A Functional Analysis Of Subtitle Translation Strategies Of Culture-Specific Items With Example From Nirvana In Fire

Nirvana in Fire(NiF)is a popular Chinese TV drama from 2015 that has garnered wide attention from audiences all over the world.In spite of its perceived popularity,the show has yet to make a splash in academia,with research mostly concerning itself with the drama's popularity and the underlying reasons,brief analyses of its setting(including language use and clothing)and audio-visual translation strategies.To fill this void.this study employs a theoretical framework(Skopostheorie)to analyze and evaluate the strategies used by the Rakuten Viki community translators for rendering the Cultural-Specific Items(CSI)found in the first two episodes into English and German.Specifically,the following three questions will be tackled:1.What translation strategies were employed to deal with the CSI found in NiF?2.How effective are the strategies under the given skopos?What strategies work best and why?The skopos was chosen in accordance with fan-subbing community practices that traditionally focus on delivering an "authentic" experience through generous use of direct translation or transliteration strategies paired with translator's notes displayed below the dialog-presenting subtitles.The subtitles of the episodes in question are directly extracted from Rakuten Viki,their strategies categorized and evaluated.The results show that ortographic adaption,extratextual and intratextual glosses,synonymy as well as naturalization strategies are suited best to meet the set skopos,while deletion and limited universalization are to be avoided.This conclusion may prove useful for translators in their selection of suitable strategies for similar audio-visual products.This study may also provide insight for scholars on how to integrate Aixela's translation strategies within Skopostheorie and show audio-visual translation's potential as a vehicle of cultural dissemination.