A Contrastive Study On Textless Back Translation From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

With the continuous enhancement of China’s cultural soft power,a large number of China-themed works created in foreign languages have emerged.Translating such works into Chinese and selling them back to Chinese audiences involve a process known as “textless back translation”.It refers to a kind of back translation that renders the works written in a non-native language into the original cultural context,where the text does not really exist.Disney’s film Mulan(2020)(hereinafter referred to as Disney’s film Mulan)is a China-themed work produced in English,which has no an original text in Chinese.The process of translating it back into Chinese is a typical textless back translation.When the American version of Mulan returned to the Chinese market,how to bring it back to the original Chinese language and culture accurately through textless back translation posed a difficult problem for translators.This thesis takes the subtitles in Disney’s film Mulan as the analysis examples to explore the translation phenomenon in its textless back translations.This thesis adopts two translation versions of Disney’s film Mulan: the Chinese subtitles of English original version and the Chinese subtitles of Chinese dubbing version translated by NAQADA.Both versions of Chinese subtitles are the textless back translation of English subtitles,but the effects of back translation are different.Therefore,under the guidance of Skopos Theory,the author compares the translation methods in two textless back translations of Disney’s film Mulan.The thesis is aimed at solving two questions:(1)From the perspective of Skopos Theory,what translation methods are used in two textless back translations of Disney’s film Mulan?(2)What translation methods have better effect on cultural and language restoration in textless back translation?This thesis is based on the three translation principles of Skopos Theory,and conducts a detailed study and comparison of two translation versions of each material in textless back translation.Through comparative analysis,it analyzes which translation method is used to achieve better cultural and language restoration effects.Through quantitative analysis,it summarizes the frequency of translation methods used in better translations,and thus concludes the translation methods that can be used when returning to the original culture in textless back translation.It has been found that: under the guidance of skopos rule,in order to better meet the purpose of cultural and language restoration,methods of free translation and translation technique such as addition is adopted in the textless back translation of five types of culture-loaded words.And in order to make the language more natural,culture-loaded words are often translated into four-character idioms;Under the guidance of coherence rule,the translations of parts of speech,word order,and voice in textless back translation are mainly achieved through the translation method of conversion in order to achieve a more coherent effect;Guided by the fidelity rule,using translation methods such as free translation and literal translation can be faithful to the original author’s intentions,and the translation technique of “reproduction of the original text” can also help translators follow the fidelity rule in textless back translation.Among the translation methods of textless back translation collected in this study,free translation and conversion are more common.Therefore,in order to achieve a good effect of cultural and linguistic restoration,the textless back translation adopts more domestication strategies.Compared with ordinary translation,textless back translation pays more attention to the understanding of language and the restoration effect of culture.Therefore,under the guidance of Skopos Theory,translation strategies and methods should be adopted on the basis of comprehensive considerations of the translation intentions and the author’s writing purposes.This study will be of referential significance to the textless back translation of China-theme works created in foreign languages,as well as to the translation of culture-loaded words.