Drag Slang in RuPaul’s Drag Race : Strategies and Success of the Japanese Translation

Abstract: This paper presents a study on the translation of slang used by drag queens. The study aims to examine how the slang used by drag queens in RuPaul’s Drag Race season 12 is translated into Japanese. The translation strategies used are revealed and the faithfulness of the translation is discussed. Both the original and translated expressions, jargon and words used by drag queens in RuPaul’s Drag Race season 12 were gathered from the first three episodes. The data was then grouped based on the translation strategy and discussed further regarding the effectiveness of the translation strategy and faithfulness of the translation itself with the help of Nida’s theory of dynamic equivalence. The results show that translation by loan, excluding the omission, was the most used translation strategy, but its success hinges on the familiarity of the target audience. Together with substitution, they were the most successful strategies regarding the faithfulness of the translation and the preservation of the slang. Softening, employed to adapt informal and vulgar expressions, risked losing the original slang, and modulation also less successful in preserving it. Paraphrase and explicitation were less successful in retaining the slang nuances but aligned with Nida’s dynamic equivalence which emphasizes the meaning.