Subtitle Translation In The Flowers Of War

Owing to its special nature and characteristics, subtitle translation has become one of themost challenging areas of translation practice. As a result, it often suffers from some problemsin fulfilling its purposes, satisfying the needs of its audience, or transmitting the meaning ofits source text. Indeed, some studies have already been conducted on it and have madeapparent achievements in comprehending its features and properties and in designing certainprinciples and strategies. Studies so far, however, are still inadequate in systematicallydescribing and analyzing actual instances of subtitle translation. On the basis of the findingsof relevant studies, from the perspectives of the three rules of Skopostheorie, and through themethodology of theory-based case analysis, therefore, the present study attempts to provide asystematic description and analysis of the subtitle translation in the film The Flowers of Warso as to identify its strengths and weaknesses in its rules or strategies of translation.From the perspective of the skopos rule, it is found that the main purposes of the subtitletranslation in the film include economically expanding the film’s market across countries orcontinents so as to guarantee a good box office and promoting artistic and culturalcommunications between different linguistic and cultural groups and that, in order to fulfillthese purposes, the translator applies the strategy of imitation or domestication and suchtechniques as condensation and deletion appropriately in most cases and inappropriately invery few cases. From the perspective of the coherence rule, it is discovered that the mainaudience of the film include Chinese people without a good background of English languageand culture or Western people without a good knowledge of Chinese language and culture andthat, in order to facilitate the comprehension and enhance the interest of the audience, thetranslator utilizes the strategy of free translation or domestication and correspondingtechniques properly in most cases and improperly in a few cases. From the perspective of thefidelity rule, it is seen that some parts of the source text contain culturally loaded terms orwords that are formally meaningful and that, in order to keep the cultural content or formalstyle of the original, the subtitle translator makes use of the strategy of literal translation or foreignization and corresponding strategies adequately in most cases and inadequately in veryfew cases.It is hoped that the findings of this study is both practically and theoretically significant.Practically, the findings of this study imply that the success of subtitle translation isguaranteed when the translator abides by the skopos rule, the coherence rule and the fidelityrule through applying appropriate strategies or techniques. Theoretically, the methodology andfindings of the study may compensate for the inadequacy in the systematic description andanalysis of actual subtitle practice.