Gangster voices in translation. Chicano English and Italian dubbing in the movie Blood in Blood Out (1993)

This study is an investigation on the role of Chicanos in gangster movies, the main purpose being a linguistic and translational product-based analysis of the dubbing of Chicano English into Italian. The observation of the translational procedures adopted might shed some light on the potential imagerelated implications of specific linguistic choices. The research results suggest that the original as well as the dubbed version of a movie starring Chicano gangsters might tend to establish links between ethno-linguistic identity and inclination to criminal behaviours, although in different ways and to different extents. The chosen audiovisual text for the analysis is Taylor Hackford’s movie Blood In Blood Out (1993). In particular, the speech patterns of one character will be taken into consideration: the protagonist Miklo, a WASP-looking Chicano who slowly builds his gangster credibility until he becomes the leader of a powerful gang in jail. Because of his looks, he can only use Chicano English to reaffirm his identity. Through the analysis of his speech, it will be possible to highlight how the cinematic gangster image is built first of all through language, and how the translation can retain certain aspects of the original while, at the same time, re-inventing it for a target audience that only knows the Chicano gangster reality through its audiovisual representation.