TheinfluenceofCuluredifferencesonSubileTranslaionofEnglishMovies文化差异对英美电影字幕中译的影响_开题报告

开题报告

Literature Review

The main function of the subtitle translation of an English film is to convey the dialogue of characters in the film. The dialogue is the soul of the film, and it has great originality of conception for the script writer, and it is a realistic work of art. The subtitle plays an important role on the development of the plot and the creation of the characters in a film. At the same time, the final purpose of subtitle translation is to make the target audience accept and feel the charm of the film. Therefore, subtitle translation is not only the transformation of two languages, but also a cultural transmission. And it is a kind of proposal translation with the target audience as the receiver. The subtitle translation has a great significance to the Chinese audience. The film translation has the academic value. In China, there are few experts who are paying attention to the study of this topic. The Scholars and theorists focused themselves more on the traditional areas such as the translation of literature, poetry, and novels. And the audiovisual product is a field which they always neglect. On the contrary, the subtitle translation is now a great concern to many scholars and theorists in western countries. What is more, as regards of the translation theory, China falls far behind the world, let alone about the heated and full-of-prospect subtitle translation. In this paper, the author tries to apply the existing theories---the Skopos Theory to read into subtitle translation in China.

1 Film Subtitle Translation Studies Abroad

    Gambier edited a book with Henrik Gottlieb: (Multi)media Translation: Concepts, Practices, and Research in 2001. It is a collection of Twenty-six articles. These articles discuss how the rapid changes in technology and the globalization in communication have added new sphere to the field of translation and are challenging the translator’s role. (Multi)Media translation, especially screen translation has led scholars to take a fresh look at the translator’s strategies and behaviors. Some papers present the concepts of media and multimedia, the necessity of inter-disciplinarity, the polysemiotic feature of audiovisual media. Other papers discuss practices, mainly in subtitle translation. Finally some show the cultural and linguistic implications of screen translation.  Some topics may overlap, but each article offers a fascinating look at the various aspects of multimedia translation. Gottlieb’s study(1994, 1998) covers from the definition and constraints of subtitle translation, the linguistic dimension of subtitles, and the translation of idioms from English into Danish, to the training and teaching of subtitle translation and, the strategies for subtitle translation. His study is relatively all-around, and provides theoretical basis for future research. Ivarsson and his book Subtitle translation for the Media (1992) which offered a very detailed history of the technical aspect of subtitle translation and an overview of subtitle translation for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. 

2 Film Subtitle Translation Studies in China

    Zhang Chunbo (1998) takes film as an audiovisual art that serves the mass audiences. Therefore, he thinks the translation of films should center on the target audiences, and translators should take target language audiences’ language level and cultural awareness into consideration. He applies Nida’s functional equivalence to the study of film translation, and suggests the translation method should be free translation. He also states to solve this kind of problem, he suggests the domestication method, abandoning the original image and replacing it with one that is familiar to the Chinese audiences. Ma Zhengqi (2003) first studies the unique features of film translation and then states the principles. There are five points to consider before he summarizes basic principles for film translation. Based on these five points, he draws the principles for film translation: the translated text should be real-life, or close to our life; be personality-relevant; be true to human feelings; be in accordance to lip movement (this may require some adjustment on the word order or syntactic structures); and be audience-responsible, that is to say, try to use common, popular language. Qian Shaochang (2000) pointed out the importance of translation and calls on the translators to pay more attention to it. Based on his own translation experience, he summarizes seven points to pay attention to. He thinks that the film is a perfect synchronization of voice and moving pictures, therefore, a certain extent of faithfulness can be sacrificed in order to achieve vividness and aesthetic equivalence.

    The above three scholars have something in common with their opinions. They all pay much attention to target language audiences’ understanding and appreciation of films. Their opinions are in accordance with Nida’s functional equivalence. Besides, they have stated out principles and strategies for film translation. Though their studies are not done systematically, they have stepped forward greatly in the field of translation.

    Li Yunxing (2001) marks in his article Strategies for Translating Subtitles that the primary requirement of subtitle translation is to provide, within the constraints of time and space, the most relevant information in the most effective way. The article analyzes the features of subtitle translation in terms of time-space constraints, informative function and cultural elements, and then puts forward corresponding strategies for translation, with concrete examples for illustration.

    Zhao Chunmei (2001, 2002) has done profound research on film translation through her personal experience. She analyzed four conflicting demands in film translation-- length of translation and the original content; word order and the sequence of moving pictures; domestication and foreignization method. In her opinion, as an important means of cultural exchange and showcase of foreign culture, foreign films contain heavily culture-loaded images and culture-specific phenomena; therefore, translator should try his best to retain the original unique language expressions, metaphors, allusions, persons’ names, etc. In a word, her opinion on film translation is that translator should try to use literal method, only when it can not work out, should a translator resort to free translation method to achieve equivalence with the original texts. 

In general, these studies cover almost every aspect of film, and some also deal with dubbing translation simultaneously. Their analysis help to enlarge the range of translation field to the  multimedia context, bridging the gap between subtitle translation and traditional literary translation, and therefore the existing translation principles and strategies can be used in subtitle translation. 

However, most film subtitle translation remains in empirical stage. The majority of the researchers and investigators carry out their studies from their own translation experiences. Most parts of the researches have been conducted under no theoretical guidance. Though a relatively great number of articles can be found in China, few of them are done systematically. Most of the studies are too general to give specific strategies for subtitle translation. As to cultural elements in film translation, some scholars have noticed the importance of culture in translation process, but their studies are done without theoretical basis, not to say systematic analysis. The study of cultural elements in film subtitle translation still has a long way to go. 

Outline 

Contents 

1. Introduction

2. The Influence of Culture Differences on Subtitle Translation of English Movies

2.1 Application of network words

2.2 Application of common saying

2.3 Application of other Chinese culture elements

3. Skopos Theory and Subtitle Translation

3.1 Skopos Theory

3.2 Influence of Skopos Theory on Subtitle Translation

4. The Subtitle Translation Methods

4.1 Replacement

4.2 Addition

4.3 Reduction or Omission

5. Conclusion

Bibliography 

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