An Analysis of Subtitle Translation of Chinese

Ancient-costume Movies and TV Series

— A case study of Empresses in the Palace

By

Bao Haiqin

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of Bachelor of Arts

Department of English

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology

May, 2016

Acknowlegements

I would like to express my gratitude to all those who helped me to write this thesis.

First of all, I want to acknowlege my supervisor, Mr. Xia Yang, who has offered me valuable suggestions in the acdemic studies and walked me through all stages of writing this paper.

Secondly, I want to express my gratitude goes to my roomates, who helped me a lot when I did not know where to find useful materials.

At last, my gratitude also extends to my family who have been assiting, supporting and caring for me all of my life.

An Analysis of Subtitle Translation of Chinese

Ancient-costume Movies and TV Series

— A case study of Empresses in the Palace

Bao Haiqin

Department of English

School of Language and Culture

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

Abstract: With the Chinese ancient-costume movies and TV series playing abroad, as an important role of transferring the synopsis and explaining the historic background, subtitle translation has gradually caught home and abroad public eyes. On the basic studies of Empresses in the Palace, this paper mainly generalizes four translation features in the play: four-character phrases and quoting massive poetry, the mixture of classic Chinese and modern Chinese and dialects, many different appellations, and complex history background. According to these features and research on Venuti’s theory, this paper also summarizes three translation strategies, including simulation translation, literal translation and liberal translation.

Key words: Empresses in the Palace, subtitle translation features, translation strategies

摘 要

中国古装影视剧在海外热播，字幕翻译作为传达剧情内容、解释历史背景的重要载体，越来越为海内外观众所关注。本文以对《甄嬛传》的研究为基础，概括出古装影视剧中四字习语与诗词的引用、文白夹杂和方言的语言风格、称谓多、历史背景复杂曲折等四个主要的字幕翻译特色，并且结合韦努蒂的异化与归化理论，根据以上研究总结出较为适用于中国古装字幕翻译的三种翻译策略：仿拟翻译，直译，释译。

关键词：《甄嬛传》；字幕翻译特色；翻译策略

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 A brief introduction to Empresses in the Palace 1

1.2 The situation and research significance of subtitle translation 1

2. Literature review 3

3. Brief introduction of foreignizing translation 4

4. The language features of the subtitle of Empresses in the Palace 4

4.1 Four-character phrases and quoting massive poetry 5

4.2 The mixture of classic Chinese and modern Chinese and dialects 6

4.3 Different appellations 7

4.4 Complex history background 9

5. The problems and analysis in the subtitle translation of Empresses in the Palace 10

5.1 The missing of the unique cultural connotation 10

5.2 Inappropriate semantic expressions 10

5.2.1 Inappropriate expressions 10

5.2.2 Disguised replacement of concept 11

6. Translation strategies suitable for Chinese ancient-costume movies and TV series 11

6.1 Simulation translation 12

6.2 Literal translation 12

6.3 Liberal translation 13

7. Conclusion 14

References 16

1. Introduction

1.1 A brief introduction to Empresses in the Palace

Empresses in the Palace written by Liu Lianzi (流潋紫) who is a cyber novelist was adapted for television in 2011. It talks about a story of Zhen Huan (甄嬛) who is a legendary woman in Chinese ancient history. At very first, Zhen Huan, a naivety and innocent 17-year-old girl, is chosen for the emperor’s harem, she finds herself involved in the fierce infightings between empress and his concubines after entering the palace. Realizing that, the palace is actually a cruel and harsh place, Zhen Huan has to help her over a stile with some unavoidable bloody methods and finally become a legendary woman in the history. An abundant of beautiful ancient clothes and various ornaments, dialogues mixed with poems and songs showed in this TV series are of great research value. Complex relationships between characters and emotional lines also make it very popular among Chinese audiences. The historic background of the original is imaginary; it is blended into real history when it is adapted for television however. Because of those prominent advantages, Empresses in the Palace won countless awards and high ratings in 2011 to 2013. (Wang, 2013: 58) It was cut from 76 episodes into 6 episodes and played in the USA with English subtitle in 2011. The subtitles translation of the play becomes of high importance as a result of helping American audiences to understand.

1.2 The situation and research significance of subtitle translation

What is subtitle translation? Each scholar’s definition of subtitle translation is very different. Shuttleworth and Cowei defined subtitle translation as “a process providing synchronization specification to subtitle.” Gottlieb (1997: 309) defined it as: “a written, supplemental and synchronous translation type used for instantaneous and symbolic.” (Liu amp; Li, 2010: 79) In a word, subtitle translation is a kind of behavior used in the fields of films and TV series that can translate the source language into the target language. Source language refers to the language of the original films or TV series. Target language usually means the language of the imported countries; we call it “interlingual subtitle” (Li, 2001: 38). For instance, Empresses in the Palace’s source language is mandarin and Beijing dialect, and its target language is American English. This paper studies on the target language of the TV series. Advanced subtitle translation theories and translation work make great contributions to promoting the development of exported film industry. Subtitle translation, which is so-called “diagonal translation”, needs to be studied and guided like other translation practice work (Zhu, 2013: 7). Only with the direction of advanced and systemic theories can translation work go on scientifically and to translators reach the translation level that they should have been to insure the simultaneous transmission of the information of movies and television series. Because films and television works are like a mirror, through which we can find out the different culture and our own culture (Zhu, 2013: 3). The study on subtitle translation theory promotes the whole translation field; the former is a part of the latter. It also guides other translation practice. Ancient-costume TV series concentrating Chinese traditional culture is an important approach for foreigners to know Chinese humanity knowledge. Although recently Chinese ancient-costume movies and TV series are rising rapidly and it becomes very popular all over the world, there is still a lack of relevant studies of Chinese costume dramas. According to the researches on CNKI, there has have 750 paper about studies of the translation of films and TV plays and only 55 of that is about Chinese ancient-costume films and TV series and 18 in 253 paper of core journals (Yang Q. amp; Wu amp; Li S. Q., 2010: 75-76). Thus it can be seen that the proportion of researches on ancient-costume movies and TV series is very small. There are lots of linguistic and cultural problems exist in the English subtitles that we already have. So we should pay more attention to work out how to translate costume dramas correctly and appropriately. Translators not only need to make audience absorb the epitasis beyond culture without obstacle, but also need to make them fully understand Chinese ancient culture.

2. Literature review

Subtitle translation of Chinese ancient-costume films and televisions is an emerging industry, so the relevant studies are not rich enough to be learned and to say nothing of English version. This paper is based on several Chinese papers about relevant researches and tries best to summarize the previous studies to help readers to learn more about the subtitle translation of Chinese ancient-costume films and TV plays. As Liao Fangbo says in his work, On the Chinese-English Translation of Expressions in the TV Drama the Legend of Zhenhuan, the subtitle translation is an extremely approach for foreigners to understand Chinese traditional history (Liao, 2013: 96). Many official titles and appellations from Hucker’s work are used for reference; the author gets great help from his dictionary. He studied on government system of imperial Chinese and translated official titles in imperial China. Though most of the translations are transliterated words, the dictionary is still a masterpiece till now. Henrik’s diagonal translation is involved in when this paper discusses the definition and classification of subtitle translation. Henrik did great researches on subtitle translation, this paper quotes Henrik’s diagonal translation theory to highlight the research significance of subtitle translation of Chinese ancient-costume movies and televisions. The essential theoretic foundation of this thesis is foreignization, and it refers to Zhang G. F.’s relevant points about the application of foreignization and domestication. The author has the same idea with Jiang X. that subtitle translation is a crucial way exporting Chinese films and televisions, so several important sentences are consulted in the second part of the introduction. The suggested translations in Liao F. B.’s paper were translated by his own compared to this paper’s American subtitle. Yang Q. and other two scholars’ work have influenced the author most in designing this paper. Since the specific research on subtitle translation of Chinese ancient-costume movies and televisions is very restricted, this literature is of great value. The Translation's Invisibility—a History of Translation written by Lawrence Venuti is another very excellent work used in this paper. This book critically examines the full translation in the 17th century and has introduced various strategies about how to hold a dominant position and the formation of the English established norms of foreign literature.

3. Brief introduction to foreignizing translation

Foreignizing translation is applied to this paper as basic translation theory. Domestication translation and foreignizing translation were two important terminologies proposed by Venuti Laurence. He was influenced by Schleiermacher and wrote in his book The Translation's Invisibility—a History of Translation:

“ What is “literal” about this method is that it focuses on the letter of the translation as well as the foreign text, emphasizing the signifier, the signifying play that routinely gets fixed in English-language translation, reduced to a relatively coherent signified. Newman’s foreignizing translation released this play, adding a surplus of domestic meanings to the foreign text by encompassing various English-language cultural discourses, past and present, elite and popular, poetic and novelistic, English and Scottish. In foreignizing translation, the ethnocentric violence that every act of translating wreaks on a foreign text is matched by a violent disruption of domestic values that challenges cultural forms of domination, whether nationalist or elitist. Foreignizing undermines the very concept of nation by invoking the diverse constituencies that any such concept tends to elide (Venuti, 1995: 146-147).”

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