A Multimodal Analysis Of The Subtitling Of Fei Cheng Wu Rao From A Relevance-Theoretic Perspective

Subtitling deals with audiovisual products that are multimodal in nature.In audiovisual products,meanings are conveyed through the interaction of various visual and acoustic signs.The meaning expressed in the verbal mode is therefore partial in relation to the whole of the meaning of the audiovisual text.However,most of the studies on subtitling in China only focus on the textual level,without extending ample consideration to other modes at play.Thus this thesis investigates a multimodal approach to the subtitling of Fei Cheng Wu Rao(FCWR)from a relevance-theoretic perspective,with a focus on the interplay between the subtitle mode and the image mode.It aims to answer the following three questions:(1)what are the types of interplay between the subtitle mode and the image mode in the English subtitled version of FCWR or If You Are the One(IYATO)?(2)how is the meaning of the target audiovisual text constructed through such an interplay from a relevance-theoretic perspective,and(3)what role does the image mode play in the subtitling?The study identified three major types of interplay between the subtitle mode and the image mode in the three sample episodes of IYATO,including the relation of relay,the relation of redundancy and the relation of moorage.Most cases found fall into the relation-of-moorage category,where the image mode further specifies the subtitle mode,and the relation-of-relay category,where the image mode and the subtitle mode are combined to convey meanings.In addition,the study found that the subtitler' work could be facilitated by the image mode in the following three ways.Firstly,as in audiovisual products modes are combined to convey meanings,the subtitler can resort to the image mode to retrieve the speaker's intentions.Secondly,in case of space constraints,the subtitler can only retain the most relevant information in subtitles,leaving the image mode to convey the rest.Thirdly,the subtitler can try to integrate the image and subtitles by skillfully reformulating the subtitles.However,the study found that the interplay between images and subtitles should not be utilized randomly.The subtitler's choices should be in conformity with the principle of relevance and based on appropriate assumptions about the speaker's intentions and viewers' cognitive environment.