On The Translation Of Subtitles Of American Situation Comedies From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence Theory

At present, more and more American situation comedies have rushed into China and have been a very important part of people’s entertainment lives. Subtitling plays a important role in American situation comedies, so we must attach great importance to subtitling as translators. Based on the subtitle translation of Modern Family, this thesis firstly analyzes four characteristics of American situation comedies:colloquialism, time & space, culture and humor. Then, the difficulties of American sitcoms including pun and culture-loaded terms are elaborated. Subsequently, this thesis introduces the key points of functional equivalence theory and then demonstrates that it is applicable for translation of subtitles of American sitcoms. Finally, under the guidance of functional equivalence theory, the thesis offers four translation methods of subtitles of American sitcoms based on the translation of Modern Family——condensation, addition, domestication and annotation.