E-C Subtitling: Rewriting As Manipulated By Power And Ideology

As an increasingly popular form of mass culture, film has not only been entertaining the general public but also promoting the intercultural communication. In recent years, foreign films, especially those in English, have constituted a great part of the Chinese people's cultural consumption. Therefore, audiovisual translation (AVT) from English into Chinese seems to become an urgent task. As one of the two methods of language transfer in AVT, subtitling has already been more popular than dubbing, because it is time-saving and cost-effective. What's more, Chinese-subtitled film with the original sound track satisfies people's increasing need to learn foreign languages, not to mention the original undistorted artistic sound effects. Scholars at home and abroad have made progress in subtitling studies; however, compared with literary translation, subtitling has received undue academic attention and has no complete theoretical system. The quality of translated subtitles is yet to be improved.No translation can be made in a vacuum. The source culture and the target culture both function on the translation activities, in which power and ideology can not be neglected. With reference to Foucault's theory of power and Lefevere's theory of ideology, this paper analyzes the manipulation of English-Chinese subtitling imposed by power and ideology and discusses the rewritings in subtitles as the result of manipulation.Power and ideology manipulate subtitling via subtitler, film censorship and mass ideology, but finally, all manipulations are materialized in subtitler's work.Based on careful case studies on E-C subtitles in commercial films that have been collected, the author has reached the conclusions as follows:(1) Different from technical rewritings, rewritings as manipulated by power and ideology have their distinctive features. Subtitler's role results in ennoblement and individual translation in choice of words. Film censorship brings the purification of subtitles. Mass ideology in subtitling takes the form of domestication and explanatory translation in favor of the audience's understanding.(2) Irrational betrayal of the original film can not be accepted in the rewritings. When rewriting, subtitlers should avoid mistranslation, over-domestication and over-replacement. Sometimes, taking the expressive functions into consideration, subtitlers should not rewrite the vulgar languages in a film.(3) The ideal of rewriting in subtitles is to realize the communication function of subtitling and cater to the audience's aesthetic taste. In the meanwhile, good subtitles are responsible for bringing economic success. Therefore, the principle of rewriting is to make the subtitles audience-oriented, affective, colloquial and pellucid.In subtitling studies, many scholars focus on subtitling strategies and skills, but few are concerned about the political, economic, social, cultural and ideological factors in subtitling. The author wants to call attention to these extra-textural factors and to look forward to the establishment of a complete theoretical system for subtitling.