On Interpersonal Meaning In The Subtitle Translation Of The Newsroom From The Perspective Of Multimodal Discourse Analysis

Subtitle translation,also called audio-visual translation,is an emerging field in translation studies.On the one hand,subtitle translation can help viewers understand the meaning of audio-visual contents;on the other hand,the content of audio-visual products could influence subtitle translation.Given the multimodal characteristics of audio-visual products,subtitle translation should be tackled in a correspondingly multimodal way.However,many translators tend to do subtitle translation in the way they translate written materials,focusing on the text only.Although multimodal discourse analysis and subtitle translation are hot topics in recent years,only a few studies combined the two together.Among the small number of studies of subtitle translation with multimodal approach,almost all of them applied the integrated framework proposed by Professor Zhang Delu,analyzing how the subtitle translation of a multimedia product reflect the four levels constituting the framework,which is inappropriate and less convincing.In order to fill this gap and provide constructive suggestions for future practice,the Author,taking the subtitle translation of US TV drama The Newsroom as an example and starting from such two aspects as verbal language and visual image,applied the framework of visual grammar introduced by Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leeuwen and systemic-functional grammar by M.A.K Halliday to analyze how interpersonal meaning is communicated in the subtitle translation of the TV drama.After detailed analysis,the Author suggested that when translating the subtitle of audio-visual products,translators should refer to all the multimodal elements involved and analyze their interrelation,not focusing on the text only.To communicate the interpersonal meaning,the four elements shared by verbal language and visual image should be referred to.Only in this way could the translator understand the true meaning of the original text and make sure that the translated version can help achieve the desired communication effect.