The Translation Of Discourse Markers In The Croods From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Audiovisual translation, which arose in response to the need of cross-culturalcommunication, serves as an indispensable bridge between different languages andcultures. Dubbing, as one of the major types of audiovisual translation, has attachedgreat importance to reproducing the naturalness of dubbed dialogues by imitating thetarget language. It is one of the main challenges for the translator to reproduce anatural and spontaneous-sounding text. The language of dubbing can be described as afictional language “written to be spoken as if not written”. Discourse markers are animportant device used in fictional language to help produce coherent conversations,make clear the speaker’s intentions and increase the naturalness of dubbed language.However, there is no one-to-one correspondence between two languages in the fieldof discourse markers. Most of their equivalences in the target language have not thesame pragmatic meaning, constituting a gap in translation. The present thesis attemptsto deal with the translation of discourse markers in dubbing in order to look preciselyat the critical yet largely overlooked issue of the naturalness of dubbed dialogues.According to Jef Verschueren, language use can be defined as a process ofcontinuous choice-making based on the three language properties, i.e. variability,negotiability and adaptability. The study of the process of language use can be carriedout from four angels of investigation, consisting of contextual correlates, structuralobjects, the dynamics and the salience of adaptability. In order to achieve successfulcommunication, negotiable choices have to be made interadaptable with all theingredients of the context and structure with various degrees of salience.Within the framework of Adaptation Theory, a systematic study on the dubbingof discourse markers in The Croods will be carried out by comparing the target textdubbed in Chinese with the source text in English from the four angles ofinvestigation, in order to examine how to deal with discourse markers in dubbing for the reproduction of the naturalness of dubbed dialogues. First, an identification of allthe discourse markers used in The Croods will be carried out as an elementary step inthe study. Second, the author will illustrate contextual adaptation in the translation ofdiscourse makers with examples, in terms of adaptation to the communicative contextand adaptation to the linguistic context. The former includes language users andcontextual aspects of the physical, social and mental worlds while the latter containsthe study of contextual cohesion as well as intertextuality and sequencing. Third, theauthor will analyze structural adaptation from the aspect of language, code and styleas well as the aspect of utterance-building ingredients. Fourth, the author goes furtherto explore the dynamic interaction of the contextual dimension and linguistic choicesthat influences the translator’s comprehension and transformation of the source text ina constantly changing context. Finally, the translator’s degree of salience in theprocess of adaptation will be accounted for the rendition of discourse markers indubbing.Based on the above analysis, this thesis comes to a conclusion that in dubbingtranslation, the translator should consciously take into consideration the dynamicinteraction of context and structure, adopt flexible strategies and make the mostsuitable choices in translating the discourse makers, so as to reproduce the pragmaticmeaning of discourse markers and reproduce a natural text. By doing so, this thesisattempts to shed some light on the study of translating discourse markers inaudiovisual translation and provide some enlightenment and inspiration for furtherstudy.