On Subtitles Translation Of The Movie The Pursuit Of Happyness From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

With the rapid development of movie industry, an increasing number of foreignmovies are pouring into China. As a means of communication, movies promote theexchanges between the different countries and regions. Therefore, it becomes importantto study movie subtitles and subtitles translation in depth, which has great practicalsignificance. This thesis studies the subtitles translation of the movie The Pursuit ofHappyness under the guidance of Relevance Theory, and holds that Relevance Theoryhas a strong explanatory power on movie subtitles translation. Relevance Theory, as acognitive theory of human communication, aims to emphasize that languagecommunication is an ostensive-inferential process, thus in the target text, the originalintention should be communicated to the communicative objects as much as possible tomake them get and understand the information with the least processing efforts. Duringthe process of subtitles translation, firstly, the subtitler should reach a consensus with theoriginal author to understand the original intention and related information better;secondly, the subbtitler should take into account the cognitive environment of the targetlanguage audience. In order to achieve the expected communicative purpose of the movie,the subtitler should adopt the appropriate strategies according to the features of thesubtitles under the guidance of the optimal relevance and create the adequate contextualeffects for the target language audience to make him enjoy the movie with minimalprocessing efforts. Based on Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory and Gutt’stranslation theory, this thesis introduces and demonstrates the strategies adopted in thesubtitles translation of the movie The Pursuit of Happyness with examples to providesome theoretical and methodological reference for the movie subtitles translation.This thesis is composed of three parts: an introduction, a main body and aconclusion.The introductory part mainly presents the research status of subtitles translation, themain issues that the thesis is to study and the purpose and significance of choosing thistopic. Subtitles translation originates from western countries. Compared with the study ofsubtitles translation in western countries, the study in China is started later, and there isno systematic theory to guide the subtitles translation.The second part is the main body, which is made up of four chapters. Chapter I gives an introduction to subtitles and subtitles translation. For subtitles, itmainly introduces the definition, classification, feature, nature, function and constraints.For subtitles translation, the multimedia translation, the quality control and thestandardization of the subtitles translation are introduced.Chapter II reviews Relevance Theory. Relevance Theory is a cognitive pragmatictheory about verbal communication. It considers communication as anostensive-inferential process, that is, for the speaker, it is an ostensive process. However,for the hearer, it is an inferential process. Context and context effects are also introducedand analyzed in this chapter.Chapter III presents the relationship between Relevance Theory and translation.Under the framework of Relevance Theory, translation is considered as interlingualinterpretive use, a cross-cultural communication, and a channel to make the intentionmeet the expectation. Then it introduces Relevance Theory and subtitles translation, andpoints out that it is feasible to use Relevance Theory to study subtitles translation and thesubtitles translation is to pursue the optimal relevance and finally it gives an introductionto cognitive environment in movie viewing.Chapter IV is a case study. Firstly it reviews the plot of the movie The Pursuit ofHappyness. The hero in the movie pursues his own happiness by his continuous efforts.Secondly, it introduces the strategies used in the subtitles translation of the movie underthe guidance of Relevance Theory, including deduction, addition, omission, substitution,domestication and explicitation. By adopting these strategies, the translator follows theprinciple of relevance to make the audience obtain the adequate contextual effects withminimal processing efforts to achieve the intended purpose of the movie.The last part is the conclusion. It is the summary of the previous discussion. Byanalyzing the subtitles translation of the movie The Pursuit of Happyness, it proves thatusing Relevance Theory to study subtitles translation is feasible. Then it points out thesuggestions and the prospects of the further study on movie subtitles translation. It isexpected that more translators and researchers pay attention to foreign movie subtitlestranslation to improve the skill of the subtitles translation to bring the best plot show tothe target language audience.