Ideological Manipulation in Interlingual Subtitling The Japanese-Italian Translation of a nyūhāfu Genderlect in the Movie Close-Knit by Ogigami Naoko

This study focuses on the translation of the genderlect uttered by the transgender protagonist of the Japanese movie Close-Knit directed by Ogigami Naoko (2017) within the context of interlingual subtitling in the Japanese-Italian language pair. According to recent research in the field of AVT, gender translation may disclose important clues about the way identity-related issues are perceived in a source and in a target language. In particular, the rendition of ‘liquid’ genderlects challenges the belief that Japanese society is naturally divided into two sexes/genders and that there are two separate linguistic codes for female and male speakers. By utilizing a constructionist framework that treats gender as a complex and fluid cultural construct, this study intends to stress the importance of disentangling gender norms from dominant heterosexist discourses, and how sociocultural markers of the spoken language need effective transposition in subtitles. Especially, when gender issues emerging from Japanese movies must be translated for non-English speaking target audiences.

Sex difference in language approach based on an essentialist dualism of women and men must be abandoned and replaced with the constructionist view of gender, which treats gender as a complex and fluid cultural construct. In the constructionist framework, gender is not seen as a natural binary categorization or attribute, nor as something we own. Rather it is something we do, perform, and try to accomplish with the help of repeated linguistic practice. (Abe 2010, 5) This viewpoint is in agreement with other related research in the field of Japanese sociolinguistics (Itakura 2015;Lunsing, Maree 2004;Maree 2010;Michiura 2018;Okamoto 2016) which asserts the need to study and analyse the phenomenon of speech in context, in specific language use cases. In fact, it should be noted that when analysing the genderlects of speakers with non-conforming identities, negotiating the linguistic prescriptions -as well as the norms of reference regarding gender and sexuality -will necessarily run into a sense of multiple identity. These contextual/situational pressures on speech often result in creative uses of language. According to Maree (2010), this phenomenon occurs by exploiting the sociolinguistic resources and cultural references available to the speakers. These speakers, as social actors, make certain pragmatic choices that influence not only a personal construction of relationship, but also the construction of their own identity.
Regarding diageneric variation in Japanese, Nakamura (2010; and Hasegawa (2012) state that, since it is possible to manifest one's own gender identity by adapting the available linguistic (and other) resources according to the situation, the speakers, and the mood, it is important to keep the concept of variability in mind when speaking about linguistic practices associated with an individual's biological sex and gender identity. It is also important to consider indexicality when referring to the relation between linguistic expression and the context of utterance. 1 As Okamoto (2016) points out, in Japanese the concept of variable indexicality in linguistic gender markers is easily noted since elements that are typically marked as solely masculine or feminine 2 can be interpreted in different ways based on the speaker and social context. Referring to the concept of in-1 From the point of view of an individual speaker, however, the multiplicity of sociocultural meanings associated with linguistic practice would include the spatio-temporal locus of the communication situation (deixis, use of adverbs of time and place), the personal characteristics of the speaker (age, sex, geographical origin), social identity (belonging to one or more groups), speech acts, social activities (debates, narrations, dialogues), as well as affective and epistemic attitudes. dexical field introduced by Penelope Eckert (2008), Okamoto suggests that a set normative relationship, when found in a different context, can acquire added semantic value that integrates with the established meanings in each indexical field. This occurs because indexical fields are naturally fluid and open. An example of this is the way that some young Japanese women use male first-person pronouns among close friends in order to express shared intimacy and solidarity and convey freedom and rebellion, not necessarily mere masculinity. A further example in the queer sphere (Abe 2010) is the lesbian speech patterns used by some bar employees in the Shinjuku ni-chōme district, which demonstrates how some speakers use typically masculine linguistic forms in work-related contexts to signify their social position (chii), experience (kanten), and their hierarchical role (yakuwari) while interacting with clients, or even to simply show emotions such as anger, or other specific speech acts. Abe refers to how, even though a few of the speakers interviewed tended to adapt their firstperson pronouns by using the pronoun jibun, perceived as more neutral compared to watashi or atashi (considered to be too feminine) or boku (considered, instead, to be excessively masculine), the pronoun ore (definitely a vulgar register and directly tied to masculinity) was seen when confronting regular clients (i.e. when expressing anger). Abe suggests that this practice supports not only the hypothesis that language can be utilized as a resource to construct different identities based on the context, but also that the identity of an individual is not predetermined, but rather potentially multiple and variable. Consequently, the interpretation of certain linguistic forms traditionally stereotyped as masculine or feminine should remain as a mere notion of normative ideology (Okamoto, Shibamoto Smith 2004).

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Intralingual Characteristics of Rinko's Genderlect As will be illustrated below, the complexity of the translated subtitles is immediately apparent when looking at the genderlect by Rinko, the protagonist of Close-Knit. In the first place, they speak in motherese in the scenes where they are reassuring their niece (Tomo), or when mentoring/educating, yet every time -always in the presence of Tomo -they switch to narrative or descriptive speech they resorting to a completely different linguistic register that allows them to more clearly define their own identity. In this case, Rinko utilizes a few morphosyntactic and lexical elements that are typical of Japanese spoken by females ( joseigo), though it is not emphasized and is intermixed with more neutral gender elements (Inoue, 2003;Matsui 2018). In the context of interlinguistic translation, -also according to Zabalbeascoa (2012) -the person creating the subtitles is in the difficult position of having to mediate between an accurate description of the character's uniqueness and the risk of slipping into stereotypes, given the spatio-temporal limitations of the subtitles. The fact remains, though, that it is impossible to ignore the microtextual characteristics of the audiovisual dialogue and still maintain an ethically equivalent translation without running the risk of subconsciously manipulating the identities being represented. As Díaz-Cintas recalls (2012): Translators cease to be linguists in the traditional sense -i.e professionals with knowledge of two languages -, to become intercultural agents and mediators, whose allegiances emanate from their works and can be untangled somewhat by scholars. Migrating from a passive role as mere transmitters of information, translators are now considered to be active agents participating in the shaping of the ideological discourse of their culture, whose system of values they may consciously or unconsciously accept, contributing to their dissemination or subversion. (Díaz Cintas 2012, 282-3) As mentioned above, Rinko's speech includes examples of motherese, also known as mother talk, mommy deixis, caretaker speech, child directed speech, and baby talk (Bernal 2012;Hyams 2008;Snow 1986). From a sociolinguistic perspective, motherese is referred to as the linguistic variance spontaneously utilized by adults when speaking to children. It's found in a wide variety of languages and, along with the general tendencies, it can present elements of differentiation according to a language's respective cultural and linguistic characteristics. 3 The literature in this field (Burnham et al. 2002;Burnham, Kitamura 2003;Saint-Georges et al. 2013) finds that motherese shows both qualitative and quantitative characteristics that involve all structural levels of communication, such as: 1. Phonologic and prosodic patterns involving simplified and controlled phonetics, as well as paralinguistic characteristics such as higher tones of voice; 2. Morphosyntactic modulation through short senten-3 As Roger Brown notes in the introduction to Ferguson and Snow's volume (1977), the peculiarities of this idiolect are the result of two existential factors that distinguish communications held with children: factors of affection held within the field of social interaction that characterize a child's need to be cared for of by an adult figure, as well as linguistic factors derived from differences that adults and children have in their mastery of language. Indeed, the use of motherese varies in function according to the child's age (usually used from twelve or sixteen months onwards, gradually diminishing towards seven or eight years of age), as well as the adult's characteristics.
As will be seen in the case study of the film in question, even though Tomo (a young middle-schooler) doesn't belong to the typical age group of motherese, we can see how Rinko voluntarily makes use of it in order to emotionally comfort Tomo, and also to affirm Rinko's new role as an acquired mother.
ces with a net prevalence for parataxis; 3. Lexical variations through the use of diminutives, terms of endearment, onomatopoeias, repetition, the substitution of adjectives, pronouns, and nouns, expressions of guidance, deixis (the insertion of adverbs and demonstrative pronouns), as well as lexemes commonly found in infantile speech (e.g. in Italian bua instead of ferita; nanna instead of dormire); 4. Extraverbal activity through gestures, physical contact, gazes, and facial expressions (hyper-speech). 4 Japanese motherese (hahaoyago) also shows many of these characteristics, manifesting as a set of linguistic, vocal, and extraverbal elements. Some of its main characteristics are: redundancies, phonetic alterations, the use of onomatopoeias, bikago, as well as a high timbre and tone of voice. On a phonetic and lexical level, Ishiguro (2013) illustrates how there is a common tendency to simplify and modify some sounds which are complicated to pronounce. For example, in motherese, the Japanese syllables sa/shi/su/se/so transform into ta/chi/chu/te/to forming the words okaasan (→ okaatan, translation mother), oishii (→ oichii, translation good), daisuki (→daichuki, translation I love you very much). Analogously, the tsu syllable becomes chu, as in oyatsu (→ oyachu, translation snack), and zu becomes ju, as in omizu (→omiju, translation water). On a lexical level, the use of bikago terms is frequent, as in omimi (instead of the neutral term mimi, translation ears), and omikan (instead of the neutral term mikan, translation mandarin), as well as the syllabic reiteration of terms with honorific prefixes such as omeme (instead of the term me, translation eyes), otete (instead of the term te, translation hand). Other common uses include redundant onomatopoeias accompanied by the verb "to do" (suru) instead of single verbs, such as: nenne suru (instead of neru, translation to sleep), tonton suru (instead of tataku, translation to knock), or the insertion of suffixes alongside proper nouns, signifying closeness and affection, such as -chan for girls, and -kun for boys.
As mentioned earlier, the recurring phenomenon of language shift that characterizes Rinko's speech means they employ a genderlect that's quite close to female speech (lady talk) each time they begin describing and/or narrating events. In Japanese this idiolect (called joseigo) often resorts to lexical prefixes of courtesy such as o/go (obentō→ Japanese box lunch; ocha→ green tea; okaban→ bag) and is characterized by the absence of verbal imperative and negative forms (tabero! → eat it!; taberu na! → don't eat it!) as well as by the tendency not to use profanities and masculine-oriented lexicon. On the contra-4 For the analysis of the interlinguistic Japanese-Italian subtitling in Close-Knit, it's important to specify that this study will concentrate specifically on the morphosyntactic and lexical levels, as the multimedia nature of the text makes it possible to extrapolate the prosodic and extraverbal functions (which, in translation, cannot be modified).

Ideological Manipulation in Interlingual Subtitling
Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 121 European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 115-140 ry, it often resorts to an exclusive use of neutral/feminine first person singular pronouns (watashi, atashi, atai or uchi) and second person singular (anata, with the partner), feminine suffixes (-kashira, -wa in raising tone in its forms -wane and -wayo) and interjections (maa, arama, araa, kyaa). Finally, it is worth noting how Rinko's speech often tends to eliminate the copula -da after -na adjectives and nouns, making it followed by the particle ne (gomen ne! → forgive me!), or replacing the neutral suffix -no desu (or its masculine version -ndayo) with its feminine version -noyo (Abe 2010;Gottlieb 2006;Nakamura 2013;Wakabayashi 1991). However, Rinko is not even consistent in their use of joseigo, as their idiolect tends towards a third type of speech that is more neutral and plain (futsūgo) when they are creating a relationship of trust with their interlocutors. This speech pattern is particularly noticeable when Rinko wants to reassure their niece, Tomo, by asking questions, when Rinko begins reflecting or monologuing, and when they talk about their own personal experiences, as Rinko drops all diageneric markers (lexical and morphosyntactic) in both motherese and joseigo. It is precisely this sophisticated intertwining of the two sociolinguistic concepts of variability and indexicality, including endogenous and exogenous factors pertaining to the process of linguistic mediation, that renders the translation of this genderlect extremely complex.
To remedy this situation, for the Japanese-Italian subtitling of the film Close-Knit (2017, Ogigami Naoko) investigated in this study, a mini-corpus of twenty-four interlingual subtitles was used, with corresponding back-translations in English that were extrapolated from four scenes in the film (a total of eight minutes). This corpus was created by six groups of students, enrolled in an audiovisual translation course sponsored by the Emilia-Romagna region, between March and July of 2018 (500 hours of lessons on theory and workshops). In each group there were five students divided equally by sex who -before subtitling -have deepened sociolinguistic gender issues within the realm of audiovisual translation studies for the Japanese-Italian pair. No restrictions were imposed and the translation was the result of an autonomous coordination that took place in each group. For the aims of this study, two of the four scenes were chosen for the following intralinguistic characteristics: 1. Rinko is the main speaker; 2. Tomo (the niece) is the main person being spoken to; 3. Rinko synchronically uses mixed elements of motherese, joseigo, and neutral speech (futsūgo) in their utterances and in every scene. The distinctive markers of motherese and joseigo will be analysed through the morphosyntactic and lexical levels of dialogue, following the indications of Ishiguro (2013) and Nakamura (2013). The final aim of this study is to: 1. Accurately describe the genderlect of the transgender protagonist in the film (Rinko); 2. Analyse the interlinguistic subtitling produced by the six groups involved in the creation of the subtitles; 3. Understand the degree of reliability of the translation from an identity perspective and track any ideological manipulation of gender, if it emerges.

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Scene analysis: Rinko's Genderlect (Intralingual Level) Rinko, the protagonist of Close-Knit, is a young transgender person (male-to-female transsexual , nyūhāfu Japanese) who lives with Makio, their partner, in the Tokyo suburbs. One day, Makio comes home with his niece (Tomo) who was abandoned by her mother. Rinko and Makio decide to take care of her and, despite Tomo's initial reticence, the bond that blossoms between Rinko and Tomo soon becomes an intense, authentic mother-daughter relationship.

Scene 1: Rinko and Tomo in the Bedroom
Setting In this first scene, Rinko discovers that Tomo was having nightmares. Tomo woke up after having dreamt she had heard her missing mother's voice. Rinko kneels down on the futon and tries to comfort her. Reassured by Rinko's presence, Tomo makes an odd request, asking to touch Rinko's breasts. Rinko accepts, in good spi-

Francesco Vitucci Ideological Manipulation in Interlingual Subtitling
Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 123 European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 115-140 rits, and Tomo thus establishes her first physical contact with her new transgender mother.

Scene 1 Line Speaker Captions and Trascription
English ( And though they're still nice to touch. Analysis Rinko's quasi-monologue immediately unfolds in a maternal manner that is first visible on an extra and paraverbal level, then gradually becomes clear on a verbal level. Rinko's affectionate attitude is immediately apparent on an intralinguistic level in the first few lines, 2 (Daijōbu, daijōbu → Nothing happened) and 3 (Daijōbu dayō… → Don't worry) characterized above all by elements of prosody (softly spoken in a soothing rhythm) and extraverbal elements (sitting behind Tomo while caressing her back and gently patting her back rhythmically). On a verbal level, however, Rinko's role as a mother becomes more apparent starting from line 4 (Taoru boro boro dane → That handkerchief is a disaster), where Rinko uses the agglutinative suffix dane (→ Isn't it?), intentionally using modes of expression aimed at establishing the initial affectionate contact with Tomo. This behaviour becomes more marked in line 6 (Mada mada akachan ndanā! → You're still small) where certain morphosyntactic strategies are purposely employed, such as using the noun akachan (→ Baby), followed by the informal suffix -ndanā with a long a vowel (→ Aren't you?), used to establish empathy with the speaker. In line 7 (Akachān! Ii ko dechunē! Hai! Dakko shimashō. Mada akachan ndanā! → Come here love. You're my little one) Rinko uses the syllabic modulation of the courtesy suffix -desu (dechu) which is typical of motherese, then enters into declarative syntax (Dakko shimashō!, → Let me hug you) which is used to reassure Tomo, and is said with an ascending tone in the guise of a musical ditty. This declarative speech pattern occurs again in line 8, with the same prosody (Oppai, oppaī! → Let me cuddle you), but this time with a clear reference to nursing a baby (Oppai literally means Breast, bosom) which seems to complete Rinko's immersion into the role of Tomo's new mother. The tone of the dialogue suddenly changes only when the child asks if she can touch Rinko's breasts.
Here, Rinko appears to present themself as more of an equal with the interlocutor when the typical markers of motherese disappear from their speech patterns and move to a neutral and more friendly tone where the sole aims seems to be establishing a bond of mutual trust and eliminating hierarchy. This is particularly noticeable in line 10 (Ii yo! → Go ahead!), 11 (Hommono yori katame rashii yo → Compared to real ones, mines are much harder) and 12 (Dō? → Don't you think so?) where there is an evident phenomenon of language shift with identity; the motherese gives way to a plain register of Japanese (futsūgo) that only presents connotations of informality, without any further connotation of gender.

Scene 2: Rinko and Tomo in the Living Room
Setting In the second scene selected, Rinko is at home sitting in the living room alongside Tomo. Tomo has just been involved in an unpleasant interaction at the supermarket where the mother of one of her friends, surprised to see her with Rinko, told Tomo not to hang around with "strange" people. Bothered by this woman's intrusion, Tomo sprayed her with dish washing soap, forcing supermarket security to intervene. Although Tomo's reaction was justifiable, since she refused to apologize to her friend's mother, Rinko decided to talk to her about it, once they got back home.  You're absolutely right.
Analysis After the unpleasant incident at the supermarket, Rinko understands that she should comfort Tomo, and make her feel that she's on her side. Even though Rinko doesn't want to admit it, they know that the reason behind the confrontation was the other mother's discriminatory attitude against them. Rinko takes advantage of this to break the ice, and asks Tomo some questions in line 1 (Atashi ni ay-

Ideological Manipulation in Interlingual Subtitling
Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 127 European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 115-140 amarete nande ano obasan ni ayamarenakattano? → Tell me why you apologized to me and not to that lady?) and 3 (Moshikashite atashi no koto? → Did she say something about me?). These are marked on a paraverbal level by a soft tone of voice, and on a verbal level by the Japanese suffix -no, used in its interrogative form, as well as the personal pronoun atashi, both typical of the feminine gender. In this context, Rinko appears to present themself in the role of a mother and/or friend, showing openness and willingness to listen to Tomo, who is quite embarrassed. This behaviour is emphasized on an extraverbal level analysing the posture (Rinko is sitting on the couch, with legs crossed and hands together in their lap) and eye contact (Rinko is looking towards Tomo, while Tomo is rigidly staring at the table in front of the couch) ( Figure 2). Rinko continues in the role of friend/ confidant during the next few lines, which are also marked by typical joseigo elements: it is noticeable at the beginning of line 4 with the use of the discourse marker ne (→ Ehi), in line 6 with the agglutinative verb shicha (instead of shitewa), as well as the reiteration of previous linguistic strategies seen in lines 8 and 13 (suffix -no used as an interrogative) as well as lines 10, 14, and 18 (female pronoun atashi and discourse marker ne at the end of the sentence). On an extraverbal level, postural analysis reveals Rinko is even more deeply involved emotionally: though they are sitting next to Tomo on the couch, their body is turned to face Tomo, trying to maintain direct eye contact. From a literary-theatrical point of view (Vitucci 2019), Rinko is in the act of admonishing Tomo and advises her to keep calm and never act out against people without good reason. From a visual standpoint, however, it is interesting to note how the director frames this dialogue in a shot that gradually focuses onto the two speakers, as if the scene were underlining the importance of this verbal exchange.
On a sociolinguistic level, the conversation's tone suddenly changes in line 15, while Rinko is explaining to Tomo how to calm down. The dialogue unexpectedly changes to an interior monologue, where the prevalent linguistic markers are a diageneric neutral register that's occasionally vulgar. This is particularly noticeable in lines 15 (Zakkenjanēyo! → Ugly idiots!), 16 (Chikushō! Chikushōtte! → Fuck! Fuck!), 17, 18 and 19 (Hitome hitome aminagara, sō suru to ne, itsunomanika kokoro ga sutto taira ni naru → Knit after knit, I do like this. And after a while I cool down) where Rinko's code-shifting as signalled by the plain register (futsūgo) seems to intentionally draw the viewer's attention to their personal experience, juxtaposing it with the more feminine and maternal register that Rinko uses when speaking to Tomo. The translation of this passage shows how extremely complex it was for the Italian subtitlers in terms of identity, as it requires recreating an emotional and psychological state in the target language (Vitucci 2016b), which in Japanese is rendered extremely clear on a lexical and morphosyntactic level. This attitude can also be found in the following lines, when Rinko, having vented their frustrations, asks if she can knit Tomo something to wear, while maintaining an extremely "fluid" genderlect on a sociolinguistic level which resorts to the same linguistic register as before, simply without the markers of either hahaoyago or joseigo. This is apparent in lines 21 (Sō yo! → Of course!), 22 (Tomo ni mo nanka tsukutte ageru → I can knit something for you too), 23 (Mafurā demo. Sētā demo. Tebukuro demo → A scarf, a sweater, maybe some gloves) and 24 (Nani ga ii? → What would you prefer?) in the same scene. Most likely, the only elements that remind the viewer of Rinko's transgender identity can be found on a paraverbal level in their tone of voice (which is low and peaceful), on an extraverbal level in clothing choices (Rinko is wearing female clothing with a feminine haircut), and in Rinko's body language (keeps knitting while looking down at the knitting needles).

Scene Analysis: Rinko's Genderlect (Interlingual Level)
A quick analysis of the mini-corpus, composed of twenty-four interlinguistic subtitlings, created for the film Close-Knit, by a group of six students enrolled in the audiovisual translation course, demonstrates a rather low level of reliability in the translation of gender.
Of the fifty-seven lines translated into Italian which are present in the four scenes (eight minutes of screen time) being investigated in this study, only 15% attempted to maintain the diageneric markings of Rinko's genderlect in Italian and in 49% of the sample, the markings were completely erased. On the other hand, the remaining 36% (concerning the lines in the "neutral" Japanese register), while more easily translated into Italian, did not contribute to the description of Rinko's personality, but simplified and flattened their identity through translation solutions that did not fit well with the rest of the original lines. As Zabalbeascoa (2012) suggests, these inconsistencies could be driven by causes endemic to the translation process, such as: spatio-temporal limitations of the subtitles, typological differences in the languages given in the translation pair, and intersemiotic difficulties of translation due to both icon and subtitles sharing the space on the screen (Chaume Varela 2004;Taylor 2016;Vitucci 2018Vitucci , 2019. In other recent studies (Von Flotow, Josephy-Hernández 2018), these inconsistencies emerge from factors external to the translation process, such as potential self-censoring on the translator's part (known as the moral gate keeper's effect), their personal experience in the field of translation regarding gender themed films, as well as possible censoring by intermediaries or those paying for the tran-

Francesco Vitucci Ideological Manipulation in Interlingual Subtitling
Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 129 European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 115-140 slation. 6 The following will analyse the interlingual results obtained from one of the six translations of the film, specifically referencing the two scenes introduced in the previous paragraph. And though they're still nice to touch.

Scene 1: Rinko and Tomo in the Bedroom
Analysis In Scene 1 there are six lines where Rinko defines their identity verbally (lexis and morphosyntax) and paraverbally (through tone of voice), intentionally moving into the feminine sphere. According to Japanese scholars Nakamura (2010; 2013) and Hasegawa (2012), Rinko manifests their gender identity by adapting the available linguistic and paralinguistic resources based on Tomo's presence, being in the bedroom with her late at night, and immersing themself in their new role of being a mother. In this situation, it's easy to note how Rinko's use of language includes more variability than would be expected from either their original biological sex or their gender identity. The relationship between one's own idiolect and the speech context leads to a reinterpretation of the meaning of various words in this new context of translation. From an interlinguistic point of view, it's important to note how the elements of prosody in lines 2 (Daijōbu, daijōbu) and 3 (Daijōbu dayō) that are present in the source language (softly spoken in a soothing rhythm) and are easy to attribute to intimate and maternal speech, become diluted in the diamesic passage into Italian, turning into a completely neutral subtitle on a diageneric level (2 → Non è successo niente; 3 → Tranquilla!). Something appears to change, though, in line 4 (Taoru boro boro dane → Quel fazzolettino è un disastro!), where the agglutinative suffix -dane, typically used in the feminine sphere, 7 transfers into Italian by modulating the lexis with a diminutive (fazzolettino → little hankerchief) and inserting the noun disastro (→ mess, disaster) both acts signify Rinko's feelings of maternal attention towards a frightened Tomo. This translation approach is also found in line 6 (Mada mada akachan ndanā! → Sei ancora piccolina, d'altronde) where the intralinguistic use of the noun akachan, followed by the informal suffix -ndanā with an elongated A vowel, is rendered with the diminutive piccolina (→ small, little one). In line 7 (Akachān! Ii ko dechunē! Hai! Dakko shimashō. Mada akachan ndanā! → Vieni qui amore. Sei la mia piccolina!), we can see the insertion of the noun amore (→ my dear, my love) and, yet again, the diminutive piccolina in place of the syllabic modulation of the courtesy suffix -desu (dechu), which is typical in motherese and in declarative statements made in an ascendant, prosodic tone, in the guise of a musical ditty (Dakko shimashō!). The Italian subtitle, though, returns yet again to a rather sterile mood in line 8 (Oppai, oppaī!) when Rinko, with the same tone and a clear allusion to the act of nursing a baby, is translated as saying → fatti coccolare!, which cushions the emotional impact of the original term, as well as Rinko's intent to communicate and demonstrate that they are a real mother. The tone of this conversation suddenly changes when, in line 9 (Ne, oppai sawatte mitai), Tomo asks Rinko if she can touch Rinko's breasts. From this moment onward, Rinko assumes a more egalita-7 At least, regarding normative ideology.

Francesco Vitucci Ideological Manipulation in Interlingual Subtitling
Ca' Foscari Japanese Studies 13 | 1 131 European Approaches to Japanese Language and Linguistics, 115-140 rian mood, taking on the role of a close friend for Tomo. This line does not pose any particular difficulties on an interlinguistic level. The language shift phenomenon marked by the switch from motherese to a neutral tone in line 10 (Ii yo), 11 (Hommono yori katame rashii yo), and 12 (Dō?), facilitates the process of adapting precisely because it does not require a shift in the character's identity, nor does it impose added semantic value that could in some way integrate other meaning into the specific indexical fields. Analysis The second scene proves to be extremely complex when translating into Italian, due to the protagonist's code shifting, which amplifies interlinguistic difficulties quite a bit. Rinko, who is worried about Tomo's rash behaviour, asks her some questions in line 1 (Atashi ni ayamarete nande ano obasan ni ayamarenakattano?) and 3 (Moshikashite atashi no koto?), paraverbally marked by a soft tone of voice, and verbally marked by the Japanese suffix -no used in its interrogative form, as well as the personal pronoun atashi, both typically used by females. With these lines, the Italian subtitles give use a translation that's substantially sterile and that does not offer the target audience the shades of meaning contained in the original prototext. Not surprisingly, this means the translations (1 → Spiegami perché non ti sei scusata con quella signora? and 3 → Ti ha detto qualcosa su di me?) end up influencing the intersemiotic cohesion of the text, creating a gap in the translation between the onscreen image and the protagonist's genderlect. Again in the following, when Rinko falls perfectly into a motherly role of teaching Tomo how to behave with adults (in lines 3 to 14), it becomes noticeable how the Italian translation is no longer able to integrate the constant incursion of typical joseigo elements. For example, the discourse marker at the beginning of the sentence ne (→ Ehi) in line 4, the agglutinative verb shicha (instead of shitewa) in line 6, the reiteration of the -no suffix used in its interrogative form in lines 8, 13, and 10, as well as the choice of the feminine personal pronoun atashi and the discourse marker -ne at the end of the sentence in lines 14 and 18. In these lines, the Italian translation produces an "asexual" genderless tone that does not contrast with the scene where Rinko intentionally adopts a more neutral language stance. The result is that Rinko's creative use of language, which allows them to carefully nuance their identity while speaking to Tomo, all but vanishes. The reasoning for this translation approach can be partially found in the typological differences between the two languages: Italian does not offer the same richness of pronouns as Japanese (io does not carry the same indexical characteristics as atashi); and a few of the pragmatic elements in Japanese (such as the -no suffix) are inevitably lost in the different sentence constructions available in the target language. However, the impression is that the Italian subtitles would have improved if specific translation strategies had been used to harmonize with the multimedia context, for example, lexical modulation. 8 Rinko's "fluid" speech loses more of its efficacy in the following lines when the plain Japanese futsūgo register gradually loses the markers of joseigo to mark an internal quasi-monologue where Rinko bares all, revealing their weaknesses. The expletives in lines 15 (Zakkenjanēyo!) and 16 (Chikushō! Chikushōtte!), as well as the brief description of their state of mind and the therapeutic effects of knitting, between lines 10 and 19, clearly demonstrate how Rinko goes beyond diagenesis and beyond the limits of the male/female duality. This appears when, after Rinko abandons the markers of feminine speech and begins swearing (which is primarily part of masculine sphere in Japan), they immediately find refuge in a narrative style that favours factual storytelling without any gender markers. In Italian, these lines lose the original intralinguistic emphasis signalled by the adverbs (suggē), ideophones (sutto), lexical repetition (hitome hitome), and postpositions (-toka), turning into a flat chronicle of events that describes, perhaps due to the limited space available to subtitles, a person who is less engaged and with less conviction than in the original version (→ Io faccio così, quando sono arrabbiata oppure triste da morire. Lavoro a maglia. Invece di spruzzare la gente con il detersivo. Brutti idioti! Merda, merda! Punto dopo punto. Faccio così e dopo un po' mi calmo). In this case, we could even sustain that not adequately rendering this diageneric shift ended up directly influencing this character's identity construction in the target language. Therefore, it is also not surprising that in lines 21 to 24 (Sō yo! Tomo ni mo nanka tsukutte ageru! Mafurā demo. Sētā demo. Tebukuro demo. Nani ga ii?), Rinko's excitement when offering to knit Tomo some new things to wear seems to be diluted in the translation, which does not convey the attention a mother would show her own child. The effect is that of a different Rinko, who's described as stranger who's struggling in a cold and detached way with a child they barely know. (→ Posso fare qualcosa anche per te. Una sciarpa, un maglione, dei guanti. Cosa vorresti?). Unfortunately, there is no trace of Rinko's complex inner feelings, personal experience, their special relationship with Tomo, or any characteristics of their identity.

Final Remarks and Future Perspectives
Díaz-Cintas (2014) reminds us that the concern for sociolinguistic variations and the scarce intercultural capacity of subtitles has become nowadays a theme of great relevance in our society where exchanges acquire an increasingly audiovisualized and multilingual nature. In particular, as Santipolo (2006) suggests in this regard, since the analysis of diageneric variation reveals the anthropological and sociocultural schemes of the societies under investigation together with the roles gender plays within them, translators should be particularly attentive not to convey and reinforce stereotypes in their target cultures when transcoding them (De Marco 2006;Okamoto, Shibamoto Smith 2004). As also illustrated in the above scenes, Rinko's genderlect challenges the belief that Japanese society can be naturally divided into two sexes/genders and that there are two separate linguistic codes for female and male speakers: on the contrary, their talk mirrors how "liquid" identities can be molded by
From a translatological perspective, this study shows the complexity of rendering Japanese gender into Italian, both for typological reasons (therefore intrinsic to the translation pair), and for reasons external to the realm of translation. In our opinion, a significant role was played by the gender assumptions the subtitlers involuntarily reflected into the Italian translation. The objective difficulties in the verbal rendering of these diageneric shifts that are present in Rinko's speech patterns, stem from a different conception of identity in Japanese and how it is rendered verbally. Thus, we find ourselves in a somewhat "diageneric void" when subtitling from a different cultural latitude. From an intralingual perspective that is naturally generative (engendering, in fact), we can reflect on the possible strategies to adopt when fluid and non-conforming identities must be spoken from outside the geo-cultural borders of the source society that produced the work. As already shown in the studies by Nakamura (2010; and Okamoto (2016), when linguistic variability (i.e. the relationship between biological sex and language) facilitates manifestations of identity that exist partially between one language and another, or sociolinguistic behaviours that tend to be predetermined at the normative level, then the phenomenon of indexicality (the relationship between linguistic expressions and context) becomes quite complex to manage in the case of queer identities. This is due to the interweaving of the speaker's multiple identities with the contextual / situational pressures of speech that often leads to creative uses of language, thus providing added semantic value that integrates with the consolidated meanings, in the specific indexical fields of reference.
Undoubtedly, respecting these identities is not an easy task for the translator. Nevertheless, in order to find new ways of conveying "liquid" identities in translation, subtitlers must overcome interlinguistic and intercultural distances and losses by conferring to their translation a more dynamic aspect (Osimo 2014) which -especially in the case of diageneric adaptation from Japanese into Italian -can include hypocorism, diminutives and profanities. In addition -in order to reach this goal -it could be also necessary a creative manipulation of the linguistic and extralinguistic resources at hand with the purpose of avoiding stereotyped registers in the target language (yakuwarigo in Japanese) and creating a so-called catabolic effect (Nakamura 2013) thanks to the semiotic cohesion produced by the complex relation between text and images (Chaume Varela 2004;Perego 2005;2009;Vitucci 2013Vitucci , 2018Vitucci , 2019. This delicate operation will compel the translator to not only connect the verbal pattern of characters with their sociocultural context, but also to transmit their ethnic, social, sexual and geographic identification (Katan 1999;Massid-da, Casarini 2017;Osimo 2014;Sato-Rossberg, Wakabayashi 2012). According to Abe (2010), Japanese transgenders and crossdressers continually break down the barriers in their speech imposed by cissexism. Therefore, translation becomes a fundamental tool in challenging dominant heterosexist ideologies, especially in patriarchal societies such as Italy. Particularly in the field of audiovisual translation, subtitling can take on this challenge and provide an opportunity to give voice to minorities and differing gender perspectives, in the overarching goal of greater social inclusion. In order to overcome the obstacles that exist today leading to poor renditions of sociolinguistic variation in certain audiovisual materials (Díaz-Cintas 2014; Katan 2014; Ranzato 2012), especially for the translation pair of Japanese-Italian under investigation, it is necessary to: 1. Extend the number of datasets available to researchers by adding official (not amateur) translations of new films on this topic; 2. Concentrate research efforts on intra and interlinguistic analysis, avoiding translations from English to extend the literary corpus of reference for audiovisual materials; and 3. Through this, capture any trends or practices established in the subtitlings that have been analyzed.