On Subtitle Translation Of Empresses In The Palace From Nord's Functionalist Approach

Since last century,movie subtitling translation has been a subject of interest to researchers.Especially with the rapid expansion of China's film and television industry in the global market,a large number of outstanding domestic films are going out of the country,and serving as the carrier of Chinese culture and a link between China and foreign countries.Thus the accuracy of subtitling translation is a matter of cardinal significance.Christiane Nord is a leading figure in the field of translation studies in German.She enriches the Functionalist Approach by describing the inner and outer factors to be taken into account in text analysis for the first time.By comparing the target text purposes with the source text functions,she holds the view that translation skopos determines the translation strategies taken.With this in mind,she puts forward the theoretical model of “Function Plus Loyalty”.Translation is a purposeful communicative activity,and the purpose of subtitle translation is to help the target audience understand the plot,exchange ideas,break down language or cultural barriers and achieve the goal of cross-cultural communication.Therefore,Nord's Functionalist Approach is applicable to subtitling translation.Taking the subtitle translation of Empresses in the Palace as the research object,Nord's Functionalist Approach as the theoretical framework,this thesis conducts the research from three aspects: translation brief,source text analysis and text-oriented analysis of the target text.Research methods included are case study and exemplification,aiming to combine the translation theory into subtitle translation practice so as to enhance the theoretical and practical significance of the research.Meanwhile,the author also points out the limitations of this paper and hopes this study can be of some help for future research on the translation of Chinese film and television works.