"What’s in a Title?": Analisi della traduzione italiana di titoli di film inglesi in prospettiva diacronica

This pilot study investigates the Italian translation of English-language film titles from a diachronic perspective, focusing on domestication and foreignisation in audiovisual translation. The corpus comprises 110 US films released between 1994 and 2021 and positively received by Italian audiences. Drawing mainly on Pedersen’s taxonomy, the analysis classifies titles into three groups: substantial semantic-situational shift, partial semantic-situational correspondence, and complete retention of the original title. Direct translations are excluded because they raise fewer translational issues. The findings reveal a movement from substitution and other domesticating strategies towards retention, the clearest form of foreignisation, especially in recent films and works by established directors. Earlier Italian versions frequently reshape the source title for commercial purposes, sometimes producing misleading interpretations, weakening literary or cultural references, or introducing romantic, erotic, and transgressive connotations absent from the original. By contrast, more recent titles increasingly preserve English, occasionally adding an Italian subtitle when comprehension may be hindered by idiomatic expressions, cultural references, or lexical opacity. The study highlights the growing prestige of English in the Italian mediascape, while showing that retention does not always guarantee accessibility and that effective title translation requires balancing marketability, cultural intelligibility, semantic equivalence, and the evocative force of the source text.