Representing Migration

This chapter explores the representation of multilingualism and language varieties in films and TV series depicting stories of migration and diaspora. The concept of migrant and diasporic cinema is defined, before the use of multilingualism and language varieties in these audiovisual productions is examined in order to explain the challenges posed by multilingualism for filmmakers and assess whether, how, and why L3 dialogues are translated intratextually. When an audiovisual production is translated, multilingualism becomes a challenge for audiovisual translators, who must decide whether to preserve or erase it in dubbed and subtitled versions. Translators are not the only agents in the translation process to work on audiovisual productions, however, and this chapter also considers the role of technical and ideological manipulation in this decision.