Dubbing Translation-An Adaptation Approach

Despite the pervasive practice and profound influence of film translation in our society, little research has been conducted in this area. While dubbing and subtitling are the two major forms of film translation, the former has always dominated the cinema in Mainland China. After discussing the reasons for such a preference, we make a retrospective presentation of the related literature in dubbing. We observe that most researches focus on a particular dimension of dubbing instead of giving a holistic exploration of dubbing translation. This paper aims at a tentative treatment of such an activity as a whole. Based on the framework outlined by Verschueren, we set up a pragmatic perspective for the investigation of the translator's language use. We divide the objects of the adaptation by the translator into two categories: linguistic adaptation and extra-linguistic adaptation. Further discussions deal with the translator's strategies and the consequence of the translator's adaptation. It can be observed that the translator's verbal choices reflect his adaptation to all the elements involved in the communicative activity of dubbing, which result in obvious explicitness in textual cohesion and reduction of the "meaning potential" of the film dialogs in a dubbed version. In conclusion, we propose some criteria as guiding principles for dubbing translation.