A Study On The Strategies Of Translating Extralinguistic Culture-Bound References In The Subtitles Of Ratatouille: From The Perspective Of Poly System Theory

Many researchers in the field of subtitling have studied the translation of culture-related content,but few of them have put forward terms or theories specially designated for subtitling.Instead,most researchers simply borrowed terms and theories from literary translation.This was not changed until Sweden scholar Jan Pedersen put forward the concept of "Extralinguistic Culture-Bound Reference",which was tailored for the field of subtitling.Based on his analysis of the translation of ECRs in 100 English movies,Pedersen summarized six translation strategies of ECRs:Retention,specification,direct translation,generalization,substitution and omission.In 2008,Pedersen further polished the concept and translation strategies of ECRs.He divided ECRs into three categories—transcultural ECR,microcultural ECR and monocultural ECR,and classified the translation strategies of ECRs into two categories,putting official equivalent,retention and direct translation under the category of "minimum change strategy",and specification,generalization and substitution under "intervention strategy".While improving Pedersen’s classification of ECR’s translation strategies,this dissertation will adopt Even-Zohar’s Polysystem Theory as a theoretical framework to discuss the translation strategies of ECRs in the film of Ratatouille.After an in-depth review of Pedersen’s classification standards,this author finds that it is unreasonable to leave omission out of the two large categories,because by omitting certain subtitles,subtitlers have exerted considerable influence on,and therefore intervened the translation process.Hence omission should be labelled under the "intervention strategy".After analyzing the translation of ECRs in the film,the author finds that in addition to omission,specification and substitution are the two most frequently used translation strategies,owing to the fact that subtitling has strict temporal and spatial limits and that the film itself is entertaining in nature.