A Functionalist Approach To The Subtitle Translation Of A Battle Of Wits

With the development of globalization, cross-culture communication becomes increasingly frequent. As a carrier of culture, film has become an indispensable way of cultural expression. Nowadays an increasing number of Chinese films and TV plays are introduced in foreign countries. As a result, recent years have seen a growing demand for film translation. Subtitling is one kind of film translation. Compared with Europe, China lags behind in terms of subtitling practice, subtitling study and subtitling standard. Subtitle translation practice still lacks of an effective guidance of proper theory. In view of this situation, the author attempts to study subtitle translation within the framework of functionalist theory so as to improve the quality of subtitle translation.According to the essence of functionalist approach---skopostheorie, subtitle translation is a purposeful activity. The purpose of subtitling is, with the constraints of time and space and in line with the intention of the director to convey to the audience in the specific culture the most relevant information in the most efficient way. The specific skopos is up to each film, which leads to the particular strategy of subtitle translation. Besides, in terms of translation action theory, subtitle translation is also an interpersonal interaction with a number of participants involved, including the initiator, commissioner, translator, source-text producer, target-text producer and target-text user. During the subtitle translation process, the most influential one is the director as the commissioner whose intention may determine what strategies will be taken in translating a certain film. In addition, based on text-typology theory, subtitle translation is also a text-processing action, during which the source text analysis and the comparison between source and target text should be addressed so as to achieve the skopos. As a kind of audio-visual text, subtitles are the complex with informative text, expressive text and operative text, while the emphasis is on audio-visual.Applying these theories to the translation of A Battle of Wits, it is concluded that in functionalist approach, the director Zhang Zhiliang intends to draw peoples' attention on peace, tell the story happened in the Warring Times faithfully and preach the thoughts of Mozi. At the same time, he wants to enter the international film market and lets foreign audience accept his film and know more about Chinese history. This constitutes the director's intention or the major part of translation brief. Following this, related translation strategies such as deletion, condensation, literal translation, liberal translation, etc, are employed to guarantee the fulfillment of skopos and to keep the legibility and connectivity of subtitles.The paper consists of six chapters including both theoretical discussions and a case study. Chapter 1 makes an introduction to the background in which the present study is carried out. Chapter 2 reviews the previous studies in subtitle translation. Chapter 3 gives a brief introduction of the definition of subtitle, features, etc. In chapter 4, functionalist approach is adopted to the study of subtitle translation, in terms of skopostheorie, theory of translational action and text-typology. Chapter 5 makes a case study of A Battle of Wits, discussing the related translation strategies used in the subtitle translation. Chapter 5 draws the conclusion.