Domestication & Foreignization Of Chinese-English Subtitle Translation In To Live-A Skopostheorie Perspective

As important channels for entertainment and information, films are essential in modern society. To watch foreign films also facilitates exchanges and communication among various cultures. As a result, recent years have seen a growing demand for film translation. Subtitling is one kind of film translation. Compared with Europe, China lags behind in terms of subtitling practice, subtitling study and subtitling standards. This thesis is an attempt to apply the functionalist theory to subtitling.The process of watching film is in fact a means of cultural communication. Subtitle translation is significant for foreign viewers to understand the culture reflected in the movie. However, due to the constraints such as time and space constraints, and the cultural-specific expressions and cultural vacancy, subtitle translation becomes quite complicated. To deal with the relationship of source language and target language in subtitle translation, the translator has to choose between the two basic translation strategies, namely, domestication and foreignization, which is the hot topic in translation field. This paper tries to solve the problem with the help of skopostheorie and explore how to deal with their relationship in film subtitle translation with a case study of To Live. By analyzing the specific skopos in the film To Live, the author comes to the conclusion that domestication and foreignization should be combined to fulfill the very skopos of the film. And the later study on what specific translation methods are employed in the film under domestication and foreignization better verifies the conclusion. And the author at the end makes her own suggestions on the improper translation in the subtitle of To Live.The paper consists of seven chapters including both theoretical discussions and a case study. Chapters 1 and 2 serve as an introduction to the research background, looking back on the definition, the content of skopostheorie, the significance of subtitle translation as well as the research outcome in previous studies. Meanwhile, the research purpose of the thesis and methodology are introduced as well. In Chapter 3, the author explores how the specific skopos of this film decides the employment of domestication and foreignization. Chapter 4 and 5 are the case study on the concrete translation methods under the two strategies. The author analyzes the specific translation methods under domestication in Chapter Four. Chapter 5 offers the detailed analysis of translation methods under foreignization. Chapter 6 is the author's attempt on the improvement of the translation errors appearing in the film. Chapter 7 is the conclusion to the whole thesis.