A Study Of English-Chinese Subtitle Translation Of Sherlock From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Under globalization, the intercultural communication between China and othercountries has become increasingly popular. The spread of films and TV serials plays animportant role in promoting intercultural communication. With the development ofmodem information technology, more and more foreign films and TV serials have beenbrought into the Chinese markets, which have gained increasing popularity among theChinese audiences. Because of the language and culture barrier among differentcountries, subtitle translation has been attached more importance. An increasing numberof scholars have been engaged in subtitle translation study to help the target audiencesbetter appreciate foreign films and TV serials and learn more about foreign culture sothat the intercultural communication can be completely successful. However, the currentstudies on subtitle translation in China are arguably far from immature, to some extent,which are lack of the guidance of systematic theories. Therefore, this thesis aims toprove the feasibility of Skopos theory in guiding subtitle translation through analyzingthe English-Chinese（E-C）subtitle translation of Sherlock from the perspective ofSkopos theory in order to lay the foundation for improving the quality of subtitletranslation in the future.German functionalism Skopos theory indicates that translation is an activity withcertain purposes. The main principle determining the whole translation process is theintended purposes of translation action. That is to say, ends determines means. Subtitletranslation is a kind of interpersonal activity with the intended purposes of targetaudiences. A good subtitle translation should convey the original information in thefilms or TV series to the audiences in the target culture context as exactly as possiblewithin the constraints of time and space. Therefore, the translators can select appropriatetranslation strategies freely in order to realize the translation purposes. Skopos theoryprovides a new perspective for subtitle translation study.By adopting the qualitative analysis method, this thesis analyzes some typicalexamples chosen from the miniseries Sherlock in details from the perspective of threerules of Skopos theory: skopos rule, coherence rule and fidelity rule to illustrate theapplication of Skopos theory to the E-C subtitle translation of Sherlock. Major findingsare as follows: from the perspective of skopos rule, the target text of Sherlock conveys the original information to the target audiences in an exact and efficient way so that theChinese audiences can better understand the plots and obtain the similar culturalexperience with the source text audiences; from the perspective of coherence rule, in theE-C subtitle translation of Sherlock, translators always adopt Chinese well-knownexpressions to make the target text more acceptable and understandable to Chineseaudiences; from the perspective of fidelity rule, the translated version of Sherlock isalways faithful to the source text. The translators make efforts to reserve the sourcelanguage features and completely represent the original information. Finally, this thesisfurther points out the translation strategies including reduction, addition, paraphrase anddomestication used in the E-C subtitle translation of Sherlock in order to fulfill theintended purposes of target text, which is expected to offer reference for other subtitletranslation of films or TV series.