变译论视角下电影字幕官方翻译与网络翻译对比研究

论文总字数：28142字

摘 要

电影作为一种文化交流的重要方式，在不同文化的交流传播中起着十分重要的作用。自中国改革开放以来，大量好莱坞电影被引入中国电影市场，并吸引了大量观众。但是只有少部分观众具备英语听说能力，因此电影字幕翻译在外语电影中扮演了至关重要的角色。然而，作为一种不同寻常的翻译形式，电影字幕翻译给广大译者带来了巨大挑战。传统的全译模式不再能满足观众的需求，于是变译理论开始进入公众视野。随着变译理论在电影字幕中的应用带来了显著效果，作者在本文中以《复仇者联盟》系列电影为例，从变译理论视角出发，将本系列的电影官方字幕与网络字幕翻译作了对比研究。

关键词：变译；字幕翻译；官方翻译；网络翻译

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………5
2. Literature Review…………………………………………………………6

2.1 An overview on translation variation.........................................................6

2.2 A brief review on film subtitle translation .................................................7

3.Analysis on Two Versions of the Subtitle Translation of Avengers from the Perspective of Variation Theory ……………......................……………...9

3.1 A brief introduction to The Avengers..............................................9

3.2 Different audiences of official translation and online translation of Avengers .............................................................................10

3.3 The application of variation theory in the subtitle translation of The Avengers........................................................................................11

4.Conclusion………………………………………………………………..14

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...16

1. Introduction

With the improvement of people’s living standard, people’ requirements of entertainment also raised up, and watching movies is becoming the most common and favorable entertainment choice for modern people. Especially since amount of Hollywood movies have been imported to Chinese film market, a wild range of audience were attracted to them. Since only few audience are competent English speakers, Chinese subtitle is playing a vital role in foreign language movies now. However, as an uncommon translation form, subtitle translation brings translators a real big challenge. The traditional full translation can not satisfy the audience any more, thus, this paper introduces a new theory called translation variation theory.

Translation is widely known as one of the most dynamic activities of human spiritual civilization(Huang 46-48).Knowledge explosion is bringing about translation explosion, the new upsurge spreads in more areas, covers more information, includes more themes, applies more advanced devices, effects more people and evoke more dynamic theoretical researches compared with other three upsurges.

Some new translation theories have been found by Chinese scholars during this upsurge, and translation variation theory proposed by Huang Zhonglian is one of the most outstanding theories. This new and interesting translation theory help to fill in the gaps of Chinese as well as international translation theories and provide a good angle for conducting theoretical research and practice of translation in the new era.

The translation variation theory has been applied to different areas of translation, both literary and non-literary. According to the research on the internet, there are about 300 related articles and about 150 academic dissertations, covering different areas such as literary translation, scientific translation, even tourism translation, and screen translation.This discovery offers a new perspective for various translation researches. Over the last decades, a lot of great achievements have been made in both theoretical works and practical works. Mr.Huang, as a young pioneer among Chinese translation researchers, leads translation research to a new height.

The film subtitle translation in our country have probably started since the foundation of the state, the most flouring era and full of new ideas and chances. Over the last decades, China have imported and exported a large number of films and TV series, which played an important role in China’s inter-culture communication with the rest of the globe. Actually, the number of English films being released in China every year is continuously increasing, taking up a large share in the Chinese box office. According to the data published by SARFT(State Administration of Radio, Film and Television), the total box-office in China was RMB 21.769 billion in 2013 and about 9.002 billion came from imported films, accounting for a proportion of 41.35%. And after a careful study, the author checks the box office rank in China in 2013, and finds out that all of those most popular ones among imported films were English ones. Some of the imported films, such as Iron man 3, Pacific Rim Gravity, and Fast and Furious 7, even exceed RMB 400 million in box-office. All these figures add to the fact that English films have became a good option when Chinese audience wanted to watch movies in the cinema. Thus subtitle became more important for Chinese audience. However, not all the official translation can satisfy all the audience, and more and more audience chose the online version for its simon-pure.

For that reason, this thesis is trying to discover the features of the official subtitle translated by Liu Dayong and the online subtitle translated by Gu, and coming up with strategies for translating film subtitles based on translation variation theory. It is hoped that this research may enlighten the translators in the future, with a better understanding of the translation variation theory and greater competence to choose proper strategies for translating English subtitles into Chinese, in order to prepare a better environment for imported film audience, and devote to enhance the inter-cultural communication between China and English-speaking countries.

2. Literature Review

2.1 An overview on translation variation

Although translation variation only proposed by Huang Zhonglian, in 1998, the exploration on this theory is almost as old as translation itself. The Chinese translation variation appeared in the early translation of Buddhist scriptures, and developed in Tang Dynasty, the late Ming Dynasty, the early Qing Dynasty and around May Forth Movement in China(Li 94-98). Then full translation dominated the field of translation studies. However, in the latter half of 20^th century, with the rapid development of society and increasing information, translation variation return to public view. While in other countries, from ancient Greece translation activities to modern western communication of information between countries, all cannot do without the high-speed transmission, flexible application of translation variation theory. It has 12 different ways of variation, constructing the basic systematic framework of translation variation. After the publish of Translation Variation and Research Methods of Translation Variation (Huang 101-104), many scholars made a lot of objective comments and active discussion on this new theory. Scholars like Liu Zhongde and Zheng Hailing, they discussed the theory from different perspective, which provide the basis for the further study of translation variation.

2.2 A brief review on film subtitle translation

Subtitle translation, generally known as caption, which means the translation of TV, film lines, or video dialogues. Obviously, film subtitle translation means the translation of film lines or dialogues. While some other scholars have another explanation, Shutdewoth and Cowie thought subtitling is a process offers synchronized captions to film dialogue in Dictionary of Translation Studies(Shuttleworth and Cowie 45), and Baker claimed that subtitling usually includes characters’ performance(Baker 78). In terms of film subtitle translation, foreign research entered the golden age in the 1990s, and emerged a large number of works and theoretical research. In contrast, the research in our country was late along with controversy and still in the initial stage of the study, but under the influence of the foreign research, it is now showing a vigorous development momentum.

The history of western research on film translation can be traced back to 60’s of last century. Those film translation researches began from west, and the leading scholars of this job are mainly still western ones, especially European ones. In western countries, they have formed a well-organized system to study this project. The article Traduction et Cinéma in Le linguiste published in 1956 and the Cinéma et Tracduction of the special edition in the magazine Babel published in 1960 could be the earliest theoretical research on film translation. In 1974, Dollerup published his article On Subtitle in Television Programmes and for the first time the subtitle translation has been studied. Then, in 1982, Christopher Titford published Subtitling Constrained Translation, in this article, he introduced “restrained translation”(Titford 39), and this left great impact on future research about film subtitling translation. In 1990s, the subtitle translation golden age has began, and film subtitle translation had a breakthrough development at that time. The following year, in 1991, Luyke and four other European film subtitle translation experts jointly published the book Overcoming Language Barriers in Television:Dubbing and Subtitling for the European Audience. After 1995, western subtitle translation studies have entered the era of rapid development.Eugene A.Nida is a famous international linguist. According to research, Eugene has publish more than 40 academic monographs and more than 250 research articles. And the most influential ones were the Toward a Science of Translating as well as The Theory and Practice of Translation.

Overall, in the last two decades, western researchers have been the leaders of subtitle translation, and their researches helped a lot in real situation. Speaking of their research fields,most researches were focused on practical application, psychological analysis and descriptive experiment.

Compared with western countries, the subtitle translation research in our country was late and controversial. Not only the lack of researchers, but also the published articles were limited. When the first film was imported, not so much significance was attached to subtitle translation. It didn’t get too much attention until TV and Internet got widely used.As Qian Shaochang said,that film translation played a great role in society,but the number of its related courses and articles is way too small(Qian 61-65). Although there also outstanding scholars who did really great job in this area, the number of written works is still much less than that in the west. The good news is that more and more attention is paid to subtitle translation and it really has a great future.

Since Nida’s translation theory was introduced to our country(Nida 256), the translation circle was refreshing, set off a climax of Nida’s study and research. Many researchers like Tan Zaixi reviewed his article Translation Science Inquiry, and published the article Nida’s Theory of The Nature of Translation to introduce Nida’s elaboration about ‘Lexical Coupling’.Since 1990s,Chinese translation theorist have compared Nida’s theory with Newmark’s theory. Some of them began to criticize Nida’s theory. They thought Nida’s translation theory as too idealist and criticized the ‘equivalent reaction’ idea which western linguistic proposed.Another professor Li Yunxing, director of Translation Study Institute, has been researching subtitle translation for a long time. He analyzed the features of subtitling from the perspective of time-space constrains, informative function and cultural factors, and he proposed corresponding translation strategies(Li 31-34).Since 2001,Chinese scholars have entered the stage of reflection.They confirmed the introduction of Nida’s theoretical terms and started to do more research on translation theory.

Though different Chinese researchers hold their own views towards subtitle translation, the past researches can be classified into two groups. The first one pays more attention to summarizing specific translation strategies based on practice, while the other one chooses to discuss current situation in film subtitle translation. Basically, Chinese scholars have been researching on subtitle translation from different perspective. However, there is no systematic framework for subtitle translation in China yet.

In general, whether in theory or in practical, our country is still backward compared with the western countries. Our film translation still lacking theoretical guidance and the academic status of film translation needs to be improved.

1. Analysis on Two Versions of the Subtitle Translation of Avengers from the Perspective of Variation Theory

3.1 A brief introduction of The Avengers

Battle-hardened super heroes were gathered by the commander of S.H.E.L.D, and the Avenger was founded to save the world. Captain American, Thor, Hulk, Black Widow, Iron man, Hawk Eye, each showed his special powers, kept unite and finally destroyed the evil and saved the world over and over again. It’s a traditional superhero movie series and attracted a lot of audience. It was famous for its’ wonderful special effects and beautiful talented actors or actress. The film was adapted by a cartoon called Marvel’s The Avengers, the cartoon also was the American’s childhood memories, so they were very excited about this adapted movie. Though not so many Chinese audience had the same childhood memories as American audience had, they also attracted to this fantastic movie series. Because this movie series not only meets the needs of the public in the plot, but also filled with comedy elements. The wild use of slangs, puns and colloquial languages in this movie must be a real big challenge to the translator.

3.2 Different target readers of official translation and online translation of Avengers

3.2 .1 Introduction to Liu Dayong and Gu

Liu Dayong was an Master Degree Candidate graduated from the University of Essex, whose major were Department of Language and Linguistic as well as Language Testing and Programme Evaluation. He once received training of the system of the English language knowledge, language skills, English teaching theory and practice in Colchester language training centre and the University of Nottingham. He also received education leadership training at Boston campus of the university of Massachusetts. Liu’s representative work is English Olympics and he also got some achievements on subtitle translation.

While Gu is a free translator on the Internet, a huge fan of late night talk shows. For loving those shows, he started to translate them into Chinese and put them online for free. After few years, he was famous for his humorous style of translation and his great job in localizing oral English. He was known as ‘the God of slang translation’.

In terms of translation style, Liu Dayong chooses more faithful method to original text, but sometimes too rigid and improperly, while the online translation of The Avengers is flexible for its unconventional translation with catchwords and free adaptation.

3.2.2 Target audiences for Avengers Chinese subtitles

The target audiences for Avengers in China are mainly people of a young age, who are interested in Si-Fi and want to enjoy a good laugh. As a young generation, they live in a world full of new things and are exposed to lots of catchwords and online languages. So they tend to be more friendly and tolerant to the use of colloquial phrases.

However, most of them only have elementary English skills. Their understanding of the film mostly relies on the subtitles. Like any moviegoer, they would like to get the key information from the film in the most effective way. So they expect to read as few words as possible. Meanwhile, compared with other types of text, subtitle has three main features. First, it keeps fleeting without going back expect when you buy your own DVD version of a film or watch it online. You Can always flip back to the last page when reading a novel, but when you see a newly-released film in the cinema, the subtitles just flash away so fast that you have no time to really digest one line before another one appears. So the audience has only one chance to understand each sentence. Moreover, most of them are not familiar with American culture, especially American culture of 40 years ago, when most of the story happened. When they watch the film, they try to get the meaning of the lines, and the intention of every scene. Then if possible, they want to get the jokes and cultural elements implied in the original script.

3.3 The application of variation theory in the subtitle translation of The Avengers

3.3.1 Adding

Adding means adding information, that is, dding something needed to help the audience better understanding the film.The translator should not only be concise in the translation, but also need to keep the translation be confirmed to the film style and in line with the character by adopting Chinese language of different styles. The essence of translation variation theory is to translate films that meet the reader’s cultural and pragmatic needs. A conclusion had been made that the translator should reveal to the Chinese audience the figure of speech and cultural elements implied in the original lines. Subtitle better contain as few words as possible, although adding annotation below the subtitle may make people easier to understand the cultural concepts, and puns, or other figures of speech, there better not be annotation in subtitles. But adding a few words can bring amazing effects. Sometimes adding can also achieve comical effect. There is another kind of adding, which is adding some words or phrases full of cultural elements that only the target language has into the translation to make the conversation more natural. So there are overall three types of adding. The first one is adding words or phrases to complete the meaning and Chinese expression; the second one is adding features of characters or emotions and effects the characters try to achieve by the way of adopting a certain type of language; the third one is adding cultural elements of the target language. However, despite the fact that adding may make the subtitle of target language much easier to accept to the target language audiences, the translator should try to ensure that the translation never out of length.

Example 1:

-You didn’t see that coming?

Liu Dayong:你没看到它过来吗？

Gu：你没料到这招吧？/你没想到吧。

Analysis: “see that coming” means one can predict something happen, the letter “that” didn’t refer in particular to something. According to the movie, at that time, Quick Silver was trying to save Hawk Eye and a child, and he was injured. At the beginning of the movie, Quick Silver was shaped as a boy full of hatred, and too childish. But then he became a brave young man when he against the evil side. On the one hand, he said this line to Hawk Eye when he saved him and got hurt. He said that with a trace of pride and humor, like he wanted to be praised. On the other hand, Quick Silver’s superpower is ultra fast moving, so it was basically a pun when he said that. For that reason, we need to add this information when translating it into Chinese. So here basically means “你没料到这招吧”. Liu"s version(你没看到它过来吗) just reflected the second meaning that Quick Silver was so fast that Hawk Eye didn’t notice he was there to save him.

Example 2:

-Well, you know the suit can take the weight, right?

Liu Dayong:装甲很重

Gu：装甲让我力拔千斤

Analysis：“take the weight” here means the iron suit makes him powerful. We all know that translation not only should be concise, but also need to be confirmed to the film style and in line with the character. Iron Man is a super talented man who is specific in machine. Science and technology are his weapon, so he invented the super machine——Mark Series Suit,which can make him fly to the sky and help him destroy bad guys. The meaning here should be interpreted as powerful instead of weighing too much.

3.3.2 Deleting amp; condensing

“Deleting amp; condensing” means cutting down unnecessary information from the original text. Sometimes, the translator can even combine two or more lines into one. The translator should make translation meet the reader’s needs. When original text is too redundant, translators can pick the key elements from the text and translate them in a simple way, as long as it provide all the information that audience need. So basically, the translator has to “give up’’ what the reader doesn’t need and balance his supply and the reader’s demand. With this approach, information is passed to the audience in the most efficient way.

Example 3:

-I’m home.

剩余内容已隐藏，请支付后下载全文，论文总字数：28142字