Selection And Adaptation In Translation

With the development of society and cross-cultural communication, the exchanges and cooperation between the countries have gradually diversified. Among them, film as an important cultural medium, is increasingly concerned. However, many films can not go abroad due to language barriers. If the domestic films want to have a share in the palace of culture, the successful subtitle translation must be given attention. This thesis takes The Flowers of War as a case study, directed by Zhang Yimou, to analyze the subtitle translation. Taking Nanjing Massacre as the background, this film shows people fight against Japanese Fascists by determined resistance. A little boy with a strong sense of responsibility and12prostitutes of low status replace the female students to a tragic death when facing a life-and-death decision. The film topped the domestic box office champion in2011and also achieved good results at the European Film Market. In addition to the artistic appeal of the film itself, the successful subtitle translation has played an important part.Recently, the researches of subtitle translation focus on the perspective of Skopos theory and relevance theory, but few people concentrate on the perspective of adaptation theory. This thesis endeavors to analyze the subtitle translation based on adaptation theory and check out whether this theory can be used to guide subtitle translation.According to Verschueren, language use must consist of the continuous choice-making for language internal and/or language external reason consciously or unconsciously. The possibility of choice making lies in three properties of language: variability, negotiability and adaptability. The former two provide the possibility and modes for choosing languages and the latter, adaptability, is the core of the process of language use. Adaptation theory describes and explains the language use from four angels of pragmatic investigation, which are contextual correlates of adaptability, structural objects of adaptability, dynamics of adaptability and salience of adaptation process. Subtitle translation is a special communication form, whose translating process needs adaptability at four angles of pragmatic investigation.The first chapter introduces the research background, the research significance and the research methodology. In Chapter Two, the author conducts a general literature review on adaptation theory and subtitle translation abroad and at home. The former includes the history of adaptation theory and the guidance to translation practice of this theory; the latter includes the definition, classification, features and technical aspects of subtitle translation. In Chapter Three, it introduces the adaptation theory in detail and makes an adaptability framework of translation. In Chapter Four, the thesis makes a discussion on subtitle translation in The Flowers of War with adaptation theory from contextual correlates of adaptability, structural objects of adaptability, dynamics of adaptability and salience of adaptation process. A number of examples are presented to be analyzed and it is found that adaptation theory can well explain the subtitile translation and can be a theory to guide film translation. At last, the author makes a conclusion that adaptation theory has a theoretical and practical value for film subtitle translation. A successful subtitle tranlation is due to contextual correlates of adaptability, structural objects of adaptability, dynamics of adaptability and salience of adaptation process.