A Study Of The Subtitle Translation Of Friends Based On Frame Theory

In recent years, with the increasing tendency of globalization, more and moreforeign films, especially a lot of English films came to China. In order to make theChinese audience appreciate the films better, subtitle translation has become a vitalfield and has its special meaningful position.However, there is still a long way to go in this field. Although there have beenmany kinds of translation theories, all of them need to be further improved. Inprevious studies about subtitle translation, there have been many differentperspectives, such as the functional approach and the pragmatic approach. There arealso some theories which are frequently used as the theoretical basis of subtitletranslation, such as the Skopos Theory, the Relevance Theory, and the AdaptationTheory. However, this thesis attempts to make an analysis of subtitle translation froma new perspective, the cognitive perspective. Cognitive linguistics, as a new born field,is becoming more and more important in the contemporary study of language. Thecognitive linguists hold the view that language is innate in human’s cognitive abilities.This means that the thesis will analyze the subtitle translation from the perspective ofhuman cognition. In this thesis, the theoretical basis is the Frame Theory, which hasbecome an important branch in cognitive linguistics. According to Frame Theory,frames can be considered as the knowledge structure stored in our brains which isused to represent the world. They can also be used as background information whichis of great help in understanding new events or situations. In other words, it is the knowledge structure or the background information that composes our mental frame.Whenever we need it, we can use it from our memory.In this thesis, the author takes the subtitle translation of Friends as an example,trying to explain subtitle translation based on Frame Theory, and to conclude somestrategies of subtitle translation which may be of some help to the further study oftranslation.