Under His eye! Translating The Handmaid’s Tale with the support of AV materials
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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-González, 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.
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