| The Hidden Kingdoms of China is an ecological documentary filmed in China and co-produced by National Geographic and China’s Bilibili website.Since its release,the documentary has attracted great attention at home and abroad.Up to now,the number of views on the documentary in China has reached 11.998 million.In addition to the excellent shooting and post-production,the reason for its high popularity is that the subtitle translation of the documentary is a great success according to the audience’s feedback.Therefore,the subtitle translation of this documentary is worth studying.Eco-translatology is a translation theory proposed by Professor Hu Gengshen based on Darwin’s theory of Adaptation and Selection.The core of this theory is the eco-environment of translation and the translator’s adaptation and selection of the source language,the source text and the target language in the translation process.The theory summarizes the translation methods as “three-dimensional transformation”—the linguistic dimension,the cultural dimension and the communicative dimension.This thesis analyzes the English and Chinese subtitles of The Hidden Kingdoms of China from the perspective of Eco-translatology by the qualitative method.The macro and micro translational eco-environments of subtitle translation of the documentary are studied with emphasis on the translators’ multi-dimensional adaptive selection and transformation.How the translators deal with the restrictions of documentary subtitle translation is also discussed.The study finds that the improvement of China’s comprehensive strength and the international recognition of China’s advancement in ecological civilization contribute to the macro eco-environment of the subtitle translation of the documentary.International teams were attracted to shoot and produce this documentary.High quality production places higher demands on its translation.In addition,the development of information technology has provided more channels for viewers of documentaries.Most viewers prefer watching on Internet websites.Therefore,Internet buzzwords used in the Chinese subtitles of the documentary have attracted more viewers.At the micro level,the translators make adaptive selections corresponding to the characteristics of subtitle translation so as to minimize the impact of restrictions on subtitle translation.In the linguistic dimension,taking into account the characteristics of both English and Chinese,the translators use four-character words,non-subjective sentences and the weakening of logical connectives to make Chinese subtitles idiomatic and smooth.The translators mainly use free translation and omission to weaken the restrictions.In the cultural dimension,the translators translate the names of the rare creatures in the documentary through transliteration and literal translation to retain the vivid description of the characteristics of the creatures.There are a lot of imperial units in the English subtitles,which are translated into the metric units familiar to Chinese viewers.In the communicative dimension,Internet buzzwords are used in the Chinese subtitles to improve the acceptability of the documentary by cyber viewers.With the restrictions of the duration of subtitles in mind,the translators omit some repetitive expressions in the English subtitles or add some essential information to the Chinese ones so as to make the Chinese subtitles simpler,more complete and thus more intelligible.It can be concluded from this study that Eco-translatology is practical and feasible in guiding the translation of The Hidden Kingdoms of China.It is hoped that this thesis can make some contribution to the research on documentary subtitle translation. |
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