A Report On Chinese Subtitling Of Frontline Documentary Generation Like

In today’s world,the number of audiences of translated films and TV programs far exceeds that of translated literary works.While film and television translation has had a profound impact on Chinese society,its theory and practice remains an under-explored field in this country,hence the significance of this documentary translation practice.In this translation practice report,the English subtitles of a 54-minute Frontline documentary titled Generation Like were translated into Chinese.The film examines modern marketing culture and how marketers are manipulating the youth culture.When this film was shot and post-edited in 2014,a time when the “like culture” was just emerging,well-known social media sites like Twitter and Facebook was gaining popularity.The documentary sheds light on the rapidly-evolving advertising industry where teenagers are being marketed online and becoming unwitting marketers themselves.At the time of doing this translating practice,it was not yet available in Chinese subtitles.Although the original subtitles appear simple and sometimes rather short,it was no easy job to render them properly into Chinese due to various factors,including the wide linguistic and cultural differences between Chinese and English,the temporal-spatial constraints of subtitling,etc.Accordingly,the author’s translation analysis focused on some of the major subtitling problems and their solutions.During the translation progress,the author ran into several types of subtitling difficulties involving temporal-spatial constraints,sound-image synchronization and other problems.To deal with temporal and spatial constraints,three reduction strategies,i.e.condensation,reductive paraphrasing,and deletion of insignificant or redundant information,were employed.To tackle sound-image synchronization problems,filmic clues given by the original images and sounds were utilized to help understand the context of the film.Meanwhile,a self-commentary on the subtitled Chinese version was conducted according to the four principles of film and television translation criticism proposed by Professor Ma Zhengqi,a recognized specialist in the field.The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of some implications of this translation practice for subtitling documentaries into Chinese.