An Analysis of Subtitle Translation Strategies from the Perspective of Skopostheory

By Li Jiaying

In partial fulfillment of the requirement

For the B. A. degree

Department of Translation

School of Languages and Cultures

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

April, 2017

Acknowledgement

First and foremost, I am greatly indebted to my advisor Mrs. Wu Jianlan for her continuous support and guidance, constructive suggestions, and to all those who gave me patient and meticulous guidance to finish this thesis. I am extremely grateful to my classmates who give me lots of valuable suggestions and spend a lot of time discussing the thesis with me. It is their consistent and illuminating instruction that encouraged me to finish the paper all the way.

Finally, my thanks would go to my parents for their continuous support from the very beginning of my study, which helped me overcome kinds of difficulties.

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Research objectives 1

1.3 Thesis structure 2

2. An introduction to Subtitle 2

2.1 Definition of subtitle 2

2.2 Types of subtitle 3

2.3 Features of subtitle 3

3. Skopostheory and its application in the subtitle translation 5

3.1 Introduction to skopostheory 5

3.2 Three rules of skopostheory 6

3.3 The guiding role of application in the subtitle translation 7

4. An analysis of subtitle translation strategies through case studies 8

4.1 Factors influencing the subtitle translation action 8

4.2 Analysis of strategies adopted in Downtown Abbey’s subtitling 8

5. Conclusion 12

References 13

An Analysis of Subtitle Translation Strategies from the Perspective of Skopostheory

Li Jiaying

Department of Translation

School of Language and Culture

Nanjing University of Information Science amp; Technology

Abstract: Translation is a significant communication tool between different cultures. With the deepening of globalization and the popularization of the Internet, the communication between China and western countries is getting closer and closer. Every year a large number of products pour into the market and attract much attention. Subtitle translation is becoming more and more important. This thesis, based on skopostheory, takes Downtown Abbey as an example to explore the features and strategies of subtitling. Skopostheory stress the skopos, or the purpose, as the primary factor determining the translation strategy. Besides, the target text must meet target readers’ needs while the source text is no more than a source information. Translators can choose strategies freely to achieve their purposes. And translation have to conform to culture and the situation accepted by the target audience. Through the tentative discussion and study of subtitle translation from the perspective of skopostheory, the author hopes this thesis will be a reference for the future subtitle translation. The author also hopes it can attracts more scholars and engage them in this filed.

Key words: Downtown Abbey, skopostheory, subtitle translation, translation strategies

摘 要：翻译是不同文化之间的重要沟通手段。随着全球化的推进和网络的普及，中国与外国的文化交流越来越密切，大量影片涌入中国市场，深受中国观众喜爱，字幕翻译已占据重要地位。本文以《唐顿庄园》为例，在目的论的指导下探索字幕翻译的特点及其策略。根据翻译目的论，翻译是一种有目的的行为，翻译目的决定翻译方法；译文要符合读者的需求，而原文的地位可以适当削弱。译者可以选择可行的翻译策略来达到译者的翻译目的。观众的文化知识背景和期望决定着译文的功能及目的。通过从目的论角度对字幕翻译进行初步研究和探讨，笔者希望本文能对今后的字幕翻译有所帮助，同时希望本文能够吸引更多的学者进行字幕翻译的研究。

关键词：《唐顿庄园》；目的论；字幕翻译；翻译策略

1. Introduction

1.1 Research background

Nowadays, with the deepening of globalization and the diversification of the mass media, the communication between China and other countries is getting closer and closer, while movies makes a big portion of it. A large number of Chinese audience have the opportunity to get into touch with the foreign culture because of the flooding of foreign movies and dramas. As a popular entertainment, these foreign audiovisual products, are much welcomed and accepted by people from all walks of life. At the same time, these movies and dramas have also extended the people’s horizon and help them to absorb different cultural elements. It’s obvious that subtitling is playing a more and more significant part in improving the quality of foreign audiovisual products and promoting cultural exchanges.

Up to now, some translator scholars in Europe have made great contributions to this new area. However, compared with other types of translation in China, studies on subtitle translation is still at the preliminary stage. It should also be admitted that the research on subtitle translation is relatively delayed in China, and lacks of regulations. Chinese scholars just pay attention to literary translation and ignore the urgency of studying subtitle translation, because they regard it as recreation rather than academic studies. Although subtitle translation is becoming very popular in China, it lacks guiding theory and just relies on the subtitle translators’ efforts and attempts. There are many mistakes in current subtitle translation, which may lead audiences’ understanding and is bad for the development of subtitle translation. In conclusion, there is still a long way to go for subtitle translation.

1.2 Research objectives

As is outlined above, the flooding of foreign movies and dramas makes cultural communication more and more frequent between China and other countries. Many young people with high education background download foreign movies online and spend their spare time watching these movies. But not all of these people have the abilities to watch English movies without subtitles. In fact, subtitle translation now is playing a rather significant part in strengthening cultural communication and encouraging mutual understanding. However, there are many translation mistakes because of the lack of guiding theory in this area. In this way people may have misunderstanding about the content of foreign audiovisual works and lose their interest. So it is important for scholars to study on subtitle translation to ensure high quality subtitle translation. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to expose the specific features and strategies of this translation type from the perspective of skopostheory. It is hoped that this thesis would offer some useful guidance and arouse greater interest towards the subtitle translation and produce better subtitles.

1.3 Thesis structure

The structure of this thesis is illustrated as follows. Chapter one presents the research background, objectives and structure of this thesis. Chapter two does some analysis on the features and principles of subtitle translation. As the theoretical framework part, chapter three presenting the origin of skopostheorie and three rules of skopostheory as well as its usage in subtitle translation. Chapter four takes the British drama Downtown Abbey as an example to display the problems in subtitle translation. Chapter five is the conclusion part.

2. An introduction to Subtitle

2.1 Definition of subtitle

Subtitle generally has four meaning. First, it refers to an alternate title of a drama, book, film, etc., in addition to its main title. Second, it refers to captioning, a textual version of a film or television program's dialogue that appears onscreen. Third, it refers to a record label. Fourth, it refers to a Los Angeles-based rapper. In this thesis, subtitles referred to as captions. Subtitling is not only a simple translation, and it involves a highly technical and precise process to ensure that audience can understand every scene with spoken or written content. The main function of subtitles is to display the content of the text in words so as to help the target audience better understand the content of the TV plays.

2.2 Types of subtitle

Linguistically, there are two types of subtitling, one is intra-lingual subtitling and the other is inter-lingual subtitling. The definition of intra-lingual subtitling is that the target text and the source text are different ones, which is diagonal and changes both the mode and the language. While inter-lingual subtitling means the target language and the source language are same ones, which is designed for people who cannot hear the dialogues clearly. For example, there are many dialects in China and huge differences are existing between some dialects, but Chinese has uniform writing standards. Subtitling is necessary and can better help people understand the dialogues of TV dramas in this kind of situation. This thesis conducts a tentative research on subtitle translation. And for this thesis, subtitle translation mentioned in the following is inter-lingual subtitling.

2.3 Features of subtitle

A TV drama, as a popular entertainment mixed with sound and music, can bring great pleasure to the audiences. Therefore，the subtitle translation of a TV drama is also subject to its particularity. Just like other kinds of audiovisual products，TV dramas serve the public and their subtitles should be easily understood by the public. Basically，there are three main features of TV drama subtitles which translators should pay attention to during the process of translation.

1. Time constraints

On the whole, until one subtitle is replaced by another subtitle, it can only exists for 2 to 3 seconds on the screen. It means that subtitles are instantaneous and it must be noted that in some cases audiences do not have the opportunity to read them again.

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