Translation Strategies Of Vulgarism In Subtitling

Translation, as an important means of communication between different languages, is reflected in all aspects of life. As a part of translation, movie's subtitle translation has been given more and more attention in recent years. By using profane words, fictional characters are given a sense of reality and drawn closer to audiences in the real world. Vulgar words abound in the highly successful American comedy'Superbad', which has great entertainment value. But technical constraints of subtitling make it hard for translators to convert oral language into concise, written form as close to the source text as possible. Therefore, this movie serves as a great material to explore translation strategies for vulgarism. The thesis takes'Superbad'as a case study to examine the translation strategies of vulgarism in Chinese subtitle.Among many translation theorists, British scholar Peter Newmark is believed one of the most influential figures in translation field throughout the world. In his famous work"Approaches to Translation"(1981) he proposed the "semantic translation" and "communicative translation" theory. This theory still has its practical value at present. This thesis focuses on the movie subtitles translation from the semantics and communicative perspective. Peter Newmark believed that translation was such a process that the source language text, translators and readers were dynamically combined. The translator should conduct the relevant work with all possible relevant factors considered and then determine the most appropriate translation method. Therefore, in the subtitling process, various factors should be considered, according to the specific purpose of translation strategies used in the corresponding practice. In this thesis, under the guidance of this theory, tries to analyze the film subtitle translation through the methods including literal translation, omission, conversion and addition.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One reveals the research motivation and the structure of the thesis, with a brief introduction of the movie. Chapter Two explores the characteristics, restrictions, translation strategies of subtitling; features and functions of vulgarism are investigated from the perspective of social linguistic psychology, with Harvard cognitive scientist Steven Pinker's proposed functions on swearing as basis. Chapter Three illustrates the theoretical basis and methodology of this research. Chapter Four categorizes different translation strategies and pursues a detailed analysis of the examples. Chapter Five provides conclusions and recommendations for further search.