英语影视作品字幕汉译的策略【毕业论文】.doc

1、 本科毕业论文 （ 20 届） 英语 英语影视作品字幕汉译的策略 Strategies of English Movie and TV Plays Subtitle Translation 诚 信 声 明 我声明，所呈交的论文 (设计 )是本人在老师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的研究成果。据我查证，除了文中特别加以标注和致谢的地方外，论文 (设计 )中不包含其他人已经发表或撰写过的研究成果，也不包含为获得 或其他教育机构的学位或证书而使用过的材料。我承诺，论文 (设计 )中的所有内容均真实、可信。 论文 (设计 )作者签名： 签名日期： 年 月 日授 权 声 明 学校有权保留送交论文（设计）的原

2、件，允许论文（设计）被查阅和借阅，学校可以公布论文（设计）的全部或部分内容，可以影印、缩印或其他复制手段保存论文（设计），学校必须严格按照授权对论文 (设计 )进行处理，不得超越授权对论文（设计）进行任意处置。 论文 (设计 )作者签名： 签名日期： 年 月 日 I 摘要 影视作品的字幕翻译作为一个新兴的翻译研究领域， 已在翻译学界引起了重视和关注。近年来，随着中国的经济、文化的发展，影视片的翻译越来越显示出其重要性，而字幕翻译实践却缺乏相关理论指导。本文对字幕翻译的定义和特点进行概述后，提出了字幕翻译的三条基本原则与策略，并用实际译例进行了说明。最后得出结论：字幕翻译应力求在有限的时空里最有

3、效地提供相关性最强的信息。希望对字幕翻译工作与译品评价可供借鉴。 关键词 ： 字幕翻译；特点；策略； 原则 II Abstract As an emerging field of translation research, subtitle translation of films and TV programs have received a lot of attention from the realm of translation. In recent years, as the development of Chinese economy and culture, subtitle t

4、ranslation is becoming more and more important. However, it is confronted with a lack of mature theories. This paper comes up with three translation principles and strategies with abundant examples after summarizing the definition and features of subtitle translation. The most important point is tha

5、t subtitle translation requires providing the most relevant message in the limited time and space. Key words: subtitle translation; features; strategies; principles Contents Abstract . II 1 Introduction . 1 The Necessity of Exact Subtitle Translation . 1 The Research Situation of Subtitle Translatio

6、n . 1 2 The Features of Subtitle Translation . 2 2.1 Instantaneity . 2 2.2 Popularity . 3 2.3 Comprehensiveness . 3 3 The Advised Strategies in Exact Subtitle Translation . 4 3.1Keeping the Subtitle as Long as the Time and Space Require . 4 3.2 Refining the Diction . 7 3.3 Transfering the Informatio

7、n Properly . 8 3.3.1 Proper Transfer of the Characters Identity . 8 3.3.2 Correct Translation of Aesthetic Information 9 3.3.3 Correct Translation of Emotional Meaning .10 4 Methods of Translating Cultural Words in Subtitle . 11 5 Conslusion . 13 Bibliography . 14 Acknowledgements . 15 1 1 Introduct

8、ion The Necessity of Exact Subtitle Translation It is true that today every industry is closely related to one another and every country now is trying their best to abide by market rules because one will lag behind if neglecting these rules. And China as a member of WTO has signed agreement that Chi

9、na is to import certain number of movies from other member countries. Given this large number of movies that are to be translated from a considerable number of source languages and cultures into an equally large number of target languages and cultures, it is not surprising that the translation of mo

10、vies involves various kinds of problems, many of which are of a cultural nature and may apply only to specific language pairs. With the development and popularity of DVDs, Internet, watching English movies and TV plays is more than entertainment or a way for relaxation. It is a way of learning Engli

11、sh, especially for college students. In the class, some teachers may use a movie as the material for teaching. They ask students to listen to the movies and retell the story orally. After the class, many students exercise their listening and oral English by watching movies or TV plays and speaking s

12、imultaneously. If there is no Chinese subtitle in the screen, or the translation is not correct, students may feel it difficult to understand what they hear or they may be misguided, which will bring bad influence on their English study. On the other end, those who watch English movies for the goal

13、of getting familiar with eastern culture may get puzzled by the improper translation. The Research Situation of Subtitle Translation Subtitle translation is rarely studied as an independent field. The research of subtitle translation can never be separated from the big research of translation. All t

14、he theories of subtitle translation is on the basis of translation. Translators can open up the study of subtitle translation only if they have made clear of the strategy, feature and principle of translation. Qian Shaochang is one of the earlier translators who says that vedio language not only con

15、tain the elements of common literary language, but also has its own features: listening, comprehensiveness, instantaneity, popularity and no 2 annotation. (钱绍昌， 2001). These five features can be the start of the research of subtitle translation and have provided the basic of the of suggestion of tra

16、nslation stragegy. On the basic of the five features, different scholars expound subtitle translation from different point of view. From the perspective of teleology, Wan Hualin and Hu Guanglei hold the idea that domestication and foreignization are the effective ways to translate subtitle(万华林、胡光磊，

17、2009). However, domestication and foreignization are almost the two ways to all translation and even now there is dispute about which one is better. Therefore, both of the two ways neglect the features of subtitle translation. Guojing who analyzes the functional translation of subtitle according to

18、the German functional translation theory, thinks that people use language with different purposes, thus leading to the different functions of language. In her opnion, in the subtitle translation of foreign movies, the purpose of translation is not to record the communication in source language cultu

19、re, but to create the communication between movie issurers and viewers in a new environment, so subtitle translation should belong to “instrumental” translation(郭靖， 2008). After getting clear with the purpose and function of subtitle translation, it is the step to come up with methods of subtitle tr

20、anslation. Zenghua puts forward the “economical translation” under the guidance of relevance theory(曾华， 2009). This paper will sum up the features of subtitle translation and according to the features and relevance theory, lay out the strategies of subtitle translation. 2 The Features of Subtitle Tr

21、anslation 2.1 Instantaneity Subtitle translation of English movies and TV plays has its distinctive characteristics and one of them is its instantaneity. Subtitle shows up with pictures and flashes by in no time as the movie goes on, and it can neither be turned back like books nor allowed to add so

22、me explanations. Gottlieb defines two restrictions of subtitle translation as formal or quantitative restriction and textual or qualitative restriction. Textual restriction means the unity and continuity between subtitle and frames, while formal restriction stands for space-time restriction. “subtit

23、les usually consist of one or two lines of an average maximum length of 35 characters”(Baker, 2004: 245) “Time restriction also plays an important role in subtitle translation, and the most appropriate 3 time for every-line caption staying in the screen is 2-3 seconds, and it will provide enough tim

24、e for viewers to see the subtitle.” This instantaneity and irreversibility demand that when translating, translators should take it in consideration that the viewers need to spend little efforts to get the most information. 2.2Popularity As a popular art, movies or TV plays suit both refined and pop

25、ular tastes. There may be students in school, workers in factory, housewives at home, or farmers in fields. Therefore the translation of subtitle should give viewers a feeling of familiarity and intimacy so that they will not find it difficult to understand because of lacking reverent cultural backg

26、round. For example, “Whats done cannot be undone” can be translated into “木已成舟 ” or “生米煮成熟饭 ” in novels, but in subtitle translation, the latter will be better because “生米煮成熟饭 ” is a more popular idiom which can be easily understood by most people from different backgrounds. On the other hand, the s

27、ource language of subtitle is oral English spoken by the actor or actress in the movie and oral English is different from written English. Oral English is popular and simple. 2.3 Comprehensiveness Besides a popular art, movies and TV plays also exist as a comprehensive art with verbal and non-verbal

28、 language in it. The action and the language are complementary and affected by each other. As a conclusion, subtitle translation ought to be simple and popular and also fully express the message the movies mean to convey, and at the same time translators should pay attention to the actors movements

29、and expressions. Pictures, actors, sounds, actions, languages, lights and expressions, all of these form a complete movie and establish a new environment for viewers to understand,to communicate and to appreciate. The comprehensiveness of subtitle plays an important role in the subtitle translation.

30、 The context formed by the sound, light, action can replace some words. 4 3 The Advised Strategies in Exact Subtitle Translation 3.1Keeping the Subtitle as Long as the Time and Space Require The movie medias characteristic itself determines the many restrictions in many ways. The restrictions can be

31、 divided into six types: time, space, music, picture, speech sound and oral language. The main type is time and space. Space means the capability of language signals contained on screen and time represents language and image matching at the same time. Space restriction causes many difficulties becau

32、se one Chinese character equaling one sound is shorter and briefer than English. And the time restriction, though it is not strictly the same as dubbing, means translators should complete information transmission at the same time as source text. The most effective procedure for translators to solve

33、the space problem often involves some major manipulation of the source text. The procedure could be described as deletion, as defined by Delabastita(1989:193-218) in his analysis of film translation. Thus the two restrictions make laws of reduction which can not be used at random in caption translat

34、ion and the most manipulation principle is “relevance”. “Every act of ostensive communication communicates the presumption of its own optimal relevance.”(Sperber and Wilson, 1986:158). The optimal relevance means the viewers can receive maximum contextual effect with minimum cognitive effect. Accord

35、ing to the relevance theory, deletion strategy comes up.The context of an utterance is “the set of premises used in interpreting it”. As such, it is a psychological concept: “A context is a psychological construct, a subset of the hearers assumptions about the world”. Hence in relevance theory conte

36、xt does not refer to some part of the external environment of the communication partners, be it the text preceding or following an utterance, situational circumstances, cultural factors,etc; it rather refer to part of their“assumptions about the world” or cognitive environment , as it is called. The

37、 notion of “congnitive environment” takes into account the various external factors but places the emphasis on the information they provide and its mental availability for the interpretation process(Gutt, 2004:27). The congitive environment of a person comprises a potentially huge amont of very varied information. It includes information that can be perceived in the physical