Abstract

Film is a common modern artistic form which perfectly mixes various cultural elements together. With the booming of economy and technology, people gradually incorporate film into their everyday lives. And subtitle is an indispensable part of movie, which conveys information to the viewers. Relatively speaking, the study of subtitle translation is decades-old branch of literary translation. Although many experts proposed quite a few principles, strategies and method, there is still short of systematical translation theory.

This thesis attempts to adopt Skopostheorie as the theoretical framework. Skopostheorie stresses that translation is a purposeful activity, and the aim of translation should be the criterion of target text. Meanwhile, the acceptance of target text is much more important than equivalence, and thus translator can choose strategies freely to achieve the planned purpose according to different situations. 

This thesis will briefly analyze the subtitle of a well-reputed Chinese movie Hero from the perspective of Skopostheorie. The author tries to explore the intention of the director—Zhang Yimou, the expectation of the audiences and the diverse strategies adopted when translating subtitles. The author hope scholars and filmmakers can pay attention to film subtitle translation which can greatly facilitates the success of a film.

Keywords: film subtitle translation, Skopostheorie, Hero, translation strategies

Contents

Abstract

摘要

Chapter 1 Introduction-1

1.1 Research background-1

1.2 Research task and structure of thesis-1

Chapter 2 Literary Review-3

2.1 Studies on film subtitle translation abroad-3

2.2 Studies on film subtitle translation at home-4

2.3 Comment-5

Chapter 3 Theoretical foundation: Skopostheorie-6

3.1 The development of Skopostheorie-6

3.2 The three rules of Skopostheorie-7

3.2.1 The Skopos rule-7

3.2.2 The coherence rule-7

3.2.3 The fidelity rule-7

3.3 Multiple choices of translation strategies-8

Chapter 4 Applicability of Skopostheorie to the Subtitle Translation: Taking Hero for an Instance-9

4.1 Analysis of subtitle translation from the Skopos Rule-9

4.1.1 The skopos of Zhang Yimou-9

4.1.2 The expectation of target viewers-9

4.1.3 The retainment of Chinese cultural factors-10

4.2 Analysis of subtitle translation from the Coherence Rule-10

4.2.1 Deletion-10

4.2.2 Addition-12

4.2.3 Condensation-12

4.2.4 Generalization-13

4.2.5 Domestication-15

4.3 Analysis of subtitle translation from the Fidelity Rule-16

4.4 Defects of the subtitle translation in Hero-17

Chapter 5 Conclusion-18

References-19