关联理论视角下的电影字幕翻译研究-以《泰坦尼克号》为例_英语论文

On English-Chinese Translation of Movies Subtitles from the Perspective of Relevance Theory: a Case Study of Titanic

摘要

电影是当今社会最有群众基础的文化传播渠道之一,而作为一种新兴的和特殊的翻译模式,电影字幕翻译已经成为翻译界一个强大的不可分割的组成部分。以语用学中的关联理论为理论框架和视角，以电影《泰坦尼克号》的字幕汉译为个案，从最佳关联，语境效果和处理努力三个角度，评析了英文电影《泰坦尼克号》的字幕汉译的成功之处,可以看出关联理论对字幕翻译有很强的解释力,容易接受和遵循。同时，结合英汉语言的系统对比和电影字幕的主要特点，分析和讨论电影字幕英汉翻译中的问题与对策，特别关注影响电影字幕汉译的限制因素(尤其受时间和空间的限制)、文化因素。最后，浅谈中国的影视翻译，正确看待优秀外国影片的成功对中国电影“走出去”的意义与启示。

关键词：关联理论;字幕翻译;《泰坦尼克号》;中国电影的“走出去”

Abstract

In today’s society, movie has gained an increasing popularity among the public and become one of the most important cultural transmission channels. As a relatively new and special translation field, movie subtitle translation has become a powerful and inseparable component of translation. With the relevance theory in pragmatics as theoretical framework and perspective, this thesis is intended to take the subtitle translation of English film Titanic for case study and analyze the successful subtitle translation in Titanic from three perspectives, optimal relevance, contextual effect and processing effort. It is also of great importance to apply a relevance theoretical approach to guide the analysis of the subtitle translation in the English movie Titanic into Chinese in order to prove whether this translated Chinese version has achieved the optimal relevance and the optimal contextual effects to have the original intention clearly conveyed to the target language audience with least information-processing effort. And it can be concluded that relevance theory has given quite a good interpretation of subtitle translation, thus it’s easy to accept and follow. Besides, the thesis will compare the language systems of English and Chinese, pointing out some main features of movie subtitles so as to analyze some translation strategies. What’s more, it is quite necessary to emphasize the importance of some main constraints (especially time and space constraints) that affect movie subtitle translation and concern about cultural factor. In the end, some attention has been paid to further discuss the movie and television translation of China, take a proper view on the significance and revelation of the success of good foreign movies on Chinese movies “going out”.

Key words: Relevance Theory; Subtitle Translation; Titanic; Chinese movies “going out”

Contents

Introduction 1

1. Movie Subtitle Translation and Relevance Theory 3

1.1 The Necessity and Importance of Subtitle Translation 3

1.2 The Main Features of Subtitle Translation 3

1.3 The Definition and Constraints of Subtitle Translation 4

1.3.1 Instantaneity of Time 4

1.3.2 Limitation of Space 5

1.3.3 Popularity of Language 5

1.3.4 Fusion of Language 5

1.4 The Relation of Relevance Theory and Movie Subtitle Translation 5

2. A Case Study of Subtitle Translation in English Movie Titanic 6

2.1 Brief Introduction of Titanic 6

2.2 Case Analysis of the Subtitle Translation of Titanic from the Perspective of Relevance Theory 7

3. The Significance of Movie Subtitle Translation in Cross-cultural Communication 9

4. Discussion on Movie Translation in China 10

4.1 Current Situation of Movie Translation in China 10

4.2 What is the difficult for Chinese movies “going out”? 10

4.3 What is the enlightenment of the success of the good foreign movies on Chinese movies “going out”? 12

4.3.1 Show the healthy national image based on local cultural resources 12

4.3.2 Break constraint of them and style, fuse multiple value elements 12

4.3.3 The key of Chinese movies “going out” also lies on the movies’ quality and accuracy of subtitle translation 12

Conclusion 14

References 15