Application Of Functionalist Theory In Subtitle Translation

Subtitling, as one of new branches of translation, has been developingrapidly in recent decades, with the skyrocketing development of audiovisualtechnology, witnessing the globalization and peoples‘increasing demand toknow and appreciate programs or culture different from their own. Theemergence of subtitling is joyful for these people because they can watch theaudiovisual program without language barriers at home and communicatewith like-minded people on line comfortably. Nowadays, it is convenient tofind translated subtitles for popular audiovisual programs from foreigncountries on line. Different from the traditional literature translation anddubbing, the most popular English-Chinese subtitle translation is done byfans and amateurs in China based on their translation practice and experiencewithout guidance of systematic theory. A surprising imbalance between theenormous impacts of subtitle translation on audiovisual programs and thelittle research on it arouses the author‘s interest. This present thesis attemptsto analyze and discuss this kind of subtitle translation from a macro-levelwithin the framework of functionalist translation theory to improve thesubtitling.In this thesis, the functionalist translation theory is employed as aguideline for subtitle translation and affords a criterion for subtitle translation.According to the text typology in the theory, the translator ought to analyzethe type of the source subtitle and bear the adaptive methods in mind basedon the pragmatic function of source subtitle. According to the skopos theory, subtitle translation is also defined as a skopos constrained activity, whichdefines the skopos as the primary rule governing the whole process oftranslation activity. An appropriate translation is the one that can fulfill thetranslation skopos. The target audience is the most important, thusacceptability of the translation to the target audience is significant. Adequacyis the evaluation criterion of subtitle translation. Subtitle translation is alsodefined as an interpersonal interaction. All the factors related to theparticipants should be taken into consideration. Last, according to the textprocess, the translator has to keep it in mind that although the source subtitleplays the role of information offer, the rule of coherence and loyalty can‘t beignored.With the guide of top-down translation model, the case of The Big BangTheory is brought in for study within the framework of functionalisttranslation theory. The case study starts from the general introduction of thissitcom, introducing the synopsis, awards the sitcom obtains, and respectivefigures who make deep impression to the audience. Through the analysis ofthe source subtitle, the author identifies the unique features and the skopos oftranslation of this sitcom which determines the following analysis oftranslation strategies used in the examples. In the part of adequacy analysisof subtitle translation, the author focuses on the translation ofculture–specific elements and the expression of humor, the two uniquefeatures of The Big Bang Theory. The author finds that the online fansubgroups choose strategies in a flexible way.By applying the functionalist translation theory to the case study, theauthor finds that although the flexible use of translation strategies andmethods results in inevitable loss of the information of source text, the targettext is still deemed as adequate to the skopos defined before the factualtranslation. And the applicability and effectiveness of the functionalisttranslation theory is proved in guiding the translation practice of subtitle.