A Study Of Subtitle Translation Based On Domestication Theory

Nowadays many western movies rush into world movie market with successful box office. With the development of worldwide movie market, subtitle translation studies have attracted much attention. As a rather important way to express the directors’thoughts, subtitle translation directly affects the audiences’understanding of the movies. More and more relevant studies have been done in recent years, mainly from the angle of translation methods and skills instead of making an exploration of strategy of domestication. In contrast to the predecessors’researches, this thesis focuses on subtitle translation studies based on domestication in the hope of throwing light on the improvement of subtitle translation.This thesis is divided into five parts. The first chapter makes a brief introduction about the research background and the rationale and significance of the thesis. Chapter two gives an outline of subtitle translation, with a summary of the history, characteristics, common methods of subtitle translation, overseas conferences, organizations dedicated to subtitle studies and the theory of domestication. Chapter three discusses the influential factors in subtitle translation from four perspectives: subtitle translation operating procedures, requirements for subtitlers, spatial-temporal constraints in subtitle translation and subtitle translation assessment. Chapter four details the necessity of applying domestication in subtitle translation and makes case studies by using examples of subtitle translation in Western Chinese-kung-fu movies. The last chapter draws a conclusion that domestication theory can serve as a guiding translation theory for subtitlers and help them achieve better results in actual translation practice.