A Study On English-Chinese Movie Subtitle Translation Based On Functional Equivalence Theory

Movie subtitle translation is of great significance in translations of audiovisual arts. It bears the task of cultural spreading. It is a bridge of different cultural communication, and is an important method to achieve the transfer of audiovisual information. Movie subtitle translation not only reflects the thoughts and inner meaning, but also reflects the expression form and feeling of movie arts. It is an integration of thoughts, arts and feelings.The functional equivalence theory of E. A. Nida, a famous American translator, is theoretically illuminating in movie subtitle translation. The core problem is equivalence. He highlights equivalence of content, and takes formal equivalence into consideration. When the two equivalences come into conflict, equivalence of content is prior to formal equivalence. In equivalence translation theory, Nida emphasizes functional equivalence. He regards that as cultural communication and transfer, translational activities have three functions:translation should provide people with understandable message, influence people in an emotive way, and make people respond in action. The above functions can be known as informative, expressive and imperative function, bearing inner relation with the three objects which movie pursues.Movie, as one of the methods in cultural communication, has three communicative goals: to let the audience understand and appreciate foreign culture; to let the audience feel the thoughts and emotive expressions in the movie; and to make the movie appeal to the audience and elicit their thoughts. In short, the first goal is "informativeness", the second "expressiveness", the third "public appeal". According to functional equivalence theory, in movie subtitle translation, translators should attain the equivalence of three objects and three functions. This is the application of functional equivalence theory in movie subtitle translation.This thesis, based on Nida’s functional equivalence theory, takes "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" and "Holmes" as examples in order to analyze equivalence of different levels and to study equivalent relationship between original English subtitles and target Chinese translation. It discusses the explanatory ability of functional equivalence theory in movie subtitle translation and emphasizes a new aspect-contextual equivalence.Through different levels and factors of English-Chinese comparison analysis, this thesis comes to a conclusion that functional equivalence in movie subtitle translation, in most cases, is attainable.