Subtitle Translation Strategies Of Culturally Loaded Words In Chinese TV Series From The Perspective Of Cultural Schema Theory

TV series plays a vital role in cross-cultural communication and becomes an indispensable means for the Chinese culture to go global.However,whether the drama can be accepted by the target audience largely depends on the quality of subtitle translation.Chinese culturally loaded words are the condensed form of unique Chinese culture.Therefore,in translating subtitles of TV series,translators should see that culturally loaded words are correctly understood by the audience from different cultural backgrounds.The TV series Minning Town was aired in more than 50 countries,attracting over 10 million views after it was released on YouTube.Therefore,it is significant to analyze how the translation of the drama works overseas.However,so far few studies have focused on the subtitle translation or the translation of culturally loaded words in Minning Town.Therefore,this thesis,from the perspective of cultural schema theory,focuses on the translation strategies of culturally loaded words in the subtitles of the drama.It is hoped that it could offer some insights for future translators of similar TV series,helping Chinese dramas go global.According to Nida’s classification of culture,this study collects 305 samples from the 23-episode drama and classifies them into the four situations:cultural schemata overlap,parallel,divergence,and vacancy.The translation strategies adopted in each situation are labeled and their frequencies are calculated.In general,the strategies adopted in the translation of the culturally loaded words in Minning Town include paraphrasing,literal translation,omission,shift,idiomatic translation,transliteration plus literal translation,and transliteration.The strategies that are adopted in each situation are distributed as follows:(1)Cultural schemata overlap:literal translation and paraphrasing.(2)Cultural schemata parallel:paraphrasing,idiomatic translation,shift,and omission.(3)Cultural schemata divergence:paraphrasing and literal translation.(4)Cultural schemata vacancy:paraphrasing,literal translation,omission,shift,and transliteration(plus literal translation)By using these strategies,the translator re-encodes the original schemata,trying to activate the cultural schemata in the target audience and thereby convey the original cultural message to the maximum extent.Therefore,in translating subtitles of Chinese TV series,translators should familiarize themselves with the cultural schemata held by people from both the source and target culture,so that they could identify the relationships of schemata and thereby choose proper strategies.