An Analysis Of The Subtitle Translation Of The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

In recent years, with the increasingly frequent development of intercultural communication, plenty of foreign films and television programs are introduced to China by the mass media not only as a kind of art, but also as an approach to transmit culture. Therefore, subtitle translation which is considered as the important part of the film translation has been showing its significant importance. Literary translation has always received great attention and experienced a noticeable development in the field of translation study, yet film translation has not attracted enough critical eyes. Some scholars both at home and abroad have tentatively proposed to apply different theories to film translation from different aspects, with the purpose of analyzing the possibility and necessity of their applicability. Because of the special language structure in Europe, the theoretical research has developed much more widely and deeply than that in China, and formed some particular common views and standards in strategies, norms and quality control. While in China, the study of subtitle translation seems relatively delayed, and lacks of regulations as well. Besides, it should also be admitted that people do not pay enough attention to the field of subtitle translation. What's worse, the subtitle translators in current market do things in their own ways, which makes the quality of subtitling uneven and develop in an unhealthy way.This thesis tries to study film subtitle translation from the perspective of Skopostheorie. In terms of Skopostheorie, translation is regarded as a purposeful activity—the end always justifies the means. Different from other translation theories, Skopostheorie holds that the prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose of the overall translational action, and the translators can choose strategies freely to achieve its purpose, which embodies the basic rule of Skopostheorie—the intention determining the means. According to Skopostheorie, coherence rule demands intratextual coherence within the target text as well as its target situation, it requires the translation have to conform to culture and the situation accepted by the target audience; another rule—fidelity (intertextual coherence) illustrates the relationship between the target text and the source text with the source dialogues and the translated subtitles. Intertextual coherence is considered subordinate to intratextual coherence, and both are subordinated to the Skopos rule, which indicates that in subtitle translation, acceptability is prior to fidelity. While in subtitle translation, the Skopos is determined by both the intention of the director (as the initiator) and the expectation of audience (as the receiver).This thesis studies different subtitle versions of the film within the framework of Skopostheorie. Taking the director's and the playwright's intentions as starting points, the paper analyzes the target readers'expectation, in order to discuss the strategies (language condensation, domestication and free translation) and means used in the process of subtitle translation. Through the study, the writer wishes to conclude some problems that should be noticed in English-Chinese films'subtitle translation, and what's more, tries to put up some personal suggestions as possible as I can.There are five chapters in the paper: Chapter one relates to an introduction, so as to educe the research background of the subtitle translation and previous research on it both in China and abroad. Chapter two gives an account of the features and technical constraints of subtitle translation nowadays. In chapter three, Skopostheorie is introduced briefly as the theoretical foundation from the aspects of details, such as the basic concepts, three rules and their relationship. And chapter four takes the American movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as an example to verify the applicability of the Skopostheorie approach used in subtitling. After giving a short introduction of the movie, the Skopos of the subtitle translation has been pointed out. The subtitler has to adopt several translation strategies to serve the Chinese audience, which include reduction, domestication, addition & explanatory translation and so on. Through analyzing the two different subtitle versions found on the internet, the author attempts to select one which fits to the original text and the receiver audience better according to Skopostheorie. As for chapter five, it comes to a conclusion of the whole paper and gives a summary of the subtitle translation. Besides the strategies used in the movie, there are still many other translation strategies or approaches in the process of subtitle translation. In the author's opinion, in order to fulfill the Skopos of the translation, the subtitlers need to take efforts to consult about the most appropriate strategies on dealing with barriers existed in different cultures.