Adaptation Theory Approach To Subtitle Translation

As Chinese films make more and more presence in the world film stage, films are playing much indispensable role in the intercultural communication. Film subtitle translation, as a newly flourished research, has been gradually attached more significance as well. Taking the film Farewell My Concubine directed by Chen Kaige as a case study, this paper attempts to explore the impact of dynamic context adaptation on the strategies of film subtitling on the basis of adaptation theory proposed by Jef Verschueren.According to Jef Verschueren, used by people for communicative needs, languages using is a process of continuous choice making with different degrees of salience. The possibility of this choice making lies in the three properties of language: variability, negotiability and adaptability and any process of language use is taken as dynamic adaptation in light of communicative contexts and targets. Inspired by adaptation theory, this paper makes suggestion that, in film subtitle translation, subtitlers need to take various contextual factors into full consideration when conveying the directors' intention and the filmic message effectively, and to make proper linguistic choices in line with specific contexts dynamically.First, in view of the special features and technical constraints of film subtitle translation, the author recapitulates the applicability of context adaptation theory in film subtitle translation. Moreover, along with the time and space constraints upon film subtitles, the author focuses on the analysis of linguistic context, cultural context and situational context in relation to subtitle translations, with detailed explanation on the differences of contexts of two languages in particular. In the end, through the analysis of the subtitles of Farewell My Concubine, the dynamic context adaptation to various contexts of English and Chinese are fully investigated, and some translation strategies from the perspective of context adaptation are tentatively concluded.With the dynamic context adaptation as guidance for the film subtitling strategies, this paper aims to be conductive to the practical subtitle translation and helps to improve the film subtitles.