A Study On The Translation Of Chinese Film Subtitles From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

Film, as an indispensable carrier of cross-cultural communication, plays an increasingly important role in our daily life. During recent decades, with the rapid economic development and the deepening of reform and opening-up in China, the communication between China and other countries is increasing correspondingly, especially the film-based communication. Every year, a lot of foreign films of different types are introduced into China and Chinese films begin to be exported and come into the sight of foreign audience. However, exportation of Chinese film isn't in proportion to its importation in terms of quantity and type. What's worse, recently, Korean and American films are introduced into China and appeal to Chinese audience, especially the youth. By contrast, the exportation of Chinese film is quite limited.This kind of unbalance deserves our attention under the consideration of long-term development of Chinese film industry.With the title "A Study on the Translation of Chinese Film Subtitles from the Perspective of Skopostheorie" and the subtitle "A Case Study of the English Version of Chi Bi", this thesis researches subtitle translation's influences upon Chinese film's development and acceptance in English-speaking countries.Skopostheorie emerged in Germany in 1970s, which has pioneered a new approach for translation study, namely, studying translation from the angle of translation skopos.In spite of some limitations, the theory plays an important role in promoting translation study. Subtitle translation has received more and more attention in recent decades and become more and more important in translation field. As a kind of translation, subtitle translation is constrained by time, space, director's intention and target audience's expectations and has its unique characteristics.Anyway, the ultimate purpose of subtitle translation is to make the film accepted by the target audience and realize the commercial value of the film in target culture. Obviously, it is of great significance and value to adopt skopostheorie to guide subtitle translation. Chi Bi, directed by the famous Hong Kong director, Wu Yusen, contains abundant Chinese culture on the basis of a well-known ancient Chinese battle--the Battle of Chi Bi.For foreigners who take a deep interest in Chinese culture, this film will be the best choice to appreciate. For foreign audience, especially those English-speaking audience, one of the important channels to understand the film and Chinese history and culture is the English version of the subtitle. On the basis of skopostheorie, the thesis first analyzes the subtitle translation's skopos and related constrained factors, then puts forward the principles and methods of subtitle translation and eventually illustrates the validity of the theory of subtitle translation, with the purpose of providing some practical guiding principles for subtitle translation, producing high quality subtitles for the target audience's understanding and appreciation of the film, promoting Chinese films into the English-speaking countries and expanding its influence in international film industry.In this thesis, the first chapter introduces the research bacaground, research problems and related research methodology. The second chapter reviews the subtitle translation and skopostheorie. The third chapter analyzes the feasibility of applying the skopostheorie in subtitle translation from different aspects, and further provides some practical translation principles and methods for subtitle translation. The fourth chapter is the case study of the English version of Chi Bi, which illustrates the applicability of skopostheorie towards subtitle translation. The fifth chapter is the conclusion.