A Report On The Subtitle Translation Of TED Talks

Subtitle translation is an important medium for sharing of Chinese and Western cultures.Various cultures can be spread more effectively through subtitle translation.Qualified subtitle translation can break the barriers between two languages and achieve intercultural communication and information dissemination.Taking the videos from Ted Talks as examples,the author of this paper discusses the translation strategies and methods which are applicable to subtitles from the perspective of the Language Economy Principle.Limited by time and space,subtitles must be the most concise expressions which could make the audience understand the speakers' meaning in the shortest possible time.The Language Economy Principle advocates the maximization of information exchange in the most concise language,emphasizes the economy of language and the effectiveness of expression,and strives to make language clear,concise and expressive.From this,it is known that the Language Economy Principle is feasible and practiced in guiding subtitle translation.Based on the translated texts,the author summarizes and analyzes two translation strategies which optimize the quality of the translated subtitles through a large number of case studies under the guidance of the Language Economy Principle.These two translation strategies are respectively syntactic linearity and reduction.The section of syntactic linearity is mainly about how to simplify the subtitles from the syntactic and lexical aspects.Segmentation of compound sentences,leastdisplacement of short sentences and conversion of parts of speech are discussed in this section.The section of reduction is mainly about how to make the subtitles more economical and effective from the semantic aspect.There are also three parts contained in this section: condensation of main information,reductive paraphrasing of rhetoric expressions and deletion of redundant information.With deep understanding of the Language Economy Principle and appropriate translation strategies or methods under its guidance,subtitle translation process can be simplified,and the quality of the translated subtitles can also be improved.Through this paper,the author hopes to provide some meaningful reference to subtitle translators and researchers.