Subtitling Quality Assessment Of Culture-specific Items In Intangible Cultural Heritage Documentary From Generation To Generation

Since its launch in China in 2015,the intangible cultural heritage documentary From Generation to Generation has received widespread attention and praise.In 2021,the officially subtitled version by CCTV was launched on You Tube,an overseas video broadcasting platform,and has been played more than 30000 times.The documentary mainly introduces six intangible cultural heritages of China,namely “Clay Figure Zhang”,“Jade Carving”,“Suzhou Embroidery”,“Zisha Teapot”,“Gold Lacquered Woodcarving” and “She Inkstone”,in which a large number of culture-specific items(CSIs)are used to introduce intangible cultural heritages.Due to the uniqueness,complexity and diversity of Chinese culture,the subtitling of CSIs in subtitles is undoubtedly a great challenge for translators,and it is,therefore,a topic of significance to research and practice.This research first conducts a descriptive study of the CSIs and their translation strategies in the documentary From Generation to Generation and then assesses the subtitling quality of CSIs based on the FAR model proposed by Swedish scholar Jan Pedersen and questionnaire survey.It is found that when seven CSI types are transferred interlingually,eight translation strategies are adopted,namely “absolute universalization”,“linguistic(non-cultural)translation”,“transliteration”,“deletion”,“naturalization”,“limited universalization”,“transliteration plus intratextual gloss” and“intratextual gloss”.Besides,the overall assessment with the FAR model generates a score of 76,representing a relatively good quality.As for the FAR-informed assessment in relation to specific translation strategies,“intratextual gloss” is found to score the highest,followed by “naturalization”,“transliteration plus intratextual gloss”,“absolute universalization”,“language(non-cultural)translation”,“transliteration”,“limited universalization” and “deletion”.The results of online survey basically correspond to the assessments by the FAR model.The research is hoped to provide a methodological reference for future subtitling quality research,offer new insights for the translation of CSIs in the subtitles,and shed light on the interlingual transmission of intangible cultural heritages under the “goglobal” strategy for Chinese culture.