Film Subtitle Translation From A Functionalist Approach

With the vigorous development of modern economy and politics, culturaltransmission and communication become more and more important especially at thetime of transformation from economic to cultural colonization. Film, a kind ofimportant means of cultural transmission, is developing rapidly today in the culturalglobalization time. What’s more, the popularization of the internet is speeding up thespreading and communicating of Chinese and foreign film works. Thus, film subtitletranslation studies come into being, which have a long history and have gained certaindevelopment in some foreign counties, but relatively fall behind at home. Byanalyzing the application of functional translation theory in film subtitle translation,this paper is intended to guide the practice of subtitle translation through a discussionof practical principles, strategies and case studies for the purpose of shedding somelight on Chinese film subtitle translation and improving the overall translation quality.Subtitle translation, a special form of translation, possesses the characteristics oftranslation and also features of subtitles, which is a kind of translation activities withcertain purposes according to German functional translation theory. The main objectof subtitle translation is to provide the most equivalent information to the targetaudience under certain space-time limit according to the intention of the director,which enables the target audience to feel the maximum audio-visual effects of theoriginal work. While people in different countries have different cultural backgrounds,in order to achieve this goal and fulfill the translator’s task successfully, particulartranslation principles must be followed and some translation strategies should beadopted.In the theory aspect, this paper mainly introduces the development of functionaltranslation theory, three translation rules and translation action. Translation rules areSkopos rule, coherence rule and fidelity rule, in which Skopos rule is the mostsignificant principle and the Skopos in different works varies in different situations;coherence rule demands the target text to make sense and comply with the targetlanguage culture; fidelity rule requests the translation to be faithful to the original text. Among these three rules, fidelity rule is subordinate to coherence rule and both ofthem are subject to the supreme law-Skopos theory. Translation action sees translationas a kind of purposeful behavior, which emphasizes each participant’s role in thetranslation process.Through multiple translation case studies of Kung Fu Panda in the central part ofthis paper, we can obviously see that all kinds of translation strategies and skillsadopted are to convey the sense of humor and profound moral, and also let the targetaudience experience the entertaining and inspirational spirit in the original film.Naturally, it reached win-win situation of each participant in the translation process.Practice proves that the functional translation theory is prescriptive and instructive forsubtitle translation, which makes subtitle translation process smoother and perfect,thus more and more excellent translated films are created.This paper consists of five chapters: Chapter one briefly introduces the researchbackground, research methods and structure of this paper. Chapter two is the literaturereview, introducing the essential characteristics of subtitles, the features anddevelopment of subtitle translation and also the current research status in and abroad.Chapter three briefly describes the development of functional translation theory, threerules and subtitle translation from the perspective of functional translation theory.Chapter four applies the functional translation theory to case studies of Kung FuPanda, discussing the translation strategies employed. Chapter five summarized thethesis and the insufficiency in this paper, and also puts forward suggestions andexpectations for future research.