A Study Of The English Subtitles Translated From Chinese In If You Are The One:an Eco-Translatological Perspective

In recent years,many high-quality Chinese TV series and programs have been introduced into foreign markets,yet some failed to gain popularity because of the inappropriate English subtitles.This thesis is an attempt to study Chinese-English subtitle translation in light of Eco-Translatology.As is known,with metaphorical analogies between the natural ecosystem and the translational ecosystem,Eco-Translatology analyzes translation activities within a holistic ecology and provides a new comprehensive discourse system for translation studies.This thesis is consequently expected to have valuable findings within the framework thereof.The text studied in this thesis is the English subtitles of the popular Chinese dating show If You Are the One translated by Australian SBS 2(Special Broadcasting Service).This thesis probes into how harmony and equilibrium are achieved between the two translational ecologies in the translation process.A descriptive approach is adopted in this study.The thesis first analyzes the translational eco-environments of the show,then explores the transformations on the linguistic,cultural and communicative dimensions in the adaptation and selection process,and finally evaluates the degree of holistic adaptation and selection of the English subtitles by integrating the three reference values: translator's quality,reader's feedback and the degree of multi-dimensional transformations.The study draws three conclusions.First,the constraints in the translational eco-environments of If You Are the One can be analyzed at two levels.At the macro level,the cultural and cognitive gap between the two countries should be addressed in order to achieve harmony and equilibrium between the two ecosystems;at the micro level,the English subtitles are subject to constraints like the time and space limits,comprehensiveness,popularity and annotation-free in subtitle translation.Second,various transformations are made in the translation process: on the linguistic dimension,translation strategies such as free translation,addition,substitution,condensation are employed to achieve lexical,syntactic and stylistic equilibrium;on the cultural dimension,strategies are adopted flexibly to deal with cultural elements such as Chinese metrological units,Chinese dishes,wordplays and idioms;on the communicative dimension,the translator adapts to the communicative intentions of the source text and reconstructs the equivalent communicative effect in the target text.Third,based on the translator's quality,reader's feedback and the degree of three-dimensional transformation,the holistic degree of adaptation and selection of the English subtitles of If You Are the One is very high.If You Are the One gains great popularity in Australia,therefore this study can offer some enlightenment for subtitling Chinese talk shows.It is also aimed to draw more attention to the study of talk show subtitles and enlarge the application scope of Eco-Translatology.