Television formats in Africa: Cultural considerations in format localization

This chapter discusses how the factors influence translated audiovisual texts in general, focusing on selection of orality markers in a situation comedy dubbed from English into Spanish. Orality markers, understood as ‘features typifying spontaneous spoken register used in prefabricated dialogue to reinforce its orality and to convey a false sense of spontaneity’, have been chosen as the main object of study given the challenges prefabricated orality poses to scriptwriters and audiovisual translators alike. Siete Vidas, aired on Telecinco from 1999 to 2006, is a Spanish television sitcom that is said to have been originally inspired by Friends, an aspect that not only justifies the comparison but also shows how foreign audiovisual programs can influence the target TV system and its domestic content. Siete Vidas revolves around the lives of a group of friends living in Madrid and, like Friends, it touches on a wide range of topics such as relationships, sex, love, and homosexuality.