The Translation Of Rhetorical Devices In Subtitles Of Friends From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence

Nowadays, in pace with the economic and cultural exchange constantly amongdifferent countries and the gradual popularization of the internet of the world, ourcountry also has more opportunities to share resources with other countries of the world.In China, more and more people begin to watch foreign films and TV series. In particularyoung people like to watch the Hollywood’s films and TV series from the United States.Most of the films and TV series in the domestic market shows are matched withChinese-English subtitles, and the effect of subtitle translation will directly affect theaudiences’ understanding and apperception of the plot. However, subtitle translation fordomestic scholars is still a relatively new field, and there are no general translationprinciples for subtitle translation.In the past twenty years, China has introduced a lot of American films and TV series,among which the popular sitcom Friends also has been greatly welcomed, especially bythe young students and people who know English. Since it provides rich resources forpeople from non-English speaking countries, and it helps a lot to know the culture of the United States. Friends has been seen as the required TV series for English-major students.In recent years, some scholars have studied the translation of Friends constantly, butthese studies mostly concern about the translation of its humorous language. Fewscholars discuss the translation of rhetorical devices in Friends. There are variousrhetorical devices in Friends, such as simile, metaphor, euphemism, sarcasm, irony,hyperbole, pun, personification, parallelism, aposiopesis and so on. The application of alarge number of rhetorical devices shows the different characters of actors vividly,realizes the effect of humor, and strengthens the influence of the plot. This is whyFriends was continuously shooting for ten years and had been hit on TV for a long time.This thesis will study the translation of rhetorical devices in Friends on the basis offunctional equivalence theory. According to the features of subtitle, the author will giveseveral translation principles and strategies, and through specific example analysis provethat functional equivalence theory can be applied to the translation of rhetorical devicesin subtitles.This thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter mainly introduces boththeoretical and practical significance, research questions, research methods and thestructure of the thesis. The second chapter introduces the previous studies on thetranslation of rhetorical devices, the previous studies on subtitle translation and theprevious studies on translation of Friends. The third chapter discusses functionalequivalence, the development and contribution of functional equivalence theory and itsfeasibility in subtitle translation. The fourth chapter discusses the principles andstrategies of subtitle translation under functional equivalence theory in detail. The fifthchapter is the main body, which chooses some examples from Friends to analyze thetranslation of rhetorical devices in subtitles under functional equivalence theory. Thesixth chapter is the conclusion part. It points out that functional equivalence can beapplied to the translation of rhetorical devices in subtitles, but there are also somelimitations, so more studies are needed in the future.