On The Sitcom Subtitle Translation From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence Theory

Subtitle translation is a process that turns the source language which is in the colloquial form into the target language in the written form. Subtitle translation helps Chinese audiences appreciate foreign films in the increasing cultural communications between China and other nations. It helps the audiences to know information and cultures of different countries. Film subtitles, as a form of texts, appear at the bottom of the screen, providing information about film for the audiences.The Big Bang Theory is a sitcom welcomed by many audiences. The features and restrictions of the subtitles are fully showed in this sitcom. Although the previous studies are not sufficient in subtitle translation of The Big Bang Theory, they have laid the groundwork for the present research. This thesis chooses the functional equivalence theory as the theoretical frame. Nida's functional equivalence is divided into categories on two levels:the minimal level and the maximal level. The minimal level is defined as "the readers of a translated text should be able to comprehend it to the point that they can conceive of how the original readers of the text must have understood and appreciated it". The maximal level is described as "the readers of a translated text should be able to understand and appreciate it in essentially the same manner as the original readers did.The primary goal of the present research is to find out how the functional equivalence theory is used in the investigation of the subtitle translation in The Big Bang Theory. According to the research objective above, this study attempts to explore the following questions:(1) How can the functional equivalence theory be applied in the explication of the subtitle translation? (2) How can the culture-loaded words, such as slangs and idioms, be translated to make the audiences from different countries understand them?In order to accomplish the research objectives, this study adopts a descriptive approach and a case study. The process of the case study can be divided into two parts. First, the dialogues are selected from the episodes of six seasons of The Big Bang Theory. Second, the author analyzes the examples from the perspective of the functional equivalence theory at four levels:phonetic level, semantic level, syntactic level and rhetorical level.The results show that the functional equivalence is achieved at the following levels: phonetic level, semantic level, syntactic level and rhetorical level. When translating the slangs, idioms and other culture-loaded words or expressions, the translators apply the domesticating strategy to help the Chinese audiences appreciate the sitcom in the same manner as the source audiences do.The major significance of the research in this thesis is that it is revealed that the functional equivalence theory is of great practical significance in subtitle translation in terms of various translation strategies and methods.