Style, affect and deflection Translating Camp Talk in AJ and the Queen (2020) from a Situated Queer Perspective

Abstract

This article addresses the challenges of audiovisual translation of camp talk, a register defined by theatricality, stylistic density, and subversive potential. The main objective is to examine how the linguistic and performative features of camp talk are transferred into Peninsular Spanish subtitles in the series AJ and the Queen (2020), focusing both on the strategies and techniques employed and their effects on identity representation. The central hypothesis is that translational decisions are not merely technical but actively reproduce—or neutralise—the queer expressivity of the original, with significant political and cultural implications. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative approach based on case study research (Yin, 2018; Coller, 2005), applied to a purposive selection of episodes (1, 6 and 10). The corpus is segmented and categorised into six translational procedures: the strategies of foreignization and domestication, and the techniques of omission, compensation, creative adaptation, and stylistic neutralisation. Analysis follows multimodal criteria that combine verbal, visual, and performative elements to capture the complexity of camp discourse. The findings reveal a recurring tendency towards omission and neutralisation, leading to a loss of performative density, while also identifying cases of compensation and adaptation that indirectly recover the affected tone and the discursive agency of the characters. The article concludes that translating camp talk is not merely a technical operation but also an ethical and political challenge, since the visibility of queer identities is at stake in these translational shifts. Ultimately, the study advocates for a critical and situated perspective that foregrounds queer performativity as a central dimension of audiovisual translation.