The Translation Of The Figures Of Speech In Subtitles In The English-chinese Audiovisual Product Lie To Me

With the rapid changes in the human society and the accelerating development of the information technology, the patterns of human's recreation have also concomitantly transferred. In the new era of increasingly and frequently cultural and economic exchanges in the globe, TV shows have become the mainstream ways of cultural communications and the major approaches of human's entertainments. With the popularity of the applications of the Internet, the advance of the information and technology and the emergence of the numerous subtitle teams in diverse forums, watching American television programs and movies online has become a fashion in China. Therefore, the increasing importance of subtitling in American audiovisual products works highlight, and such translation has turned to be a progressively essential field of translation practice. China has not effectively focused on the subtitle translation of the audiovisual products, especially the translation of the figures of speech. Although some scholars and translators published several papers on this, most of which are the summary of the language features of the subtitles and specific translation strategies based on their personal experience. This thesis—The Translation of The Figures of Speech in the Subtitles in E-C Audiovisual Products—is still a new research direction in the subtitling in China with no systematically theoretical guidance, thus this thesis will make some tentative discussions and study on it.On the theoretical basis of Nida's functional equivalence theory, this paper will take its main principles to guide the translation of the figures of speech in the subtitles in E-C audiovisual products. The paper first outlines the domestic and foreign history and studies of the subtitle translation and the characteristics and limitations of the subtitle translation, then discusses the feasibility of the functional equivalence theory to the subtitle translation and its applicability to the translation of the figures of speech of the American TV series Lie to Me. What matters in the functional equivalence theory is the extent to which the target audiences accurately appreciate and understand the transferred text as the original audience, which is seen as the highest standard of translation.Namely, both the target and original audiences should have functional equivalent responses in the process of enjoying the audiovisual products.Then this thesis concentrates on the realization of the functional equivalence theory in the American TV series Lie to Me, the adoption of specific translation strategies from the translation examples by detailed analysis of the translation of the different figures of speech, including the translation of metaphor, euphemism, irony and pun. In this paper, when it comes to the translation of the figures of speech, the available translation strategies such as free translation, literal translation, domestication and foreignization can be used to better achieve the functional equivalence. If literal translation or foreignization can keep the original information, rhetoric effect and cultural flavor, they will be a good option. But if they will arouse the target audience's difficulty in understanding and appreciating the audiovisual products, the free translation and domestication will be a better alternative. No matter what translation methods or strategies are adopted, the subtitlers'ultimate goal is to make the target receptors understand and appreciate the audiovisual products better, and simultaneously produce a similar reaction as the original audience.In conclusion, the thesis points out that though Nida's functional equivalence theory provides a new research method in the subtitle translation of the figures of speech and helps to solve many practical problems in the subtitling, it also has its own limitations:in certain cases of the language exchanges, there still remain difficulties in the subtitle translation in achieving full functional equivalence. Moreover, the comparability of responses of the target audience and the original audience is restrained in the receptor-oriented functional equivalence, and the standard of the highest criterion of translation and degree of functional equivalence differ in everyone's eyes. As a result, the subtitlers should bear in mind to try not only to grasp the social and cultural influence of the original text in the original audience, but also to understand the target language audience's emotions and preferences so as to make a better subtitle translation. In addition, all the-examples are the first-hand materials in the American audiovisual products, which are new and innovative.