多模态话语分析视角下电影字幕翻译研究——以《寻梦环游记》为例

论文总字数：35819字

摘 要

受全球化的影响，国外影视作品大量引进国内。由于文化和语言上的差异，要让当地观众观看且接受国外影视作品需要一些辅助工具，字幕就是其中之一。通过字幕语言转换，让观看者能够理解作品中的内容，还能一并了解到国外的文化。字幕翻译的准确与否会影响观看者对作品的理解以及观看体验，因此有必要继续研究及完善字幕翻译。目前，国内对字幕翻译的研究多集中于以翻译目的论、功能对等论等翻译理论为视角的研究，多模态话语分析视角下的字幕翻译研究较少。本论文基于张德禄的多模态话语分析综合理论框架，从文化、语境、内容和表达四个层面对《寻梦环游记》中的字幕翻译进行分析，探讨电影字幕与其它模态，如画面、音效、语气等模态，是如何协调来传递整体意义的。分析结果显示，多模态话语分析为影视字幕翻译提供了一个新的视角，各个模态与文本相互结合，才能将文本的内容完整的表达出来。此外，基于各个层面的特点，作者试图为影视字幕的翻译提供建议，实现最佳的影视翻译效果，提升观众的观影体验。

关键词：多模态话语分析；字幕翻译；模态

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments i

Abstract ii

摘要 iii

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Research Background 1

1.2 Purpose and Significance 1

1.3 A Brief Introduction to Coco 2

1.4 Thesis Structure 3

Chapter Two Literature Review 4

2.1 Previous Studies on Multimodal Discourse Analysis 4

2.2 Previous Studies on Subtitle Translation 5

Chapter Three Subtitle Translation Analysis of Coco of Multimodal Discourse Analysis 7

3.1 Methodology and Data Collection 7

3.2 The Integrated Synthetic Theoretical Framework for Multimodal Discourse Analysis 7

3.3 A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Subtitle Translation 8

3.3.1 Expression Level 8

3.3.2 Content Level 10

3.3.3 Contextual Level 11

3.3.4 Cultural Level 13

Chapter Four Conclusion 17

4.1 Summary 17

4.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Study 17

References 18

List of Figures

Figure 3.1 10

Figure 3.2 12

Figure 3.3 13

Figure 3.4 14

Figure 3.5 15

Figure 3.6 16

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Research Background

Communication between different countries has become more frequent, therefore, their influence on each other has grown. In the aspect of cultural influence, a large amount of overseas films and television works are introduced into China, like English dramas, US TV series, Korean dramas, Thailand soap operas and Japanese dramas. Chinese TV and film productions are also receiving enough attention abroad. For instance, the TV series Empresses in the Palace was translated into English and introduced into the United States. It was broadcast on Netflix, biggest streaming media platform in America. Thus it can be seen that the cultural influence is growing. Due to the difference of culture background and language, some methods are used in these productions in order to make target audience understand and accept these cultural products. Subtitle is one of those methods. With the subtitle, the audience has the ability to listen to the original sound and understand what those characters are talking about. Besides the understanding of contents, it can also help the audience in learning different cultures. It will be a great helper for cross-cultural communication. Hence, the subtitle plays an important role in the process of importing overseas films and TV series. Also, the quality of subtitle will to some extent affect the audience on their understanding and experiences. Therefore, it is necessary to keep studying and perfecting the subtitle translation. Currently in China, most researches on subtitle translation are based on Skopos Theory and Functional Equivalence. The number of researches on multimodal discourse analysis is relatively small. Thus, studying subtitle on the perspective of multimodal discourse analysis can enrich researches on subtitle and provide a new angle of viewing subtitle.

1.2 Purpose and Significance

Subtitle translation is to translate the source language into the target language. In this way the Chinese audience can better understand the film and these foreign films can spread easily in China. Whether the audience have a good viewing experience or not will depend mostly on the accuracy of subtitle translation. This is why more and more researches are done in this area. Subtitle translation is worth studying and improving in order to express the meaning and content more completely. Films themselves are the combination of many modalities including sounds, pictures, gestures and so on. Apart from words, these modalities also contribute to conveying the message. Therefore, combining the subtitle with these modalities can help the audience in getting a better comprehension of films. In recent years, multimodal discourse analysis helps to analyze the subtitle translation from a novel perspective. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and discuss how the modality affects the subtitle translation, and to find out what translation strategies, methods and techniques should be adopted for subtitle translation within the framework of multimodal discourse analysis.

1.3 A Brief Introduction to Coco

Coco is the 19^th full-length animated feature movie produced by Pixar Animation Studios. It was co-presented by Walt Disney Animation Studios and Pixar Animation Studios and directed by Lee Edward Unkrich who also directed another popular animation film called Finding Nemo and Adrian Molina. Its main voice actors are Anthony Gonzalez, Benjamin Bratt, Gael García Bernal, Renee Victor, Alanna Ubach. Coco was released on November 24^th, 2017 in mainland China and took more than 1 billion yuan at the box office which was a breakthrough for it was the first time that the box office of Pixar’s film had reached 1 billion yuan in mainland China. Then it is rated 9.0 out of 10 on Douban Movie which is the most authoritative film rating website in China. This movie has won three major awards including the 90^th Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature Film, the 75^th Golden Globe Awards for Best Animated Feature Film and the 71^st British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards for Best Animated Film.

The inspiration of this film came from a Mexican traditional festival called the Day of the Dead. In Mexican culture, death is the highest meaning of life. Death and Life complement each other and together complete a life cycle. Mexicans don’t regard death as a horrible thing. As a result, every Day of the Dead, the Mexican will held a memorial ceremony for the dead without any grief. At this ceremony, they will celebrate this yearly reunion moment with their dead relatives and friends. They will dance to the music until the festival is over.

The main themes of Coco are dream and family. This movie’s main character is called Miguel. He is a twelve years old boy who was born in a shoemaker’s family. Since he was even younger, he had always wanted to become a musician. However, music is forbidden in his family. They think that they are cursed by music. Miguel does not shrink back from this disapproval. He keeps chasing his dream. On his way of becoming a musician, he accidentally go to the land of the dead by touching a guitar which is hung at the mourning hall’s wall. Every Day of the Dead, the dead whose photo is placed at the altar will come back to the living world to reunite with their family, but no living human have gone to the land of the dead. Miguel is surprised by this colorful land. Although this world is amazing, he needs his relatives’ blessings before sunrise or he will not be able to return to the living world. He decides to find the late Ernesto de la Cruz who may be his great-great-grandfather. On his way to look for Ernesto, he encounters an abject musician called Héctor who is desperate to go to the living world. Then they together find out a secret that has been hidden by Ernesto for a long time.

1.4 Thesis Structure

This thesis has four chapters. Chapter one introduces the research background, purpose and significance and a brief introduction to the movie Coco. Chapter two is previous studies on both multimodal discourse analysis and subtitle at home and abroad. Chapter three is the analysis of subtitle translation from the perspective of multimodal discourse analysis. The analysis is based on four levels. The last chapter is the conclusion which includes the summary of this thesis, limitations and suggestions for further study.

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Previous Studies on Multimodal Discourse Analysis

With the development of technology, the ways how people communicate with each other have changed a lot. Nowadays, people use not only language to communicate, but they also take advantage of non-language elements to express meanings, such as images, sound and colors. In this way, messages can be delivered more comprehensively. Therefore, a lot of researchers have noticed the effect of these non-language elements in the communication. They found that these elements can be applied in discourse analysis. Then many researches have been done in this area.

Western researchers and scholars started to study in multimodal discourse analysis since 1970s. Kress and Van Leeuwen claims that both language and visual communication can serve as a meaning system (Kress amp; Leeuwen, 1996). They applies metafunction theory of Systemic Functional Linguistics in their theory, then they created Visual Grammar based on representational meaning, interpersonal meaning and compositional meaning. It is a grammatical framework for visual images to discuss how meanings of multimodal factors are interpreted and united as a whole. And it provides theoretical basis and analysis approach for multimodal discourse analysis. Later, in their another book, Multimodal discourse: The modes and media of contemporary communication, they hold the opinion that different semiotic modes sometimes can express the same meaning (2001).

In China, researches in this area has just began. Zhu considers that discourse analysis only focuses on the language and does not take other forms that can also express meanings into consideration, such as images, sounds and colors, which makes the discourse analysis with great limitations (Zhu, 2007). Zhang states that multimodal discourse is a kind of phenomenon that utilizes auditory sense, vision, tactile sensation and other senses to communicate. He creates a framework composed of four levels: cultural level, contextual level, content level and expression level to analysis multimodal discourse (Zhang, 2009).

2.2 Previous Studies on Subtitle Translation

The study of film subtitles has started in Western countries. Gambier states that researches on audiovisual translation has concentrated on one single form which is the text. It has some disadvantages that it may cause the loss of some informative modalities of discourse. And he urges the necessity of finding the methodology to cope with multimodality, avoiding some significant missing information (Gambier, 2006). Taylor considers that it is evident that audiovisual translations still focus on written text and do not pay attention to other forms that also serve as a means of delivering message. He also points that if these audiovisual translations are based on the interpretation of dialogues, the audience may not get a good viewing experience (Taylor, 2016).

In China, with overseas films and television productions flooding in, the study of subtitle translation have increased in recent years. Yu holds the opinion that during the process of translation, characteristics of multimodality and complexity of the message transmitted by mass media should be paid attention. Translators should consider how to coordinate with main elements of the film such as cultural background, context, theme and character (Yu, 2016). Zhang states that the characteristic of films and television works is multimodal feature. Therefore, its subtitle translation should differ from plain text, and it has a strong performance in practical area. She uses logical semantic relations between texts and images to analyze the film (Zhang, 2018). Xia compares the subtitle translation of fansub version with official version for a documentary, Planet EarthⅡ, from the perspective of multimodal discourse analysis. She finds that fansub group’s version is more fluent and adapted to the Chinese culture while official version is cautious and rigid due to the characteristic of the official platform (Xia, 2018). Ouyang analyzes the subtitle of Hero from multimodal discourse analysis. She states that subtitle together with the language, image, sound and other modalities construct the whole meaning of the text. The translator should adopt expressions that are easy to understand to assist the audience in sensing the meaning of the text (Ouyang, 2015). Most of researches are done to analyze the Chinese-English subtitle, while few studies are done to analyze English-Chinese subtitle. And their subtitles that are studied are extracted from fansub’s version. Therefore, this thesis tries to discuss the English-Chinese subtitle extracted from the official subtitle from the perspective of multimodal discourse analysis.

Chapter Three Subtitle Translation Analysis of Coco of Multimodal Discourse Analysis

3.1 Methodology and Data Collection

A case study of Coco and a descriptive-explanatory method will be applied in this section. The subtitle will be studied based on the synthetic theoretical framework for multimodal discourse analysis by Zhang Delu(2009). The Chinese subtitle is extracted from the official version which is used on cinemas. The author will view the movie repeatedly, paying attention to the subtitle and other modalities, such as visual images and sounds. The subtitle will be analyzed at four levels: expression level, content level, contextual level and cultural level. At each level, some examples will be discussed in detail. The examples will be listed based on how well the subtitle reflects the meaning of modalities.

3.2 The Integrated Synthetic Theoretical Framework for Multimodal Discourse Analysis

Expression Level

The expression level is about media. Media is the material form of discourse in the material world. It has two categories, language media and non-language media (Zhang, 2009). In terms of language media, the paralanguage and pure language are included. The paralanguage consists of acoustics, volume, pitch, tone, font, spatial arrangement and so on. The function of the paralanguage is to support, supplement and intensify the meaning. For non-language media, it concludes the body language and non-physical media like platforms, audio equipment, and simultaneous interpretation room.

Content Level

The content level includes meaning level and form level. The meaning level is composed of ideational meaning, interpersonal meaning and textual meaning. Ideational meaning refers to external meaning of a symbol endowed by people through their own experience. Interpersonal meaning refers to the speaker’s opinion or attitude. Textual meaning refers to the coherence in the discourse. The form level includes language, graphic, hearing and sensation. Each of them has its own system. Language has grammar system; graphic has visual grammar system; hearing has auditory grammar system; and sensation has tactile grammar system. The relation of these systems is classified into two types, one is complementary relation which includes reinforced and not-reinforced relation and the other is non-complementary relation which includes inclusion, overlapping, contextual interaction (Zhang, 2009).

Contextual Level

Contextual factor is a significant factor in an actual communication. Hu divided the context into three types: linguistic context, situational context and cultural context (Hu, 1994). According to Zhang Delu, the context level specifically refers to situational context. It is determined by the field of discourse, the tenor of discourse and the mode of discourse. In the situational context, the field of discourse is the topic or theme of the conversation; the tenor of discourse is about communicative parties like their social status, relations, body languages and other factors that relate to them; the mode of discourse is the style of language that is used in communication like formal style and informal style.

Cultural Level

The cultural level actually refers to cultural context. According to Zhang, this level is the determining part of multimodal communication. It decides the tradition, form and skill of the communication (Zhang, 2009). The ideology and genre are two main forms of the culture. The definition of ideology is that it includes thinking patterns, ways to deal with life, living habits and unwritten social customs. For genre, it is the communicative processes or structural potential that reflects the ideology.

3.3 A Multimodal Discourse Analysis of Subtitle Translation

3.3.1 Expression Level

According to the traditional linguistics studies, the main media that convey messages are voice and written language. They are all pure language. In a movie, subtitle is the reproduction of dialogues in characters, and actors’ dubbing is the reproduction of dialogues in voice. These actors’ performances bring life to those characters, so these characters are endowed with emotions. Therefore, the translation should combine dialogues with non-verbal expressions like paralanguage and body language so that the meaning can be fully expressed.

At expression level, the most important factors that will have effect on the outcome of translation are paralanguage and body language. These are non-language factors. Therefore, it is advised that translators should use addition to coordinate with these characteristics. Addition is a kind of translation technique. The function of addition is to add some words, sentences or paragraphs based on the target language to better express the original content. In this way can the target audience better understand the lines.

For instance, at 00:02:24, Miguel is introducing his family. He talks about Imelda, his great-great-grandmother that how his family ends up making shoes. The line is “But no. She chose shoes.” To translate it literally, it should be “但是不，她选择鞋子”. But when Miguel says this line, his tone is slow and low. It can be told that he is upset and not satisfied with her choice. She could have done other things, but she chose shoes. So the translator interprets this sentence into “可她就不，她就要做鞋子”. The word “就” is added in the translation to intensify the message that Miguel is dissatisfied with Imelda’s choice.

At 00:03:20, Miguel introduces his great-grandmother, Coco. He greets her, but she mistakes Miguel as her husband. Then the facial expression of Miguel changes. His eyebrows form a shape of Chinese character “八” which means that he is frustrated about this situation. When he says the line “Mamá Coco has trouble remembering things”, he prolongs “has” in the middle of the sentence to illustrate his hesitation. The original translation should be “太奶奶她的记性不太好了”. But the final translation is “太奶奶她…她的记性不太好了”, it adds ellipsis after the phrase “太奶奶她” where Miguel elongates the sound. This ellipsis shows a feeling of hesitation, and it coordinates with Miguel’s tonality.

For movie Coco, it is an animated feature movie and it is a cinema film which means that its platform is the cinema. It is a place where everyone can enter. And animated film is suitable for whole family to watch especially for those families who have kids. Therefore, the subtitle should be translated in a simple and understandable way to make sure that even young kids can also understand the words.

Then, in a movie, the spatial arrangement of the subtitle should be appropriate. It should be at the bottom of the frame and be placed in the middle. This position won’t block the picture to affect the viewing experience. As it is shown below, Coco’s subtitle is placed at that position. There won’t be more than two lines of the Chinese subtitle which makes sure that the whole screen is still viewable to the audience. It is also important that the subtitle stays long enough on the screen in order to ensure that everyone is able to finish reading the subtitle.

Figure 3.1

3.3.2 Content Level

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