Movie Subtitle Translation From The Perpective Of Eco-Translatology-a Case Study Of The English Subtitle Of Farewell My Concubine

The quality of translated subtitles(especially English subtitles)is an important element that impacts Chinese movie export and even China’s cultural profile and positioning in the world.However,China’s movie industry has yet to form any coherent and operable translation strategy to facilitate subtitle translation and improve the quality.This thesis aims to find out such strategies from the perspective of Eco-Translatology.Eco-Translatology is an emerging theory that combines translatology with ecology.The four key concepts of Eco-Translatology are:"harmony&balance","adaptation&selection","translator at the central position",and "degree of adaptation and selection".According to this theory,the thesis analyzes the distinctive Chinese and foreign eco-environments of the subtitle of the world-renown Chinese movie Farewell My Concubine.Then the thesis further discusses the subtitle translator’s "three dimensional transformations"—the linguistic dimension,the cultural dimension and the communicative dimension—of the Chinese-to-English subtitle translation.The thesis comes to a conclusion that a translator must adapt to "translational eco-environments",balance the limits of subtitle translation,and make adaptive selection in order to achieve a high degree of adaptation and selection.Linguistic,communicative or cultural information should be either preserved or slightly compromised in accordance with specific content of dialogues.Translators from both source language and target language eco-environments should work together to prevent misunderstanding or neglecting either linguistic,cultural,or communicative information.By these means,we can expect that more Chinese movies will be exported overseas with better English subtitles,and more people from the rest of the world will understand China and its culture better.