Multilingualism in translation: Emily in Paris and its French, Italian, and Spanish dubbed versions

This study examines multilingualism and identity construction in the first season of the American French TV series Emily in Paris and its dubbed versions in French, Italian, and Spanish. The story follows Emily, an American girl who moves to Paris for work but does not speak French. Throughout the show, Emily and the people around her navigate their identities through language, often resulting in awkward situations and misunderstandings. The analysis of the original version reveals that the concept of ‘otherness’ conveyed by using a third language, or L3 (primarily French), becomes apparent through foreign accents, code-switching/code-mixing, translation/interpreting offers/requests, and miscommunication incidents/metalinguistic references to the L3. The Italian and Spanish dubbed versions retain this third language, although opting for different strategies. In contrast, the French version blurs the cultural and linguistic divide since the target language and L3 coincide. These different approaches to multilingualism are likely to reflect the differing dubbing traditions in the three countries. The study reveals that the dubbing teams in the three translated versions have probably aimed to strike a balance between making the dubbed version understandable and appealing to their audience without undermining the original show’s multilingualism. However, the text manipulation required by the adaptation to the three languages might lead to different perceptions of the characters across the three versions, an aspect inviting further research.