States of America have fallen under attack
from the Sons of Jacob, a rebellious group of troops, who kill the president
and Congress members to establish a new country named Gilead. Gilead is a
totalitarian, theocratic, brutal dictatorship set against the backdrop of highly
toxic, polluted environments and dangerously low reproduction rates. In this
world devoid of human rights, women are under brutal oppression and
separated into groups –Handmaids, Marthas, Aunts, and Unwomen. Marthas
are servants whose mission in life is to provide domestic service for
Commanders and their families. Unwomen are barren, sinful women who
have been banished to the highly polluted Colonies, where they are made to
clean lethal, toxic waste. Handmaids are fertile women who, given hopelessly
low reproduction rates, are kidnapped and made to bear children for
Commanders and their wives. They hence lack basic reproductive rights.
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Aunts are responsible for training Handmaids, as well as for harshly punishing
them whenever they disobey.
The story is narrated by Offred, whose every move is watched by the
Eyes, Gilead’s secret police. As is the case with all women, Offred’s freedom
is completely restricted. She lives as a Handmaid in the house of Commander
Fred Waterford and his wife, Serena Joy. Before Gilead, Offred was married
to Luke and they had a daughter, Hannah. Following a failed attempt to flee
across the border into Canada, the family was caught, and Hannah was
kidnapped and given to a Commander. Offred has not seen Luke or Hannah
since. In her narration, Offred alternates between recounting her daily life and
offering flashbacks of her happy previous life, including memories of strong
women such as her feminist activist mother Holly, and her assertive and
independent best friend, Moira.
Not only has this plot been narrated in the original novel, but The
Handmaid’s Tale has been turned into different media such as an opera –
which premiered in 2000 in Copenhagen and whose popularity was such that
it was attended by the Queen of Denmark monthly –; a film that was launched
in 1990 and, most recently, a Hulu series that was launched in 2017. This
series enjoys immense international success, as well as critical praise, and it
is now in its fifth season. Indeed, The Handmaid’s Tale fits in perfectly with
Scolari’s (2013) definition of transmedia storytelling as “a particular narrative
form that expands across different systems of meaning (verbal, iconic, audio-
visual, interactive, etc.) and media (cinema, comics, television, video games,
theatre, etc.)” (p. 20).
Buyse and Fonseca-Mora (2017) highlight that the use of digital media
can have a positive impact on our students’ independent learning, both inside
and outside the modern language classroom and given the particular
plurilingual make-up of the SPAN0034 Advanced Translation into Spanish
groups and the need to mediate in groups in order to carry out a well-rounded
pre-translation analysis, my proposal uses materials from different media to
help students translate an excerpt from the novel. In particular, they are shown
a clip from the series with the corresponding scene and TV news clips focusing
on real-life, handmaid-style protests. By capitalising on their speaking,
listening, reading, and writing skills, students work collaboratively in a learning
space that comprehends different media as well as different types of language
(Andrade-Velásquez & Fonseca-Mora, 2017, p. 162).
2. DECIDING TRANSLATION STRATEGIES THROUGH MEDIATION
Students are divided into small groups and asked to translate an
excerpt from the novel. Students are first prompted to comment on the Source
Text (ST), which depicts a conversation between Offred and Moira, her best
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friend, who was also kidnapped and enslaved as a Handmaid. The lecturer,
helped by those students who are familiar with the plot, explains to the class
that Moria functions as a copying mechanism in Offred’s life. Not only does
their friendship represent a kind of female solidarity that is forbidden in Gilead,
but Offred looks up to her. Indeed, Moira is brave, sassy, and rebellious, and
even succeeded in escaping the Red Centre by dressing up as an Aunt.
Unfortunately, she was later recaptured, and the scene in the ST happens
when Offred finds her in Jezebel’s. In Gilead, Jezebel’s is a state-sponsored
brothel where Offred’s Commander takes her in an attempt to seduce her
away from his wife. Offred learns that after being recaptured, Moira chooses
to be sent to Jezebel’s, her spirit having been broken by the regime, and
figuring out it is better than ending up in the highly toxic, polluted Colonies, the
other alternative. The excerpt used is as follows:
So after that, they said I was too dangerous to be allowed the
privilege of returning to the Red Center. They said I would be a
corrupting influence. I had my choice, they said, this or the Colonies.
Well, shit, nobody but a nun would pick the Colonies. I mean, I'm not
a martyr. If I'd had my tubes tied years ago, I wouldn't even have
needed the operation. Nobody in here with viable ovaries either, you
can see what kind of problems it would cause.
“So here I am. They even give you face cream. You should figure
out some way of getting in here. You'd have three or four good years
before your snatch wears out and they send you to the boneyard.
The food's not bad and there's drink and drugs, if you want it, and
we only work nights.”
“Moira,” I say. “You don't mean that.” She is frightening me now,
because what I hear in her voice is indifference, a lack of volition.
Have they really done it to her then, taken away something — what?
— that used to be so central to her? And how can I expect her to go
on, with my idea of her courage, live it through, act it out, when I
myself do not?
I don't want her to be like me. Give in, go along, save her skin. That
is what it comes down to. I want gallantry from her, swashbuckling,
heroism, single-handed combat. Something I lack.
“Don't worry about me,” she says. She must know some of what I'm
thinking. “I'm still here, you can see it's me. Anyway, look at it this
way: it's not so bad, there's lots of women around. Butch paradise,
you might call it.”
Now she's teasing, showing some energy, and I feel better. “Do they
let you?” I say.
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“Let, hell, they encourage it. Know what they call this place among
themselves? Jezebel's. The Aunts figure we're all damned anyway,
they've given up on us, so it doesn't matter what sort of vice we get
up to, and the Commanders don't give a piss what we do in our off
time. Anyway, women on women sort of turns them on.”
“What about the others?” I say.
“Put it this way,” she says, "they're not too fond of men.” She shrugs
again. It might be resignation. (Atwood, 1985, p. 261)
Scolari (2013, p. 20) highlights the potential that transmedia storytelling
has to expand across different systems of meaning and media. This is, as we
have seen, certainly the case of The Handmaid’s Tale and in this sense, in
the translation classroom, the story is told via different codes and in different
spaces: the ST (novel), a clip from the series, and TV news featuring different
handmaid-style protests in different countries. These particular codes are put
at our students’ disposal because they pave the way for a series of aims:
• To fine‑tune students’ translation skills, since the ST’s use of
idioms, colloquialisms, and combination of inner thoughts and
dialogue makes it particularly useful for advanced students.
• To expand students’ experiences and knowledge beyond
literature in Spanish, as they are working on a source text
written by a world-renowned Canadian author, as well as
exploring the topic of transmedia storytelling.
• To bridge knowledge gaps, since those students more familiar
with the novel or series are able to fill in their peers, especially
when encountering references to The Handmaid’s Tale
institutions.
• To foster plurilingual and pluricultural competences through the
use of mediation, given that this mode of communication levels
the field between students with different fluency in Spanish and
with different mother tongues.
• To promote EDI values and raise their awareness of difference
and diversity, as students discuss the blatant examples of
gender-based discrimination and violence in the novel, and
they are introduced to the character of Moira.
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2.1. Different codes, same feminist message: merchandising, protests,
and series
In the translation classroom, the story is told via different codes and in
different spaces. Even before providing students with the corresponding
scene from the series and with TV news clips focusing on real-life, handmaid-
style protests, most of them are already be familiar with an additional space:
the profusion of The Handmaid’s Tale merchandise. According to Santo
(2019), “retail is a site of struggle among retailers and brand owners over how
brand stories are told” (p. 115). In a myriad of items such as T-shirts, mugs or
cushions, the image of the handmaid in her white bonnet and red cloak is used
to promote feminist messages, champion female solidarity, and encourage
resistance. Indeed, a search of “The Handmaid’s Tale merchandise” on
Amazon revealed 297 products featuring well-known feminist slogans from
the novel and the series, including “Praise be bitch” mugs, “Blessed be the
fruit” T-shirts, “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum” art prints and “They never
should have given us uniforms if they didn’t want us to be an army” hoodies).
On Etsy, the words “Handmaid Tale” produced more than 1000 results,
including badges, cushions, mugs, bookmarks, and dolls. The success of
these products also highlights another key facet of transmedia narrative –
besides their narrative expansion, transmedia narratives are built on a culture
of participation (Scolari, 2013, p. 5). Hence, by engaging with these messages
and, in many cases, purchasing these products, our students are also playing
an active role in the expansion of the narrative.
Furthermore, whilst feminist themes such as the suppression of female
agency and subjectivity in a patriarchal society, loss of women’s reproductive
rights, female resistance and solidarity were always prevalent in the story,
following the great success of the Hulu series, handmaid’s costumes were
donned by protesters in various countries as a symbol of their rejection of
gender discrimination and the infringement of reproductive and civil rights. It
must be pointed out that the tactic of donning costumes had already been
used by protesters –for example, in 2013, demonstrators in favour of women’s
suffrage dressed up as Columbia, the female national personification of the
United States of America. Likewise, it must be noted that it has also been co-
opted by conservative movements, as was seen in the costumes from
Revolutionary War-era personalities worn by members of the Tea Party in
2009 and 2010. However, in the case of the handmaid-style protests, Liptak
(2017) avows that the given their symbolic weight, red cloaks have proven to
contribute to empowering women to protest. To this, I would add that the
handmaid costume appears to offer practical benefits of its own. Whilst the
white bonnet’s wings can help to keep protesters’ identities hidden, the
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homogeneity of the red costumes, which is also worn by male allies, allows
the group of demonstrators to portray an image of unity.
In the translation class, following the first reading of the ST, students
are shown four images of handmaid’s style protests in four different countries
that took place between 2020 and 2023: Israel, Argentina, France, and the
USA. The lecturer explains that, inspired by a promotional event made by Hulu
just before launching the TV show in 2016, multiple feminist demonstrations
have introduced the portrayal of Handmaids. They are also asked to watch a
short, illustrative clip (CBC News, 2022).
Students are prompted to comment on how in this 2020 news,
references to the series’ plot are intertwined with the news of abortion rights
being curtailed in several USA states, so even the news presenter is
capitalising on The Handmaid’s Tale’s icons to establish a link between fiction
and political reality. In this sense, Carrola (2021), speaking of the USA, also
remarked upon the signature of the red cloaks and white bonnets, which have
served as a silent symbol for the resistance of many women, who see parallels
between the conditions in the fictional Republic of Gilead and the United
States. The subsequent preliminary discussion highlights that although The
Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian work of fiction, in today’s world, women’s
rights movements continue to work towards the eradication of some of the
predominant problems in the novel. These disproportionately affect women
and girls and include violations against fundamental rights such as domestic
and sexual violence, lack of access to education, and reproductive freedom.
Indeed, recent digital movements such as the #MeToo campaign continue to
bring to the forefront and denounce the prevalence of gender-based domestic
and sexual violence. According to global figures, 27% of women aged 15-49
have experienced physical and/or sexual violence from their partner. These
figures also estimate that these violent patterns start early, with 24% of girls
and young women aged 15-19 and 26% of women aged 19-24 having suffered
violence at least once since the age of 15 (Sardinha et al., 2022). As
universities discuss ways to take their commitment to EDI further, the
European Expert Group on Sexuality Education (2016) has recommended
that gender-based violence be prevented through a sexuality education. This
also comprehends teaching about the emotional, social, and cultural factors
of healthy human relationships (UNESCO, 2018).
The ST above, images and TV news, as well as the subsequent
preliminary discussion, allow us to take the necessary steps to equip our
students with the tools to strengthen the prevention of gender-based violence.
From the point of view of the content, not only does the excerpt provide
students with the chance to identify unhealthy relationships and examples of
abuse, but it also promotes empathy and challenges stereotypes since the
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different personalities of Offred and Moira –both victims of gender-based
violence– can be appreciated in the text. However, in order to produce an
optimal translation of the ST students have to tackle different translation
challenges, and the use of the corresponding scene from the series as well as
the use of mediation are key.
At this stage, the corresponding scene from the Hulu series (The
Handmaid's Tale Brasil, 2017) is shown to students, as it proves a useful tool
to supplement their understanding of the ST and produce a Target Text (TT)
that is tailored to their readers’ expectations. My own transcription of the scene
is shown below:
Moira: Oh. G-d awful. You look like the whore of Babylon.
June: Well, isn’t that the point?
Moira: Take a hike.
June: Did you pick this out?
Moira: Government issue. Why? Isn’t it me?
June: Are you OK?
Moira: Yeah, I’m great. What about you? How’s Waterford?
June: Forget him. I don’t … I just want to hear about you. Tell me
everything.
Moira: I took the train into Boston. Like we planned. I remembered a
safe house. A Quaker family. They about lost their shit when they
saw an Aunt at the front door. I got lucky. They knew someone in
the Underground.
June: What’s the Underground?
Moira: Femaleroad. Cute, right? They’re smuggling out handmaids
out of the country. Trying to, anyway. I didn’t get that far. Office park,
outside the city. They shot the guys who helped me.
June: What happened?
Moira: Never found out. Not that it matters anyway.
June: God, Aunt Lydia must’ve…she must’ve shit a brick when you
got back to the Red Centre.
Moira: They didn’t take me back. I was a corrupting influence. They
took me somewhere else. After they finished their questions, they
gave me a choice: the colonies or Jezebel’s. It’s a few good years
before your pussy wears out. All the booze and drugs you want.
Food’s good. We only work nights. I mean, it’s not so bad.
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J: We’re going to find a way to get you out of here.
Drawing from Martínez-Sierra’s(2006) study, this clip offers our
students AV support in the form of costumes, casting, and acting (Hurley-
Powell, 2020), which allows them to gain a more profound understanding of
the ST, attempt more creative practices when making translating decisions
(Pérez-Gonzlez, 2014a and 2014b; O’ Sullivan & Cornu, 2018) and
appreciate diversity, especially via the character of Moira.
Martínez-Sierra (2006, p. 294) finds that rather than restricting
translators, visual components often contribute to a better understanding of
target texts. In the scene, Commander Waterford has clandestinely taken
Offred to Jezebel’s, a state-sponsored brothel where the Commanders mingle
with prostitutes. However, whereas the ST makes no mention of the clothes
worn by the protagonists, the scene does. Indeed, in the series, this is the first
time in which, once a Handmaid, Offred is made to wear something other than
her red uniform, and it is striking for viewers to see her in that provocative
dress. In Jezebel’s Offred sees Moira working there. Moira wears an ill-fitting
Playboy bunny costume. They pretend not to recognize one another, but then
Moira gives Offred a signal to meet her in a private room. The dimmed lights,
the high number of sex workers and beds, and the harem-style décor further
highlight the sordidness of the place.
Between hushes, Offred learns what has happened to Moira and is
disappointed to hear the fatalism in her voice. The scene provides important
information in the form of paralinguistic features (Martínez-Sierra, 2006,
p. 294), which comprise the non-verbal qualities of a voice, such as intonation,
rhythm, tone, timbre, or resonance, among others. These, in turn, are
associated with expressions of emotions such as screams, sighs, or laughter
(Chaume, 2003, p. 222). Offred is taken aback by the passivity in Moira’s
voice and misses the old Moira who was so sassy, rebellious, and full of life.
Whilst in the ST the main emotion shown by Moira is indifference, her voice is
richer in the clip, where irony, sarcasm, and defiance can also be appreciated,
giving a more rounded idea of who the character really is. Narrative silence
(Poyatos, 1994) is in this sense key, as in the scene it is mainly through the
pauses Moira takes when the events to narrate to Offred are too painful that
her sense of defeat and fear are exposed. This narrative silence is
accompanied by the complicit stares of the two protagonists, which give an
idea of how strong their friendship is and how big their tribulations are.
Hurley-Powell (2020, p. 91) remarks that in the novel, the narration of
the hostile and violent reality of Gilead takes place through Offred’s simple
observations. However, in the excerpt to be translated by our students, it is
not always easy to distinguish between the dialogue between Moira and
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Offred and Offred’s inner thoughts. The series scene facilitates this distinction
by visually showing when each character speaks and offers additional AV
support in the form of kinetics. Indeed, Moira’s initial hand movements and
her leaning back emphasise her sense of humour in the face of tragedy, but
these movements later give way to a position of holding her knees with her
face down when retelling the most painful moments of her story. Offred’s
stares are intense and painful, and she can’t help to shake her head faintly
but repeatedly as she experiences the mix of disappointment, sadness, and
expectation shown in the ST. Furthermore, the manner in which the lines said
by each character are reformulated can help our students overcome the
lexical challenges posed by the ST (chiefly, idioms and colloquialisms that will
be listed in the next epigraph).
Finally, from an EDI perspective, whilst the ST does not make reference
to the protagonists’ appearances, the scene from the series show that Moira
is a Black woman with short, black hair who is a lesbian (played by Samira
Wiley) and Offred is a white woman with long, blonde hair who is straight
(played by Elisabeth Moss). Moira, although clearly defeated at present,
possesses irony, rebellion, boldness. Offred speaks in shushes and more
modestly. The scene sends another, fundamental message to our students:
despite their differences in terms of race, sexuality, and personality, both
women are victims of domestic and sexual violence. In particular, the inclusion
of the character of Moira provides our students –especially those belonging to
ethnic minorities and the LGBTQI+ community– with the opportunity to be
mirrored in the public sphere of the screen and, through our students’
imagination, the ST.
Although the eradication of domestic violence is prominent in traditional
feminist agendas and affects the lives of all women, regardless of their origin,
their race, their culture, their religion, their sexuality or their social class, not
all survivors have the same access to support or recognition. Indeed,
stereotypes can create obstacles to assistance, making some groups more
likely to suffer from domestic violence (Simpson & Helfrich, 2014). Human
Rights Campaign figures indicate that 44% of lesbian women experience
intimate partner violence, compared to 35% of heterosexual women.
Moreover, within the former groups, LGBTQI+ Black victims are more likely to
suffer physical intimate partner violence. Due to the fact that the majority of
the gender-based violence awareness movement has centred around
heterosexual women, the inclusion of a Black, LGBTQI+ character like Moira,
who is a survivor of gender-based violence, seems particularly significant.
Indeed, through the incorporation of this scene from the series as AV support
for our students to translate the ST, not only can students grasp a better
understanding of the source material and develop essential linguistic skills
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such as listening comprehension, pragmatic competence, but they can also
foster key social-emotional skills such as inclusivity, empathy, and integrity
while raising awareness about gender-based violence and preventing it
through the learning of healthy relationships.
2.2. Fine-tuning close reading skills and fostering soft skills through
mediation
Following the first reading of the ST and general discussion about the
links between the literary work as fiction and its political significance, students
are prompted to carry out a pre-translation textual analysis. In particular,
students are prompted to deepen their understanding of the ST and identify
the chief translation challenges that are posed by the specific excerpt from the
novel. This informs their decisions as translators and equips them with the
tools to better define their translation strategy. Based on the exhaustive list of
questions put forward by Carreres, Noriega-Sánchez and Calduch (2018,
pp. 24-25) in Mundos en palabras. Learning Advanced Spanish Through
Translation, the table below summarises the main issues and related
questions to be discussed by students in their groups:
Subject, author and context
Textual structure and cohesion
Grammar and vocabulary
Stylistic elements
• Who is the author and what is their
aim?
• What is the overall message or
theme of the text? Is there a feminist
message?
• What is the textual typology?
• What is the intended readership?
• Are there any extralinguistic
references?
• How is the text structured?
• What are the linking words and
cohesive devices used?
• What is the lexical repertoire? Are
there any technical terms?
• What kind of grammar and syntactic
structures appear in the text?
• Are there any idiomatic expressions
or colloquialisms?
• What is the language variety used in
the text?
• Does the text use a single register?
• Are there any figures of speech?
Table 1. Questions to be discussed in groups
Source. Elaborated by the author
Here, the emphasis is put on both translation as communication and as
learning and collaboration, and the table’s discussion-based approach aims
to fine-tune students’ translation skills, to improve their command of Spanish,
and to introduce them to feminist translation history and strategies. Also, by
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capitalising on the plot’s feminist message, and through the use of mediation
(Trovato, 2016; North & Piccardo, 2017), my approach focuses on the
development of their interlinguistic and plurilingual abilities and promotes EDI
values. As Andrade-Velásquez and Fonseca-Mora (2021, p. 162) propose
Transmedia storytelling as a didactic strategy for language teaching should
not be limited to the adaptation of one code to another (in our case, from the
source text to the series clip), but rather it should propel students to learn in a
narrative world that encompasses different media as well as the
understanding of different types of language. In this way “the story expands,
new characters or situations appear that cross the borders of the fictional
universe” (Scolari, 2013, p. 15). Andrade-Velásquez and Fonseca-Mora
(2021, p. 162) posit that working with transmedia narratives should be a
learning experience that stimulates students by prompting them to putting to
use their oral, listening, reading and written skills; however, I will add that
besides fostering the traditional four skills, learning with transmedia narratives
also has the potential to develop students’ mediation skills.
Capitalising on their different levels of fluency, different nationalities,
and different mother tongues, students are divided into heterogeneous groups
of about 4 students. Each student should work with their groupmates to
provide answers to the pre-translation questions in the table above, as these
issues equips them with the necessary tools to carry out a successful
translation. Given that the ST poses lexical challenges (colloquialisms such
as swashbuckling, damned, off time, don’t give a piss) and idioms (figure out,
act it out, live it through, give in, go along, save her skin), epistemological
challenges (Gilead institutions such as the Red Centre, the Colonies,
Jezebel’s) and structural challenges (combination of dialogue and inner
thoughts), it can be anticipated that not all students are able to answer all
questions correctly or completely.
The groups have to use mediation with the aim of preparing satisfactory
answers to the pre-translation questions. Highlighting the need to incorporate
mediation into Spanish as a foreign language syllabus, and emphasising the
link between translation and mediation, Trovato (2016) avows that mediation
is the result of merging two skills: communicative and translative
competences. Thus, in this exercise, to improve their translative competence,
each group needs to navigate their members’ differing levels of Spanish
grammar, knowledge of American varieties of English, awareness of different
registers, familiarity with the novel and the series, and knowledge of feminist
struggles around the world. This negotiation, in turn, boosts their
communicative competence as they are prompted to practice complex
communicative skills in the context of the language classroom. In order to
bridge the linguistic, cultural and epistemological gaps, the communicative
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skills they use are not only the traditional language skills –reading, writing,
listening and speaking. Indeed, the exercise also involves more complex skills
such as reformulating ideas, condensing information, providing definitions,
explaining extralinguistic and cultural references, shifting registers, etc.
Sánchez‑Vizcaíno and Fonseca-Mora (2020) avow that working with
transmedia narratives can boost our students’ soft skills such as leadership,
creativity, critical analysis, autonomy, and cooperation, and indeed, the
importance of these soft skills cannot be underestimated, for much of our
language students’ future work will involve interpersonal interaction. Indeed,
interaction is a crucial skill and one for which our language lessons should
provide activities aimed at its development. After the lesson, students shared
informal feedback, expressing how positive, enriching, and eye-opening they
found the session. They highlighted the introduction to feminist translation and
appreciated the opportunity to consider different strategies and explore
ideological and linguistic choices in depth. Many noted that the session
deepened their understanding of translation as a political act and inspired
them to reflect critically on their own practice as translators.
CONCLUSIONS
This article has presented a didactic proposal based on the translation
of an excerpt from The Handmaid’s Tale. Besides pursuing the aims of fine-
tuning students’ translation skills, developing close textual analysis, and
fostering mediation as a mode of communication, the proposal also seeks to
promote EDI values. Given that The Handmaid’s Tale is a transmedia
narrative text that over the year has been narrated in different media and
different codes, I have followed Andrade-Velásquez and Fonseca-Mora
(2021) recommendation to apply transmedia narratives as an innovative
methodological technique in the educational context for the development of
the linguistic competences of a foreign language. In particular, the students of
SPAN0034 Translation into Spanish, a final-year mandatory translation
course which is part of University College London’s BA Spanish and Latin
American Studies, worked with the following additional AV materials: a news
clip about a 2020 handmaid-style protest in the United States and the
corresponding scene from the Hulu series.
The news clip highlighted the ways in which the story bridges fiction and
political reality and foregrounds the relevance of the main feminist
preoccupations in the novel –suppression of female agency, gender-based
violence, loss of women’s reproductive rights– and helped students grasp the
importance of this context in the excerpt to be translated.
Whilst in the novel, female subversion is principally conveyed through
language, in the series, cinematography is a key vehicle to portray female
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defiance and champion inclusivity. Sikov (2010) highlights the power that film
and television have to reveal a deeper meaning by visually drawing attention
to a theme or character through cinematography, mise-en-scène, visual
elements, paralinguistic elements, costumes, or kinetics. In this sense, the
corresponding scene from the series provided students with the necessary
tools to overcome the main lexical, structural, and epistemological challenges
by allowing them to better grasp the nuances in the ST and attempt more
creative practices. An additional benefit was the cast of actress Samira Wiley
as Moira, which allowed our students to have a wider, more equal
understanding of gender-based domestic and sexual violence and to be
introduced to a more diverse, inclusive range of literary and film characters.
The proposal concluded with a pre-translation exercise in which
students were divided into small, heterogeneous groups. Based on the
exhaustive list of questions put forward in Mundos en palabras. Learning
Advanced Spanish Through Translation (Carreres, Noriega-Sánchez and
Calduch, 2018, pp. 24 – 25), students are presented with a series of questions
that summarise the main challenges they encounter when translating the ST.
Through mediation, each group not only worked towards a better
understanding of the excerpt and an agreement on the best translating
strategies, but they also fine-tuned their soft skills.
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