Film Translation Strategies From The Perspective Of Communicative Translation

Film is a sort of entertainment which is known by everyone. With the development of culture exchanges between China and the world, more and more western films are introduced to Chinese audience either in dubbed or subtitled form. Besides, film is a comprehensive art with the combination of sound and image. Film translation, composed of two language methods mentioned above has its own characteristics compared with other kinds of translation. To realize a fine synthesis of audio and visual elements, film translation should be guided by communication theories, abiding by certain rules and criteria.In the first part, the author gives an overview of communicative translation theories especially Peter Newmark's and listed out the representatives of communicative translation theory.In the second part, the author focuses on the history and present development of film translation, and covers two forms of film translation, namely, dubbing and subtitling, which are preferred by different audience. Besides, the author also analyzes the two forms.The third part elaborates the application of the communicative translation from information transmission, aesthetics transmission and emotional transference respectively. Information transmission includes the relevant information of the characters and specific scene in the film, as well as relevant cultural transmission which can be expressed not only in the combination of words and languages but in various forms. Aesthetics transmission is both internal and external, namely, visual and aural agreement of the external aesthetics; internal aesthetics of language itself. Some rhetorical devices are used to express similar emotions as the original film has.In the fourth part, the author sums up the strategies of dubbing and subtitling according to the characteristics of film translation. Dubbing translation mainly focuses on the agreement of lip movements, sound and body languages. Because of the fact that subtitling is confined to time and space and it comes across the change of two media from an oral source text into its target text in written form, reduction etc. are some good strategies that every subtitling translator will adopt to make the written lines clear and terse. For this confinement of time and space together with the difference of cultural elements, communicative translation is the best way to chose because it can make the audience understand the difference in a short time.In the conclusion part, the author sums up the main idea of the thesis and points out that film translation is not perfect at present, she hopes that under the guidance of communicative translation theories, the practice of film dubbing and subtitling will be more effective in communicating film text and spreading culture to the target language audience.