Dancing With Chains--A Probe Into Subtitling Translation

Since the day when film and TV came into being, their advantages like wide distribution and easy to understand, have made them one of the most important carriers of culture and the main means of cross culture communication. In the twenty-first century, with the development of mass media and globalization, international culture exchanges have become increasingly important as they have penetrated practically to every part of our life and every part of the world. Apart from the traditional concepts of culture exchanges, audiovisuals exchanges have become the new dominant form. Facing this influx of information in the form of foreign languages, audiovisual translation acts as the bridge to make the communication between different cultures and different language speakers possible. However, for reasons not clear, the Chinese translation circle has paid little attention to this increasingly important filed as there are so few academic papers of this topic. And the few papers do discuss audiovisual translation provide us with no systematic translation theory to guide this special kind of practical translation.Inspired by the idea of a Taiwan scholar Hu Gongze-viewing translation from the perspective of communication, the author tries to discuss subtitling translation, one of most important translation means for audiovisuals, from the angle of communication. What distinguishes the subtitling translation from other types of translation is it is constrained by time and space. And the translation is conducted in the circumstances that there are other kinds of information like image and sound effects. In terms of communication theory, information transferring comes as the first priority for subtitling translation. This information together with the other channels' of information, facilitate the viewer to understand and enjoy the audiovisual products. The aim of this paper is to focus on the highly specialized area of translation for film subtitling. Firstly, what is AVT and two types of AVT---subtitling and dubbing---will be compared and analyzed. Secondly, the strategies for subtitling translation are discussed and analyzed from the perspectives of communication theory, the translator's role in the translation activity and the goal of subtitling translation. Thirdly, constraints of subtitling and presentation standards of subtitles are explained. Finally, particular problems in subtitling translation will be examined by citing examples from the cartoon film Ice Age and adult TV series Sex and the City. The author hopes that by this tentative study of subtitling and the translation strategies it applies, she can propose a set of subtitling standards and arouse interests of the translation circle to pay due attention to this type of practical translation, which has become increasingly important.