A Tentative Study On Subtitle Translation On The Basis Of A Relevance-Adaptation Theoretical Model

The research of subtitle translation has a relatively short history. Since the mid-twentieth century, some European scholars began writing about how to improve the quality of subtitle translation. With more and more scholars engaged in this field, their study covers many aspects, such as subtitle translation strategies, quality control, translation standards and so forth. However, the specific process of subtitle translation has attracted little attention.The theme of this paper is the translation process of English movie subtitles, which aims to describe and explain the movie subtitle translation process abiding by the relevance-adaptation theoretical model. This theoretical model is integrated by the Relevance Theory put forward by Sperber and Wilson and the Adaptation Theory proposed by Verschueren. This model has a great explanatory power as relevance theory and is adapting at theoretical description as adaptation theory does.Although the subtitle translation is relatively new and special, it is an integral part of translation. Therefore, the research of translation process of movie subtitles has great significance both from the perspective of translation practice and the perspective of cross-cultural communication. Under the overall situation of culture globalization, unity and diversity, universality and uniqueness go hand in hand to boost the development of cross-cultural communication. On the contrary, the development of cross-cultural communication has promoted the culture globalization. The fundamental purpose of translation is to achieve cross-cultural communication. Since film subtitles translation is considered as a special but important component of translation practice, the in-depth study of subtitle translation process of English movies will effectively advance the success of cross-cultural communication.Firstly, there is a theoretical analysis of subtitle translation, defining subtitle, introducing many constraints on subtitle translation. Secondly, this paper presents the theoretical analysis of the relevance-adaptation theoretical model. By comparing some key notions of translation studies in the sphere of relevance theory and adaptation theory respectively, the author tries to prove the rationality of the existence of the relevance-adaptation theoretical model and the feasibility of the application of this model. Then we explore the translation process of English movie subtitles on the basis of the relevance-adaptation theoretical model. Finally, this paper takes several English movie subtitles and their Chinese translation for example to prove the descriptive and explanatory power of the theoretical model.In recent years, it is generally agreed that translation is a dynamic process involving the translator's mental working. There are two phases of the translating process, in the first phase or the interpreting process, the translator as an addressee is expected to infer the communicator's intention. Then comes to the second phase or the producing process, the translator is the communicator who produces target text for the target audience. The translator plays different roles in different phases of the whole translation process.In the present research, we probe into the translating process on the basis of the relevance-adaptation theoretical model. Considering many constraints on subtitle translation, we tentatively draw on the relevance-adaptation theoretical model to explain and describe the subtitle translation process. This paper finds that the process of subtitle translation is a process involving the translator's cognition and adaptation under the guidance of the optimal relevance. To ensure the success of cross-cultural communication, every step of the translation process should be carried out carefully.