A Study On The Translation Strategies For Culture-loaded Words In Documentary Subtitles From The Perspective Of Zero Translation Theory

Under the background of the Belt and Road Initiative,the international publicity of culture serves as an important means for Chinese culture Going Out.Culture-loaded words are the epitome of culture.International publicity documentaries contain abundant culture-loaded words.For the translation of culture-loaded words,translators need to accurately convey the meaning of the words while preserving the cultural elements in these words.Therefore,exploring the translation of culture-loaded words in subtitles of international publicity documentaries has practical significance.The Belt and Road is an international publicity documentary launched by CCTV4 with the mission of "Connecting China with the World".It tells many stories about China and other countries along the Belt and Road Initiative.The documentary involves many culture-loaded words.The author conducts an in-depth study of the culture-loaded words translation in 15 episodes of the documentary with the combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods.Based on Nida’s classification of culture-loaded words,the author classified the culture-loaded words collected and identified to discover the characteristics of these culture-loaded words.Under the guidance of zero translation theory,this paper analyzes the translation strategies for the culture-loaded words in the documentary subtitles by means of exemplification,and discusses the benefits and possible problems of employing zero translation to translate culture-loaded words in documentary subtitles.Findings show that firstly this documentary covers the five types of culture-loaded words:ecological culture-loaded words,material culture-loaded words,social culture-loaded words,religious culture-loaded words and linguistic culture-loaded words.Among them,material culture-loaded words account for the greatest share,while religious culture-loaded words account for the smallest proportion.Secondly,90%of the culture-loaded words in this documentary apply zero translation theory.The author finds that the zero translation strategies mainly adopted in this documentary include absolute zero translation strategy(ellipsis)and relative zero translation strategies(transliteration,transliteration with notes,sound-meaning combination translation,literal translation,literal translation with notes and adaptation).Finally,the translation of the culture-loaded words based on zero translation theory is concise and easy to understand.It can also convey the cultural connotations of the culture-loaded words and fulfills the gaps caused by cultural differences.Zero translation is an appropriate method to translate the culture-loaded words in the documentary subtitles under the dual constraints of time and space.However,utilizing this method may cause the loss of the extended meaning of the words and cultural vacancy.