A Study On The Subtitle Translation From The Perspective Of Cultural Context Adaptation

Nowadays, economic and cultural communication between countries is increasingly enhanced. Films and TV dramas, as an indispensable mass media in modern life, play an important role in international exchanges. With China's rapid process of reform and opening up, a huge number of foreign films and TV dramas are imported into China and adored by the audiences. Meanwhile, excellent Chinese films and TV dramas are also gradually accepted by foreigners. In order to enable foreign audiences to better appreciate Chinese films and TV dramas, subtitle translation plays a significant role. With excellent subtitle translation, the spirit of film and television can be accurately conveyed to the foreign audiences.As an emerging research field, there exist some problems in subtitle translation study. Firstly, subtitle translation study has not received enough attention yet. Compared with the traditional translation studies, no matter the number of papers and monographs published or researchers involved is relatively smaller. Secondly, among these papers or monographs, the study on English-Chinese subtitle translation is dominant in the educational circle because of the imbalance between the number of imported films and television works and that of exported. Thirdly, researches on subtitle translation are mainly the empirical experience of the translators. A systematic and mature guiding theory has not been formed yet. Therefore, the study of Chinese-English subtitle translation needs to be improved urgently so that domestic films and television dramas can be successfully translated.Given the current problems exist in subtitle translation study this thesis will focus on exploring a guiding theory for Chinese-English subtitle translation. In this thesis, the author demonstrates the guiding role of Cultural Context Adaptation in the Chinese-English subtitle translation. It is held in Cultural Context Adaptation that translation is actually a process in which translators make dynamic adaptation to different cultural contexts continuously. In this process, the translators need to adapt to the natural-geographic cultural context, linguistic cultural context, social cultural context, religious cultural context and so on, based on which the translators select appropriate expressions, translation strategies and methods to achieve equivalent effect in the target audiences.A case study of subtitle translation in Empresses in the Palace is taken in this thesis for analysis. As the first Chinese TV series played in the US, Empresses in the Palace attracts attention in public. Thus, its subtitle translation undoubtedly can be seen successful. This thesis gives an analysis of cultural factors and their corresponding translation involved in Empresses in the Palace from the perspective of Cultural Context Adaptation. Furthermore, the author will also summarize the translation strategies and methods that the translators used, taking the constraints of subtitle translation into consideration. The author finds that the subtitle translation in Empresses in the Palace adapts to the English cultural context. In adaptation to the natural-geographic, linguistic, social and religious cultural context of the target language, the translators have chosen appropriate expressions; As for translation strategy, both domestication and foreignization are used, between which about four fifths are domestication in order to adapt to the English cultural context; And in translation method, the translators use reduction, replacement and rewriting to make the translation concise and smooth so that the foreign audiences can understand the contents of the TV series better. Thus, the goal of spreading culture can be achieved. In explaining the subtitle translation in Empresses in the Palace, this thesis organically combined Cultural Context Adaptation with subtitle translation study, providing a brand new angle for subtitle translation study. And the author hopes this thesis will be a valuable guidance for the further subtitle translation practice and study.