Dubbing a TV Drama Series: The Case of the West Wing

Abstract

T he Spanish dubbing of The West Wing has been acknowledged as one of the best dubbings of a T V drama series in Spain. T his article focuses on the dubbing of Episode #10 from The West Wing (1999), entitled “In Excelsis Deo”, a Christmas special episode brimming with cultural references, intertextual references, register switchings, close-ups, and all the ingredients that are usually accounted for in dubbing. T his study shows an analysis of the quality of dubbing in just one episode of this mainstream American T V series dubbed into Spanish. In order to do so, a qualitative analysis according to the episode’s adherence to a checklist of dubbing standards, compiled in Chaume (2012), but taken from some other authors (Whitman-Linsen, 1992, among others), has been carried out.