On The Subtitle Translation Of Documentary Dunhuang From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence

With the growing strength of the soft power of Chinese culture, more and more outstanding documentaries are going abroad, enabling more foreign viewers to know about China. The documentary film the Dunhuang makes a brief introduction to the culture of Dunhuang and Silk Road, and some related historical stories. Therefore, it is of great significance to translate the documentary subtitles into English so as to help foreign viewers get familiar with Chinese history and culture.On the basis of the writer’s translation practice on the Dunhuang documentary subtitles, the thesis firstly introduces the translation and research background of the documentary subtitles, as well as the features of the Dunhuang’s subtitles, the background and significance of the translation practice. Then, the chief translating difficulties and specific translating strategies are explored. The most important part of this thesis is the case analysis. Under the guidance of the functional equivalence theory, this writer chooses literal translation, liberal translation, rewriting and annotation to translate the culture-loaded words and expressions from the subtitles. When it comes to the translation of sentences, conversion of static and dynamic expressions, conversion of abstract and concrete words, and hypotaxis-parataxis conversion are used from the aspect of Chinese and English differences. In addition, condensation and ellipsis are adopted to deal with passage translation. It is hoped that this study can help foreign viewers to know more about the history and culture of Dunhuang and provide some reference to the practice and research of documentary subtitle translation.