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A Study On Cultural Correspondence Strategies In Subtitling Translation With Principles Of Equivalence A Case Study Based On Gone With The Wind

Posted on:2011-06-21Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:C X ChenFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360305460636Subject:English Language and Literature
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Imported films are important intercultural communicating channels, for they facilitate the exchange and the communication among various cultures. As a result, recent years have witnessed a growing demand for subtitling. In Europe, based on its unique language foundation, the theory researches have deeply and extensively developed, and some consensus and norms have been achieved in translation strategies, translation standards and quality control. Compared with that, however, China has been lagging behind in subtitling translation in these ways, without a uniform standard to conform to. The uneven quality of the subtitling translation has hindered the healthy development in this field.The fact that language and culture enjoy a high degree of pertinence explains the reason why the translation of the cultural-loaded word is important in subtitling translation. Cultural factors surface from the confrontation of culture deposits in the process of translating from one language to another, making it impossible to recapture the relationship of the source text to the source culture, and therefore, demand decisions on the part of subtitlers. This is the cultural factor of translation, which is the largest obstacle translators often encounter in translating. Hence, this paper is an attempt to study and explore the cultural correspondence strategy for the translation of the cultural-loaded words with Nida's Principles of Equivalence from the perspective of intercultural translation, a newly arising field in translation study, with the expectation to find out a best suitable principle and strategy to deal with the translation of the cultural-loaded works as well as its potential problems that worth digging into.Eugene A. Nida's functional equivalence as well as his principle of equivalent effect proves to be fairly influential in translation practice. The theory turns out to be one of the crucial theoretical concepts and practical principles in translation, in which one language is reconstructed in another. From Nida's point of view, the translated version ought to generate in the target readers the responses that are "essentially like" those of the "original" receptors, otherwise, he assented to rearranging the text so as to extract those initial responses. Then in his book Language, Culture and Translating, published in 1993, Nida replaced the term "dynamic equivalence" with "functional equivalence", with practically no substantial change between them, only the latter one, he figured, more scientific and flexible. It is acknowledged that functional equivalence effectively averts the translating activities from rigid word-for-word equivalence ones. Ever since the concepts of formal and dynamic equivalence were brought up, a receptor-oriented translation has emerged in translation studies.A categorization of cultural correspondence strategies according to different cultural element classification:time and space correspondence, identity correspondence, rhetorical correspondence, religious correspondence and cultural image correspondence, are identified and analyzed with abundant examples extracted from many imported foreign films to show how cultural correspondence strategy functions in subtitling translation. It needs to be pointed out that there is no such thing as a cure-all in translating cultural-loaded words. Subtitliers do not have to be confined to the strict classification of the five categories, or rather, what they are to pay attention to is the general principle for the subtitling of the cultural-loaded words:to spread the culture of the source text country to the target audience of another country and to enrich the audience's scope of knowledge and the understanding of another country.There might be discrepancies during the practical work as to how to balance between the principle of spreading the foreign culture to the audience and conveying the most clear and easily understood subtitling to the audience. It is the subtitler's responsibility to make a wise selection of the words workable. Two of the most crucial attributive factors that could be put into consideration are:the educational background of the target audience and the popularity of the cultural-loaded words in target text country.Besides the principle that guides the subtitling process, there are extra requirement for the subtitlers. Thorough understanding of the source language text, including the plot of the story and the corresponding background knowledge, is the prerequisite for the subtitler before carrying out a subtitling translation. Well-knit professional skills will also help rendering a good subtitling work.In the case study, authentic examples are transcribed from the original film products and then analyzed from an intercultural translation approach. The paper tends to categorize some concrete strategies that the subtitler might have consciously or unconsciously considered when dealing with cultural-loaded words. Detailed study on the film Gone with the Wind are carried out by employing the cultural correspondence strategy to testify the feasibility of cultural correspondence strategy in guiding subtitling translation.
Keywords/Search Tags:Principles of Functional Equivalence, Cultural correspondence strategies, Subtitles in English films, Subtitling translation
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