Sleeping with the fishes. Italian Americans in Animation

The use of accents and language variation in films is a long established practice that manipulates language as a tool in the construction of characters, so as to convey specific characteristics. This is even more evident in animated films, where language is used as a quick way to build character and reaffirm stereotype. Shark Tale is an animated comedy produced in 2004 by DreamWorks Animation. The characters of the film speak different variations of American English, which are used to attribute different features to them. This paper will focus on a group of characters who present a series of elements (both on a narrative and a linguistic level) that makes it easy to identify them as Italian American Mafiosi, and on the strategies used in Italian dubbing.