Relevance Theory And Film Subtitle Translation

Along with the rapid development of film industry, more and more Chinese films goabroad, and promote the cultural communication between China and other differentcountries and regions, and especially carry forward the Chinese culture and help moreforeigners know more and more about us. As the film is one method of entertainments,people watch a film for fun and for learning new things. And the promotion of a film is forprofit and for culture spread. Besides the pictures and sounds in a film, what is mainlyresponsible for the cultural convey is the subtitling, as it is the basic resource that helpsaudience get the point of the film. Then the translation of the film subtitling is notneglectable but earns much attention in the study of film translation.It is clear when the viewers sit comfortably in the sofa watching a foreign film, theyusually hope to understand the film with the help of subtitles of high quality which isintegrated with the film, and they can keep going with the story development withoutawareness of the existence of subtitles as the audience of the original language do. Thatrequires the subtitles perfectly work with the audiovisual context in order to improve theenjoyment of the viewers though the subtitles will be forgotten eventually except someclassic lines. And it is quite true that for the film from another language, the subtitletranslation is to help to remove the language barriers and make the interculturalcommunication possible. And here it needs attention that watching a foreign film withoutsubtitles is even better than watching one with subtitles of poor quality, as it is such a pieceof cake to notice the mistakes in subtitle translation which may even cause culturalmisunderstanding and destroy the image of one culture. And the direct communicationbetween the translators and the target reader and indirect communication between the textproducer and the target reader will fail definitely. Thus it fails to promote the film abroad and the communications among different countries. So we may say the subtitle translation isquite important for the success of a film.And in Relevance Theory language communication is taken as an ostensive-inferentialprocess, and in the target text the original intention should be transferred to the targetaudience as much as possible, not only to make them get the information but alsounderstand the information with the least processing efforts, that is to get optimal relevance.For subtitle translation, first the translator should understand the original intention andrelated information provided by the original author, and then the translator should choosetranslation strategies according to his understanding of the cognitive environment of thetarget-language audience to present the best version as possible to help the target languageaudience get the point of the movie.As subtitle translation has time-spatial constraints, in order to achieve the expectedcommunicative purpose of the movie, the translator should take the influential elements intoconsideration under the guidance of the optimal relevance and provide the adequatecontextual effects for audience of the target language to help him enjoy the movie with asminimal processing effort as possible. Based on Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theoryand Gutt’s translation theory, this thesis introduces and demonstrates the strategies adoptedin subtitle translation of So Young with examples to provide some theoretical andmethodological reference for the movie subtitle translation.And the film So Young is quite a new one which has sparked a frenzy of remembranceof youth time. And the film director is the up-and-coming lady who used to be a veryfamous actress, Ms Zhao Wei. And this is her directorial debut which has helped her earngreat reputation among directors and in the world, and as far as it is known now this moviehas been introduced into many countries and regions and has won its director and actorsmany honors. And of course, it is the so called representative work lately that says out theinner voice of the dominant group of the society about their youth. And it helps to spreadChina’s culture abroad, which may help foreigners to understand the values and culture ofcurrent Chinese people. Then the author considers this film as a cherished researching material as the subtitle translation has great influence in the culture communication. Andmany examples from this film may present heavily on how the subtitling is done underRelevance Theory, and the author hopes to present some ideas on strategies of subtitletranslation based on the case study.