Metaphor Translation In Cartoon Subtitling From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

This study is largely motivated by the paradox between the growing importance of cartoon films and inadequate research into cartoon film subtitling. On the one hand, the trend of globalization has witnessed the enormous impact of English cartoon films on Chinese market and cross-cultural exchanges. On the other hand, however, research on cartoon subtitling has not received due attention from the translation field. In view of this imbalance, this thesis targets at the study of metaphor translation in cartoon subtitling. Metaphors in cartoon subtitles are widely used to enliven the language expressions and arouse children audience's interests. Besides, metaphor is the carrier of culture. Cultural disparities between the English and Chinese metaphors and children audience's cognitive capacity make metaphor translation a knotty task which deserves an in-depth research.Because of the particularity of the target audience, reception aesthetics is introduced to study metaphor translation in cartoon subtitling. Reception aesthetics shifts the focus of literary study from texts and authors to translators and readers. Two major terms of reception aesthetics are employed: "horizon of expectation" and "indeterminacy" to the analysis of the examples taken from the Disney Platinum Collection. The major concern is to find a new way for translators to study metaphor translation in cartoon subtitling based on a close analysis of the barriers of metaphor translation and probe into the translation methods when subtitlers handle metaphors in cartoon subtitles from English.Influenced by children's cognitive capacity and cultural backgrounds in metaphors, which constitute the major barriers of metaphor translation, a variety range of translation methods are introduced by subtitlers from the perspective of reception aesthetics. On the one hand, subtitlers choose target language oriented translation methods (e.g. replacement of the source language image with target language image, converting metaphors to sense, and omission) in order to conform to the horizon of expectation of children audience; on the other hand, subtitlers create indeterminacies to leave room for provoking audience's creativity and adopt source language oriented translation methods (e.g. reproducing the same image with the target image, retaining the original image by compensation, or transference of metaphor into similar).