On Strategies Adopted In E-C Film Subtitle Translation From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

The world has stepped into the "multi-media era",which means cultural exchanges are increasingly dependent on audio-visual works,generating a growing demand for studies on subtitle translation.Subtitle translation is subject to temporal,spatial,linguistic and other constraints,while relevance theory,proposed by Sperber and Wilson,advocates"optimal relevance" with sufficient contextual effect at proper processing cost rather than"maximal relevance",leading to a growing interest in studies on subtitle translation strategies in light of relevance theory.Most of related studies have produced a general evaluation on the effects of strategies,while few have focused on the logical process based on relevance theory for strategy selection and application to achieve optimal relevance.Against this backdrop,in light of relevance theory,this thesis probes into the translation strategies adopted in the American Movie Scent of a Woman.Based on the review on the past studies on relevance theory,subtitle translation and the film,and in light of the theoretical framework of relevance theory,this thesis comes to a conclusion on the logic between its six basic concepts.The thesis researches into the adoption of five translation strategies to achieve optimal relevance and answers three questions in order:(1)what is worth processing;(2)how is an act of ostension performed;(3)how is optimal relevance achieved.The study finds out that the five strategies are effective in achieving optimal relevance:"condensation" applies to irrelevant information that is long,repetitive and inaccessible,and to complicated syntactic structures so as to make manifest information worth processing and enhance contextual effect with reduced processing effort;"direct translation" to identically represented information,repetitive information that is vital to advancing plots or that can not be omitted due to technical constraints—when cognitive provides enough evidence for an ostension,direct translation can ensure sufficient contextual effect with proper processing effort;"addition" applies to important culture-specific,or expressions not powerful enough in themselves or incomplete syntactic structures in order to make manifest information worth processing and provide sufficient contextual effect with necessarily added processing effort;"adaption" to syntactic structures that lead to confusion in direct translation,culture-specific expressions or representations or idioms that do not exist in target text in order to make manifest information worth processing and achieve sufficient contextual effect with less processing effect;and "explicitation" to abstract,ambiguous or multi-meaning in order to make manifest information worth processing and ensure sufficient contextual effect with reduced processing effort.The findings show that relevance theory is effective in guiding and explaining the selection and application of subtitle translation strategies;however,since it is a set of loose concepts rather than a set of strict standards,subtitlers still need to improve their understanding of movies,audience and the two languages so as to enable their subtitle translation to be optimally relevant.