On Subtitle Translation Of English Documentary From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

With its reform and opening-up policy, China has experienced an increasingly closer relationship with the rest of the world. Movies play a more and more important role in culture exchange in almost all the countries in the world. More and more Chinese movies are launched in foreign countries and attract more attentions, meanwhile, an abundant of foreign movies flood into China, serve Chinese a new way to know more about foreign culture. Foreign movies have already been an important part of Chinese people’s daily life. As a special form of audiovisual products, English documentary tells true stories by presenting audience factual scenes. Its goal is to entertain and educate people. For Chinese people, English documentary offer a new way to know more about foreign culture.Subtitle translation of English documentary is a special translation pattern affected by its influence. Under the restrain of time, space, culture and some other factors, translators should use appropriate strategies to inform audience of factual reality. Only in this way they can enjoy English documentary. Skopostheorie is proposed by Hans Vermeer, a German scholar in the 1970 s. It is a breakthrough of traditional translation theory. Translators should use appropriate strategies to accomplish the subtitle translation of English documentary.Skopostheorie, which is used as the basic theory of this paper, has opened up a new view of subtitle translation. In the process of subtitle translation, time, space, culture and some other factors should be considered in order to meet target audience’s demand. This essay also analysis how to use different translation strategies to complete the subtitle translation. Through the research on the subtitle translation of English documentary, we hope it can gain more attention from whole society. Translators should bear in mind that it is their responsibility to meet the target audience’s demand. Only in this way can English documentaries become bridges between different cultures.