A Relevance-based Cost-benefit Model For Subtitling

Films have become a powerful facilitator of cross-cultural communication, in which translation plays a pivotal role. However, its significance has not been duly acknowledged in academia. Moreover, subtitling practitioners are not informed in practice by an overarching theoretical framework.This thesis selects Relevance Theory as the discussion premise, because it dovetails various properties and commercial scruples of films; and its unique form of "cost-benefit analysis" facilitates its application to the case study of the subtitles of The Grandmasters and Lost in Thailand.These two films are Chinese cinema hits in the last two years, hence their relative novelty in terms of academic discussion. Meanwhile, both films have prominent subtitling features—the first fully reflects the domestication mentality of "catering to the viewer’s needs" embedded in Relevance Theory; whereas the latter adopts an utterly distinct approach, and translates many lines dogmatically, without allowing for the cultural and language quirks of foreign viewers. Thus, they will be used respectively as positive and negative examples in the case study.Via interpretations of the Theory, diversification of analysis instruments as well as illustrations by a case study, this thesis arrives at the conclusion:informed by Relevance Theory and Relevance-based tactics, Chinese-to-English subtitling can be facilitated and accomplished well.