A Report On Subtitle Translation Of Excerpts From The Documentary The Local Records Of China

This thesis is a Chinese-English translation report with its source text from a full-length documentary series titled The Local Records of China,which is released by CCTV-1.This documentary features local records of China,aiming to show this colorful country through distinctive local customs and practices.Its subtitle language is beautiful and fluent,and moreover,it boasts profound cultural deposits.The author selects the Chinese subtitle of the fourth episode “Fushun” and the thirty-eighth episode “Wanning” of the documentary series as her source text.With Eco-Translatology put forward by Professor Hu Gengshen as the theoretical basis,spatial and temporal restrictions of subtitle translation,principle of “syntactic linearity”,which is commonly used in interpreting practices and translation criteria of “Qie”(appropriateness)raised by Professor Liu Zhongde as her three major translation principles,the author of the report finishes her translation practice.In this translation report,the author,at first briefly expounds the main content and requirements of the three major translation principles,and then makes analysis on each translation difficulty,such as Chinese four-character phrases,culture-loaded words and colloquial expressions in the source text from the perspectives of linguistic,cultural and communicative dimensions.At last,the author tries to solve the difficulties mentioned above by adopting complete translation methods,such as addition,omission,combination,linear translation,explanatory translation and abstraction and concretization.Moreover,it is worth mentioning that when the author refers to relevant paralleled texts,she finds most of the C-E subtitle translations fail to follow the spatial and temporal restrictions and syntactic linearity,which greatly reduces the viewing experience of target audiences.Given that finding,the author makes much improvement,trying to follow the two principles as strictly as she can.Based on this translation practice,the author of the report believes that,in documentary subtitle translation,the Eco-Translatology indeed has guiding function in translation practices.In order to cater to the cultural habits of target readers and make good use of the positive effects of subtitle translation in the process of cultural transmission,the subtitle translation should be continuously improved.