On Application Of Skopostheory In Translation Of Movies

Movie translation is an important genre of literature translation, playing an undeniable role in the enhancing of the exchanges and getting to know each other between people in China and in foreign countries. However, movie translation has been a long neglected area of translation studies and the efforts made by the translation researchers on movie translation are sadly very poor. There are many existing problems in Chinese movie translated to English. Such low translation quality just shows that these problems are a great barrier in the appreciation of those originally excellent movies.The present author first of all analyzes some problems in movie translation and then goes on with the characteristics of the movies, which are the instance of the subtitles, the colloquial color of the subtitles, the popularity of the subtitles, the terseness of the subtitles and much omission. Next, the author goes on with the basic principles in movie translation for the present which includes focusing on the audience, matching of the mouth movement, the blending of the language, presenting the character personality, reflection of cultural connotation and so on.However, the author thinks that these translation strategies under the guidance of the principles are not sufficient to handle some cross-culture problems in movie translation. Therefore, the author tries to offer some theoretical guidance for movie translation from Chinese to English.Skopostheory of German Functionalist Approach to translation may be a useful theory which based on the text typology, divides texts into three major types, thinking that different kind of text type calls for different translation techniques. Vermeer pushes Skopostheory to a new height by proposing his "Theory of Translation Action." He thinks that every human action has its specific purpose Translation is a kind of human-specific action. In order to realize the translation aim which is set in advance, the translator will try to choose the translation techniques which might fulfill the translation purpose. Thus the translator does not have to think about the faithfulness, equivalence or fidelity to the source text as it is considered no more as an unviolatable rule for the translator.Thus the translator is put in a much higher position in the translation activity and is regarded as an expert in the field of translation he is engaged. The translator has the right to choose the translation technique needed to fulfill the translation purpose in some specific situations. Then in the same source text, different kinds of translation techniques might be adopted to handle with different translation problems. In one sentence: translation is ploy-criteria in a certain sense.The present author uses a documentary movie The Boatman which he has translated as the case study and he just wants to claim that Skopostheory might be adopted in the translation of this movie. The author also puts forward some translation strategies such as annotation, adjustment, reduction, paraphrase etc, to realize information clarification, information abatement, and information improvement. He means to illustrate that Skopostheory can be used in movie translation and makes certain contribution to the development of Chinese movie translation.