A Study On English Translation Of Culture-loaded Words And Expressions In Subtitles Of Empresses In The Palace From The Perspective Of Cultural Translation

Cross-cultural communication has become more and more frequent,and audiovisual works have played an increasing role in spreading culture.Some excellent Chinese films and TV serials have been introduced into other countries and nations,which boost the spread of Chinese culture.When the Chinese TV serials Empresses in the Palace was first on show to the public in 2011,audience rating had increased continually and this play had been played on different provincial TVs.In 2015,Empresses in the Palace was introduced into America and it had been on show to the American audience.Translation is inseparable from language and culture.The combination of language and culture has formed unique culture-loaded words and expressions.There are a large number of culture-loaded words and expressions in Empresses in the Palace,which reflect China's unique culture,and those words and expressions are quite different in target linguistic culture.Since “cultural turn” in translation studies,cultural translation is a great breakthrough to the traditional idea that translation is a transfer process between two languages.It emphasizes the importance of cultural factors in translation.In the process of translation,on the one hand,translators should consider the features and the constraints of audiovisual subtitle,on the other hand,translators need to take the cultural differences between two languages into consideration.Audiovisual translation is different from literary translation,it is restricted by time,space and other factors,so translation strategies also need to applied flexibly.This paper will take cultural translation as its theoretical framework,and Chinese-English subtitles of American version Empresses in the Palace as the corpus.It will study the translation methods of culture-loaded words and expressions in American version Empresses in the Palace under the guidance of translation strategies.There are two translation strategies used while dealing with culture-loaded words and expressions—foreignization strategy and domestication strategy.The domestication strategy is to localize source language,to make target language or target audience as the center,it adopts the way of expression that the target audience are familiar with to convey the content of the original text.The foreignization strategy requires translators not to disturb the author and source language by maintaining the cultural characteristics of source text in target language.Through research,although source language and target language do not have the same culture-loaded word,they do have the same or similar cultural connotation,translator may adopt idiomatic translation.Source language and target language do not have the same culture-loaded word,maintaining those culture-loaded words and expressions in target language may bring misunderstanding to target readers,translators can adopt paraphrase to decrease cultural conflict.Understanding the translation of culture-loaded words and expressions in Empresses in the Palace,it will shed light on the translation of culture-loaded words and expressions in other audiovisual works.