Film Translation In Chinese Mainland And Taiwan

The film is a means of mass entertainment which has become part of our daily lives. As more and more English films are imported to China, the need for film translation also increases. Film translators are required to make appropriate adaptations based on the source text, retain the intended message of the source language, and eliminate the cultural gaps, wherein the source text does not have an equivalent target text so that the target language audience can better comprehend and appreciate the film correctly through subtitling; hence accomplish cross-cultural communication. It is the film translators' role to create a more accessible text for the target audience. However, even in Chinese speaking areas such as Chinese Mainland and Taiwan, because of the differences between the audience' preferences, language customs and traditions, the linguistic translation strategies of the subtitles adopted in the same film are disparate. This explanatory study of film translation focuses on the different methods adopted by translators during the process of translating a foreign film in Chinese Mainland and Taiwan through a case study of the translation and subtitling of one of the most well received animation Kung Fu Panda, attempting to find a norm and to formulate a guiding theory for translation in Chinese speaking areas. This thesis hopes to provide a new perspective for common film translation studies in Chinese Mainland and Taiwan.