| Against the background of cultural globalization,the communication and integration among countries are increasingly enhanced.Translation is an important tool for cross-cultural communication,and American TV series provide us with a great opportunity to learn more about foreign culture.In recent years,Modern Family has become one of the most popular sitcoms in China even beyond.It tells the story of three different but related families in the form of mockumentary,with its vivid,attractive plots and hilarious dialogue,which are quite American.In addition,the contents and theme of Modern Family also make audiences feel the warmth of family.Compared with the dubbed version,Chinese audiences prefer to watch the original version with Chinese subtitles.Therefore,how to make Chinese audiences feel the unique American humor from original lines and bridge the cultural differences have become a major challenge for subtitle translation.In this process,the translation of culture-loaded words serves as one of the most critical and difficult parts.Subtitle is one of the most important ways to spread culture in film and television works.Compared with the development of film and television translation in Europe,the film translation started late in China.In addition,the number of people who engaged in this industry is relatively small in China,among which many choose to work at a subtitle translation group that was set up spontaneously.Besides,it is difficult for people who don't work in the industry to access the translation materials of Film Dubbing Studios,so research concerning film and television translation is not systematic in China.China's subtitle translation industry should learn from other countries'experience,continuously improving its own translation system and bringing more influential dubbing works to the audience.Culture-loaded words have become the key to the transmission of language and culture because they combine the customs,lifestyles,history,and traditions of different countries and regions.According to Eugene Nida's theory,the culture-loaded words in this American sitcom are divided into four categories:ecological culture-loaded words,social culture-loaded words,material culture-loaded words and language culture-loaded words.Although Nida also proposed religious culture-loaded words,given that the author lacks the background knowledge of religion and its culture an d that religion may be a sensitive factor,this thesis will not involve the translation and analysis of religious culture-loaded words.In addition,the translation theory borrowed in this thesis is Eugene Nida's "Functional Equivalence Theory",especially the concept of "isomorphs"."Functional Equivalence Theory" derives from Nida's whole life research on Bible translation.The core of the theory is to enable the target language recipient to correctly understand and comprehend the translation.The standard to measure the quality of translation is based on "reader's response",instead of the text,the latter of which only analyzes the translation from the perspective of language,such as the vocabulary,grammar and rhetoric.At the same time,Nida gives explanations for the "minimal,realistic definition" and "maximal,ideal definition" of functional equivalence."Isomorphs" are an extension of the semiotics concept of iconicity,which plays a key role in retaining information."Functional isomorphs" means to achieve identical results in different systems.If the language system of the recipient has some parts that coincide with the source language,or if the message sender and recipient share a similar cultural background,the recipient can understand the meaning of the original text even without explanation.In contrast,if isomorphs are missing,the original text will be very difficult to understand.Subtitle translation is characterized by its instantaneity,popularity,cross-cultural communication and space limitation,which upgrades the challenges and obstacles for translators.On the one hand,they need to control the length of subtitles,and pay attention to the conciseness and accuracy of the language.On the other hand,they are expected to transfer the cultural connotation effectively,find the similarities between the source language and the target language culture,and try to realize cross-cultural communication so that the target language audience and the source language audience could have the same watching experience,which also corresponds to Eugene Nida's"Functional Equivalence Theory".Therefore,the thesis hopes to classify and sort out the culture-loaded words in Modern Family,Through analyzing the translation of YYeTs fansub group,and guided by Eugene Nida's "Functional Equivalence Theory" as well as subtitle translation principles,the author summarizes several translation strategies and puts forward some useful suggestions for subtitle translators to help them translate the culture-loaded words more effectively and reproduce the cultural connotation,which will not only help Chinese audiences understand the content of American TV series,but also promote the spreading of English culture.In addition,the author has learned a lot of idiomatic English expressions and humorous Chinese expressions,especially some Chinese and English equivalents of the culture-loaded words,from the translation made by YYeTs fansub group.More importantly,in the process of analyzing translation strategies,the author's English and Chinese proficiency has also been improved.However,there are still some contents need to be discussed or added in this thesis,such as the translation strategy of religious culture-loaded words,the comparative study of Modern Family and other American TV series of the same type,as well as the comparative study of the translated versions of Modern Family between YYeTs and other fansub groups.Therefore,the conclusion of the thesis still needs to be improved,and it is hoped that more academics and researchers who are interested in this topic can make up for these deficiencies. |
PDF Full Text Request