A Study Of Chinese-English Subtitle Translation From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

With the development of economic globalization, intercultural communication is in a rapid growth, among which films constitute an important channel. As the foreign films pour into China, Chinese films also begin to enter the international market. As a medium of information transmission, film subtitle translation plays a more and more important role. A high-quality subtitle translation can attract more audience and better convey cultures.As a new field of translation, film subtitle translation has attracted a great deal of interest among researchers and become a current focus for research. In Europe and America there has been an upsurge in studies of multimedia translation, translation strategies and quality control of subtitle translation. However, domestic studies on subtitle translation haven't caught sufficient attention and have been lagging behind, which contributes negatively to the quality of Chinese film subtitle translation.This thesis intends to analyze the strategies in subtitle translation of John Woo's Red Cliff and to study subtitle translation from the perspective of Skopos Theory, in an expectation to help improve present Chinese film subtitle translation. The study mainly focuses on the following questions:(1) What strategies are more frequently applied in subtitle translation? (2) What are the merits and demerits of the subtitle translation based on Skopos Theory?This thesis has selected two 5-minute-long episodes to analyze subtitle translation strategies. Based on characteristics of subtitle translation strategies, an analysis is made on subtitle translation from the theoretical perspective of Skopos Theory, intending to find out the merits and demerits.This thesis draws the following conclusions:(1) Deduction is more frequently applied in subtitle translation. In order to transfer relevant information to the audience, translation strategy of deduction is more frequently applied due to the constraints of time and space. (2) Skopos Theory could be used to instruct subtitle translation. The strategies used in subtitle translation can fulfill the translation skopos, convey the director's intention and meet the audience's expectations. Violation of Skopos Theory will lead to demerits in subtitle translation, which might initiate confusion and misunderstanding.The results will be constructive to Chinese-English subtitle translation. It is expected that this thesis will be helpful for improving subtitle translation and initiate further researches in this area.