Insights into the dubbing process: a genetic analysis of the Spanish dubbed version of Ocean’s Eleven

This paper sets out to investigate the traces left by the agents involved in the dubbing process in an attempt to shed light onto its dynamics. The aim is to foreground the role of the different dubbing professionals in the forging of the final dubbed text that reaches audiences, with an emphasis on the translator and the dialogue writer. This will be done reflecting on the concept of genetic analysis in dubbing and undertaking such an analysis on the Spanish dubbed version of Ocean’s Eleven Scene 12. Three different versions (the translation, the adapted version and the final recorded version) will be analysed and compared to describe their characteristics, identify the types of changes introduced by different agents, and investigate the reasons that might have motivated such shifts. In line with existing studies drawing on genetic analysis, the results indicate that the changes introduced during the different dubbing phases tend towards text reduction and condensation, and are mainly motivated by synchronisation. The analysis has also underscored the collaborative nature of dubbing, which goes beyond collective agency, suggesting that the document provided by translators is indeed preliminary, but not as ‘rough’ as we might be led to believe