文化翻译视角下《甄嬛传》字幕中文化负载词的英译研究

论文总字数：39800字

摘 要

在当今的世界，各国之间的跨文化交流日益密切，语言是文化的载体,不同语言体现着不同文化。而文化负载词是一个国家和民族深刻的文化印记，蕴含着丰富的文化,其反映了不同民族不同国家的地理环境、生活方式、社会制度、历史背景、宗教信仰、及风俗习惯上的差异。值得一提的是，近些年来，影视行业在促进文化交流方面功不可没。2015年，美版《甄嬛传》在美国公开上映。《甄嬛传》中有大量的充满中国特色文化的词汇，而这些表达很难用目标语将其翻译过去。在翻译的过程中，译者不仅要考虑影视字幕的特点和局限性，还要考虑中英两种语言之间的文化差异问题。本文以文化翻译为指导，研究对象是美版《甄嬛传》的字幕翻译，探讨文化负载词的翻译方法，这将为其他影视作品提供借鉴。

关键词：文化翻译；《甄嬛传》；字幕翻译；文化负载词

Contents

1. Introduction…………………...…………………..………………………1

2. Literature Review……………………………….………………...………2

3. Theoretical Framework……………………………………..……………6

3.1 Cultural translation.......................................................……...……………6

3.2 Domestication and foreignization................................……...……………7

4. Classification of Culture-Loaded Words and Expressions in Empresses in the Palace................................................……….................................……7

4.1 Ecological culture-loaded words and expressions......................................8

4. 2 Material culture-loaded verbs and expressions..........................................8

4. 3 Religious culture-loaded words and expressions.......................................9

4.4 Linguistic culture-loaded words and expressions.......................................9

5. Strategies Applied in the Translation of Culture-Loaded Words and Expressions from the Perspective of Cultural Translation.......................10

5.1 Foreignization strategy used in Empresses in the Palace..........................10

5.1.1 Transliteration........................................................................................11

5.1.2 Word-for-word translation.....................................................................12

5.2 Domestication strategy used in Empresses in the Palace..........................12

5.2.1 Paraphrase..............................................................................................13

5.2.2 Idiomatic translation..............................................................................13

5.2.3 Imitation.................................................................................................14

5. Conclusion………………………………………………………………….14

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...16

1. Introduction

Nowadays, the cultural communication between each country is becoming increasingly frequent by virtue of quick and efficient communication tools. In the past, we learned the culture and custom of a country by reading foreign literary books. However, today, audio-visual works have come into existence, enhancing cross-culture communication.

In the past, literary works were placed onto the focus of translation studies, researches on audio-visual translation are relatively at the beginning stage. However, as the degree of reforming and opening up of China becomes increasingly higher, many high-quality China’s films and TV serials have been introduced into other countries, and they are on show to the public, which urges many experts to pay more attention to audio-visual literary translation. Unlike the translation of literary works, audio-visual literary translation possesses its own specific qualities. For example, audio-visual translation in literature has to face such requirements: instantaneity, simplicity and popularity, which will bring great challenges to translators. When it comes to the same issue, people with different cultural backgrounds hold different understandings about a particular literary work, which will also bring great difficulties to translators. Language, culture and customs embodied in audio-visual literary works have contributed to unique culture-loaded words and expressions. If translators can not translate these culture-loaded words in a proper way, foreign viewers will even fail to appreciate the movie in a relaxed way. So, in this way, it is a big challenge for translators to retain the connotations of those culture-loaded words and expressions in the target language. People with different backgrounds hold different understandings about a particular literary work, which will also bring great difficulties to translators. Language, culture and customs embodied in audio-visual literary works have contributed to unique culture-loaded words and expressions. If translators can not translate these culture-loaded words in a proper way, foreign viewers will even fail to appreciate the movie in a relaxed way. So, in this way, it is a big challenge for translators to retain the connotations of those culture-loaded words and expressions in the target language.

Translation is an approach to understanding various cultures and civilizations instead of the transfer of two languages. Translation is primarily a kind of cross-culture communication in which translator uses target language to recreate the original work.

This paper is intended to explore the translation of culture-loaded words and expressions in the subtitle of Empresses in the Palace from the perspective of culture translation, in which the author mainly lays emphasis on the two aspects.

On the basis of the view of culture translation, what strategies and methods should be used to realize the same effect between the target and original texts.

Subtitle translation has its own constraints, such as time and space. how do these constraints have an effect on the translation of culture-loaded words and expressions.

This paper consists of six parts: Section 1 is an introduction. Section 2 is a literature review about studies on subtitle translation, English translation of culture-loaded words and expressions and an introduction of empresses in the palace and its American version. Section 3 is a theoretical framework, which introduces the concept of culture translation and two translation methods: domestication and foreignization. Then here comes to the section 4 :it is about the categories of culture-loaded words and expressions in the movie. Then in the section 5 ,author shows us the strategies applied in the translation of culture-loaded words and expressions from the perspective of cultural translation. The last part, section 6 is conclusion.

2. Literature Review

Since China adopts the policy of “reforming and opening up”, China’s cultural industry has taken on an entire newlook. A large amount of foreign multimedia has been introduced into China, such as foreign films and TV serials. Concurrently, many superior audiovisual works have been promoted into foreign market. Under such cultural background, the strategies and methods of audiovisual works require theoretical guidance and translators should pay much attention to audiovisual translation.

2.1 Concepts of subtitles

Audiovisual translation plays an important role in cross-culture communication. Subtitle translation is a part of audiovisual translation. Many scholars have put forward some definitions about subtitle translation. In Luyken’s opinion, subtitles appear and disappear in the pace of corresponding sentences and expressions of the original conversation and often are often attached to moving pictures with an ensuing action at a later time”(Lyken 31). Later, Gottlieb puts forward a more systematical and authoritative idea that subtitle is a “written, additive, synchronous type of translation of a fleeting and poly-semiotic text type” (Gambieramp;Gottlieb 311). During the early period of Chinese audiovisual works, Chinese audiences are hard to appreciate the original foreign films. Later, with the improvement of Chinese people’s English capacity, more and more Chinese audiences prefer to appreciate the original version and subtitles. Meanwhile, the studies on audiovisual translation develop gradually. Unlike the studies on subtitle translation of foreign countries, the research on subtitle translation of China is slow. Scholars in this field are relatively few. However, although China’s audiovisual translation study develops slowly, many experts in this filed embrace many penetrating ideas on it in China. Zhang Chunbai, an excellent scholar in this filed, argues that the language of movie and television boosts two characteristics: immediacy and popularity. This kind of unique feature decides that audiovisual translation has to put the target viewers into the central place. Zhang Chunbai once said “in most cases, the translator must see to it that the translated dialogues are comprehensible to most Chinese viewers with a minimum level of education or even those without any schooling such as some illiterate elderly people and preschool children” (Zhang Direct 16). Qian Shaochang, a pioneer in the study of audiovisual translation, points that there are five characteristics between audiovisual language and literary language, which are no note, comprehensiveness, instantaneousness, popularity and fearing feature.（Qian 47）

2.2 Previous studies about subtitle translation

In the past decades, the studies of subtitle translation had made a breakthrough. Nowadays, subtitle translation is more and more significant in cross-culture communication and it has drawn much attention in domestic and foreign countries.

In the western world, the history of subtitle translation dates back to 1970s, when Dollerup published a paper titled “On Subtitle in Television Programs” in the Babel. It is at that time that many translators and experts just place importance on the issue of subtitle translation. In1976,Istvan Fodor published a book named Film Dubbing: Phonetic, Semiotic, Esthetic and Psychological Aspects. In his opinion, each country and nation has its own culture and language, so it is almost impossible to achieve perfect “synchronization” in all aspects of the translation of films.(Fodor 82).In 1982,Christopher Titford first brought forward the definition of “constrained translation” in the article “Subtitling: Constrained Translation”. He argues that the limitation of film and television as a medium itself are the main reason why the translator encounters problems in practice (Titford18).In 1992, the Swedish subtitle translation expert Ivarsson published his book Subtitling for the Media: A Handbook of an Art. This book is said to be the first comprehensive research of translation study in Europe. Ivarsson introduced the evolution of subtitle translation at length in this book. And Yves Gambier and Henrik Gottlieb, could be considered as the masters of subtitle translation. Gottlieb divides subtitle translation into the following categories:(1) written translation,(2) additional translation (new language material appended to subtitles),(3) instant translation,(4) simultaneous translation and(5) translation using at least two media..His subtitle research not only has a complete system, but also provides a unique view on the translation of idioms and the application of subtitle translation in the field of teaching (Gottliebamp; Gambier 11).

Compared with studies on subtitle translation in the Western world, the studies in this field in China are still at the primary stage. With the deeper expansion of reform and opening-up, a great number of foreign films are pouring into Chinese market at a rapid speed, thus Chinese scholars pay much attention to subtitle translation. Some scholars firstly put forward the principles and standards of subtitle translation. Ma Zhengqi points five basic principles of language use in subtitle translation: colloquialism, maintenance of style, recurrence of tones, consistence with gestures and popularization (Ma 82). Mou Li holds the idea that subtitle translation should be easily understood, ensure the progress of plots and preserve original aesthetic value (Mou 88). Besides, many scholars attach much importance to the strategies of subtitle translation. Qian Shaochang maintains that it is beneficial to apply recreation in translating puns (Qian Translation 48). Whereas Li Yunxing holds that reduction should be the primary choice of subtitle translation (Li 38).

2.3 Studies on English Translation of Culture-Loaded words and Expressions

Although the object of translation is culture rather than language, culture is bound to be represented in language, and language is a major means of cultural communication. In language, culture is always embodied in special words and expressions. In other words, in a certain language system, there is often a certain number of words exclusive to that culture. We call such words culture-loaded words.

Malinowsky, a British folklorist, once said: "language is deeply rooted in social life, and the exact meaning of the language cannot be understood without understanding the social-cultural context of the language." A certain language is always associated with a certain culture, the language itself can only be fully understood in the cultural background of intertwined with the language, and the language and culture are always inextricably linked. Therefore, in order to understand the culture-loaded words in Empresses in the Palace, we have to combine the soil-specific cultures that produce these culture-loaded words.

Culture-loaded words are both the key and the difficult points in the translation of literary works. The success or failure of literary translation largely depends on the process of dealing with cultural-loaded words (Zhang 63). Culture-loaded words not only embrace rich meanings, but also play a crucial part in the whole context. Therefore, we should attach much importance to national culture of the original language during translation process. Only in this way can we truly guarantee that translation is a bridge to transfer various colorful cultures.

2.4 An introduction of Empresses in the Palace

The series is centred around the plots between Emperor Yongzheng’s concubines in the Imperial Palace during the Qing Dynasty. The artless and simple 17-year-old Zhen Huan is selected as the Emperor’s harem, but after entering the palace she finds herself involved in the intense infighting between the Empress and the concubines. Understanding that the palace is a cruel and severe place, she begins to learn to survive independently. With her intelligence and wisdom, Huan keeps her original aspiration and wins the Emperor’s trust, finally becoming the most famous concubine in the imperial palace, and she gains unequalled glory and respect. The series had received great popularity in mainland China, and Sina termed it as "a whole town tunes in to watch when it airs on TV". The series has been reported to be one of the best broadcasts in China over the years. Critics attribute the success of the series to its delicately designed plot, fancy costumes reflecting a certain period of old China, and an addictive storyline. Director Zheng also said that the series is not a "simple ancient or idol love story", but a kind of righteous historic value that reflects the cruelty of feudal society.

3. Theoretical Framework

Under the guidance of cultural translation, this paper selects subtitle translation of Empresses in the Palace as a case to explore the translation methods of culture-loaded words. Two translation strategies, domestication and foreignization strategies, are employed to deal with culture-loaded words. Therefore, the theoretical basis of this thesis is cultural translation perspective, domestication and foreignization.

3.1 Cultural translation

Human translation practice boasts an age-old history of thousands of years. Translation plays a indispensable role in encouraging communication between different language communities. Different people hold diverse views on translation according to different historical stages and cultural backgrounds. Since the acceleration of globalization in the middle of the 20th century, especially in the last two or three decades, translation studies have drawn more and more attention. People try to reveal its essence by defining translation. The definition of "cultural translation" in the Dictionary of Chinese Translation Studies is: "Cultural translation focuses on the accurate transmission of cultural connotation, and even a the reinterpretation of local culture."

Firstly, in Cao yingchun’s opinion, cultural translation is a kind of perspective which is the study of translation behavior, translation process and translation role. Cultural translation is a dialogue and exchange between diverse cultures through which the development and prosperity of different cultures can be promoted. Cultural translation is a win-win situation. Both a strong culture and a weak culture can benefit from it in the process of communication. Secondly, cultural translation is an attitude, a correct attitude towards translation. Under the influence of cultural globalization, the epistemology of cultural universalism and cultural relativism has undergone great adjustment and modification. Correctly understanding cultural differences is helpful to promote the development of multiculturalism, pluralistic complementarity through cultural participation. Thirdly, cultural translation is a concrete strategy and method, focusing on the transmission of cultural information in the translated text, which is the cornerstone of cultural translation in cultural construction.(Cao,19).

3.2 Domestication and foreignization.

The strategies commonly used in subtitle translation are the methods of foreignization and domestication. Domestication and foreignization, two famous translation terms in the United States, were put forward by Lawrence Venuti in the translator’s invisibility in 1995. The strategy of domestication is to localize the source language, and to take the target language or the target reader as their destination. Under the guidance of domestication, translator adopts the expression that the target language reader is used to employing. Domesticated translation requires the translator to approach the target language reader and the translator has to express the source language like the native author. In the film and television subtitle translation, domestication is often used to make the audience understand the film smoothly. Foreignization strategy is totally different from domestication. It means that "the translator tries not to disturb the author, let the reader close to the author". The purpose of the foreignization strategy is to preserve and reflect the exotic national and linguistic style characteristics for the target readers to retain exotic sentiment. Therefore, domestication and foreignization are mutually reinforcing, and absolute domestication and foreignization are non-existent.

4. Classification of Culture-Loaded Words and Expressions in Empresses in the Palace.

In his book Language, Culture and Translation, Eugene Nida proposed a kind of categorization of culture, they are ecological culture, material culture, social culture, religious culture and linguistic culture(Nida,91).

So, the culture-loaded words and expressions chosen from Empresses in the Palace will be classified into ecological culture-loaded words, material culture-loaded words, social culture-loaded words, religious culture-loaded words and linguistic culture-loaded words.

4.1 Ecological Culture-Loaded words and Expressions

Ecological culture-loaded words and expressions refer to various animals, plants, which represent an unique ecological culture of a country. In Empresses in the Palace, there are many distinctive ecological culture-loaded words. such as “龙体”，“凤体”，“龙胎”，“龙裔”，“龙凤胎”were translated as “your health”,“your health”, “His Majesty’s child”,“the imperial heir” and “boy-girl” twins separately while actually in traditional Chinese culture,“龙”（dragon) and “凤”（phoenix）means good luck. In the imperial appellation, these two figures represent emperor and empress. Another example is “冰上飞燕”（Flying Swallow of the ice).This translation is not well. Actually,“飞燕”means the name of a queen in Han Dynasty, who is famous for her beautiful appearance and slim figure. The queen can dance very elegantly by virtue of her deftness so she was named “飞燕”.In Empresses in the Palace, Imperial Concubine An tried her best to dance well and act elegantly on the ice in order to seize Emperor’s affection again. To show her best dance, she began to go on a diet and took some medicine. At the same time, Imperial Concubine An practised a lot and finally she made it. So, the slim stature plays a critical role in her successful dancing. Without the background information, foreigner audiences will even fail to understand the meaning of “飞燕”.

4.2 Material culture-loaded verbs and expressions

Material culture is unique to people of different language communities, Usually, material culture-loaded words includes daily food, constructions, and so on. In Empresses in Palace,there are many material culture-loaded words, such as “Yangxin Hall”(养心殿），“yongshou Palace”(永寿宫）,“Suiyu Pavillion”（碎玉轩），“Ninghui Hall”(凝晖堂）and “Chunxi Hall”(春禧殿).There is no problem with these translation of constructions, such as “殿”，“宫”，“轩”，“堂”，and “殿”. However, it is not proper to translate these names of places and halls like this way. The name of Yangxin Hall can find its root in Mencius’s “养心莫善于寡欲”,Which means the best way of cultivating yourself is to reduce your private desires. “永寿”refers to longevity. “禧”means happiness and joyfulness, and “晖”means brightness and sunshine. Translators can use the method of annotation when dealing with these material culture-loaded words. For example,“Chunxi Hall”(Hall of Auspiciousness）.In this way, foreign viewers can appreciate these connotations in a relaxed way.

4.3 Religious culture-loaded words and expressions

Region is an significant part of human life and people in different countries have different religious faith.For example, people in western countries are mostly Christians, while most people in southeast Asian countries believe in Buddhism. What’s more, Confucianism and Taoism leave a deep effect on Chinese people.

On one hand, Confucius showed great awe and respect to destiny. In his opinion, destiny, a mysterious force, can not resisted by people’s own desire. Everything in the world is fated. On the other hand, he proposed that one should make full efforts to change his fate. His ideas on destiny and humanism are reflected in the Empress in the palace. Zhen huan said one should be convinced of destiny, but never submit to it. Zhen huan said her selection into the harem is heaven’s wish.

The Buddhist culture has a deep effect on Chinese culture. Many expressions are associated with Buddhist, such as do a good deed, pay the price and so on. In the Empress in the palace, there are many plots about Buddhism. For example, the emperor told Zhen Huan that Hinayama regards red coral as the reincarnation of Tathagata. Zhen Huan invited the queen to place amulet in a blessed pouch, which can bring great blessings.

4.4 Linguistic culture-loaded words and expressions

Chinese and English languages belong to different language communities, Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan language family. And English is an Indo-European language. Chinese and English are totally different. In terms of grammar, Chinese emphasis parataxis, which means it can express the whole meaning without the related words. English emphasis hypotaxis, the construction of a sentence must be connected by related words. Chinese people often use idioms associating with antithesis, while English people do not mind it. What’s more, there are many dialogues with unique characteristic in the Empress in the Palace, such as “解手“，“扯淡”and so on, which can not be translated in target language. Taking greet as an example, emperor is the most noble man in the world. When officials and concubines greet emperor, they will say “long live the Emperor ”or “May good fortune be with you, Your Majesty”. And highness, the most distinguished women in the harem, when officials and concubines greet her, they will say “Your Majesty, may blessings and peace be with you”. People in ancient times often use the expression “it is better to accept deferentially than to decide courteously” to express their politeness, gratitude and respect when accept others’ present or other thing.

1. Strategies Applied in the Translation of Culture-Loaded Words and Expressions from the Perspective of Cultural Translation

Foreignization and domestication, these two basic translation strategies brought forward by Lawrence Venuti , are often used in subtitle translation. Domestication strategy puts the target language and target audience into the heart, which means it adopts the expressions that the target viewers are familiar with. It requires the translator to use the words accurately and naturally like the author. It is often adopted in title translation to help the audience appreciate the plot in a clear way. Compared with domestication, the strategy of foreignization places emphasis on the original language. Under the guidance of foreignization, translator should not disturb the author and the original text during the process of translation. When the translator adopts this method, he is intended to retain the national characteristics and language style of original language.In some books, literal translation and foreignization are auxiliary to each other. There isn’t a kind of absolute literal translation and foreignization.

• 1. Foreignization strategy used in Empresses in the Palace

Speaking of foreignization, it requires the translator not to disturb the author and the original text. The focus of foreignization is the source language. In the Empresses of Palace, the author adopts the strategy of foreignization to maintain cultural characteristics.

• • 1. Transliteration

Cultural translation takes culture as the basic translation unit. In the process of translation, translators’ main task is to explain the implied information of original text in target language. However, if the translated subtitle is too long, translators may adopt other translation methods. For instance, people’s names, places and other things, if corresponding can’t be found in target language, translators may use the method of transliteration.

In the process of translating, translators take phonetic alphabet of a specific thing of China’s culture, which maintains Chinese pronunciation. Transliteration is often employed when things and concepts are vacant in the target language or they have unique Chinese characters. Transliteration can avoid not only cultural damage or misunderstanding by literal translation, but also translation length caused by literal translation. Because it is not difficult for audience to remember phonetic alphabet, transliteration can guarantee the conciseness of translation. The translators use the method of transliteration in the Empresses in the Palace when translating some unique Chinese culture-loaded words and expressions in order to retain the Chinese flavor.

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