A Study Of Film Subtitle Translation From English Into Chinese

This research aims at making a proper guidance to English-Chinese film subtitle translation practice. This aspect of study has profound meaning. Audiovisual products as a popular means of mass media have great influence on people's lives. As the communication of cultures continue in the most rapid pace than ever before in this century, the audiovisual subtitle translation is playing a more and more important part in international communication. Yet the quality of subtitles in our country is far more from satisfying. There is an urgent need for some guidance on English-Chinese subtitling. In this thesis, by adopting Gottlieb's tightrope translation strategies and the Code of Good Subtitling Practice, the author intends to find proper English-Chinese subtitle strategies based on Gottlieb's subtitle translation theory and will try to establish suggestions of steps for English-Chinese subtitle translation practice. Hopefully, subtitlers will find the proposal of translation strategies and suggestions of steps helpful in their translation practice.This thesis adopts positive study, illustration analysis and induction research methodology. Through the comparison of subtitle translation of film Avatar between the mainland China and Taiwan subtitles, a questionnaire has been designed for respondents to select a better version between the two. The author uses Danish screen translation expert Henrik Gottlieb's tightrope translation strategies as the theoretical foundation and at the same time points out that these strategies are not all applicable to English-Chinese subtitle translation. After the analysis of two subtitle versions of Avatar, the author will rewrite Gottlieb's translation strategies and make some adjustments. Meanwhile, the author adopts the theory of Code of Good Subtitling Practice as well. It was proposed by European scholars Mary Carroll and Jan Ivarsson and approved by European Association for Studies in Screen Translation. Due to the geographic, cultural and lingual differences, this Code is limited to the subtitle translation between English and European languages. Besides, it is too general. For the various situations that a subtitler could encounter in translation process, the author intends to propose suggestions of steps for English-Chinese subtitle translation through analysis of Avatar subtitle.There are five chapters in this thesis. Chapter One, as an introduction, writes about the research background, scope, organization, methodology and purpose. Subtitling translation as a branch of translation studies has not drawn enough attention in our country. This thesis will only focus on English-Chinese subtitle translation. For the popular topics in international audio-visual translation study field today, for example, differences between dubbing and subtitling, the acceptance of film subtitles by hard of hearing audience etc., the thesis will only present them but with no further discussion. Through the analysis of Avatar subtitle, the author tries to find proper strategies for English-Chinese subtitle translation and proposes suggestions of steps for English-Chinese subtitle translation practice.Chapter Two is literature review. It is divided into two sections. In the first section, the author presents the developing process of both western and Chinese film subtitling. There has been over a century since the invention of the first film subtitle in western world. The import of western film subtitle technology in China started, in Shanghai in 1910s. Then differences between dubbing versus subtitling and arguments about each of their advantages and disadvantages are shown in the end of the first section. The second section is the introduction to subtitling studies. The author lists scholars'definition and classification of film subtitling as well as its features and constrains. Studies in this field both at home and abroad are also reviewed.In the third chapter, theoretical framework, tightrope subtitle translation strategies and Code of Good Subtitling Practice are discussed. In Gottlieb's ten strategies, there are four of them that cannot apply to English-Chinese subtitle translation. As for the other seven strategies, three of them are very much the same that can be categorized into different situations in one strategy. The Code is too general and does not provide very proper solution for the various situations that a subtitler could encounter in translation. The author makes corrections and complements for the limitations and inadequacies in these theories in order to adjust them for English-Chinese subtitling practice in the next chapter.Chapter Four is the theoretical demonstration through subtitle analysis. There are three sections. Section One is the explanation of the questionnaire, which has been proved to be authentic and reliable. In Section Two, the author removes the inadaptable strategies from Gottlieb's theory and makes adjustments to others. These strategies are then demonstrated by comparative analysis of the mainland and Taiwan subtitles of Avatar using the questionnaire results. The author proposes suggestions of steps for English-Chinese subtitle translation practice in the third section. These suggestions of steps will provide subtitlers some guidance in future translation.The last chapter summarizes findings and limitations in this research and makes recommendations for the further study.