Sex, lies and homilies. Sorrentino’s controversial representation of the ecclesiastic world in The Young Pope and The New Pope: a linguistic and translational analysis

This paper intends to provide a contribution to the research field on the translation of taboo language, in particular in the area of audiovisual translation (AVT) in Italy. It intends to analyze the use of taboo language in two recent TV series, namely The Young Pope (2016) and The New Pope (2020), and its translation in their Italian dubbed versions. The aim is to ascertain whether the tendency to purge the target text observed in the case of older productions can be confirmed, or, on the contrary, it is possible to corroborate the results related to the change in attitude observed in more recent years in Italian dubbing. Finally, the paper will also present the results of a study on the perception of the use of taboo language used in the series, both on a sample of English-speaking viewers who watched them in the original version, and on a sample of Italian viewers who watched them in their Italian dubbed version.