An Empirical Study Of Metaphor Translatability In Documentary Subtitling

The development of the media makes the documentary gradually become an important way for people to understand the world.Documentary films present the mystery of the earth and the universe vividly,for audiences to quickly and conveniently understand the mysteries of nature,the humanities and customs,as well as the latest researches and developments of science and technology.Recently,China's documentary industry has been developing vigorously.In the meantime,China has also been introducing excellent foreign documentaries.The introduction of a large number of foreign documentaries naturally brings a large number of translation tasks.The successful translation of subtitles from English to Chinese determines the effective spreading of documentaries in China,so all aspects of subtitle translation should not be overlooked.As an important cognitive approach,metaphor frequently appears in language including the narration of documentaries.In the process of subtitle translation of documentaries,translators can always encounter the obstacle of metaphors.Therefore,it is very important to study the translation of metaphors in subtitling of documentaries.Based on the documentary subtitling practice,this thesis studies the degree of translatability and translation methods of metaphorical expressions in documentaries empirically.The result proves that the translatability of metaphorical expressions in documentary subtitles is more like a continuum,and the degree of translatability is greater than that of untranslatability.Secondly,in the documentary subtitle translation,the utilization of the 1)literal translation of metaphor;2)metaphor addition;3)adjustment of metaphor expression;4)metaphor into simile;5)metaphor replacement;6)metaphor into plain language can to some extent gain a higher acceptance from the target language audiences.