On Subtitle Translation From The Perspective Of Functionalist Translation Theory

With the rapid development of economy and globalization, the communication of politics, economy and culture among various countries in the world becomes more widespread. And the cultural exchange stands out. As one of the most important carriers of culture, films and television programs enjoy a great popularity. Owing to the hindrance of language and culture differences, subtitle translation has played a significant role in transmitting cultures of different countries and enriching people’s life. And it also has attracted the attentions of scholars and professors with a mass of remarkable videos being produced frequently. In light of German functional theories, this thesis takes The Chinese Standards as case study for the research of subtitle translation.German functional theories have performed the role of guiding the translation practices from the time the theory system formed. The functionalist translation theory regards the function of translated text as the start point and final aim, trying to meet the expectation of target audiences. This theory greatly frees the translators from the constraints of traditional equivalence theory and makes them get more initiatives in applying various translation methods and strategies to pass on the main content, culture and emotions of the videos to the audience. The questions that the author tries to resolve in this thesis include the applicability of the functionalist approaches to subtitle translation, the strategies used in the subtitle translation of The Chinese Standards and the evaluation of its translation from the perspective of the functional translation theory.Chapter one mainly introduces the research background and purpose of subtitle translation in modern times. Chapter two presents the literature review of it. Although subtitle translation is a part of literature translation, it is different from the general ones. It is restricted not only by time and space, but also by source language, target language, response of target audience and the knowledge of the translator.Chapter three demonstrates the German functional theories briefly. The author tries to illustrate the potential and significance of exercising the functionalist translation theory to guide subtitle translation from the four constituent parts of the German functional theories, namely Reiss’s text typology and function theory, Vermeer’s skopostheorie, Holz-Manttari’s translational action theory and Nord’s function plus loyalty theory.Chapter four and five illustrate the application of the functionalist translation theory in the case study. The Chinese Standards is an animated series of sixty episodes based on the Chinese classic Ti Tzu Kui with the purpose of advancing and enriching traditional Chinese virtues. The author attempts to analyze the language features and translation strategies from the functionalist approaches. And the last chapter sums up the study results and shortcomings.This thesis has made some research findings. Firstly, this theory system regards all the translation practices as a purposeful activity, not just a transformation of languages. Secondly, the process of subtitle translation is also an interpersonal and intercultural interaction, involving several parties. When a translator conducts the action of subtitle translation, he needs to comprehend not only the overt information of the source subtitles, but also the covert messages of those subtitles. Therefore, subtitle translation is a text-processing action as well. Thirdly, there are three basic rules guiding subtitle translation from the functionalist perspective:skopos rule, coherence rule and fidelity rule. And the translation strategies adopted in subtitle translation mainly include addition, combination and reduction. Through the overall analysis, a conclusion can be reached that German functional theories have performed a helpful role in subtitle translation practices.The author hopes this research can enrich the readers’deep understanding of functionalist translation theory and more attentions be paid to the study of subtitle translation.