论文总字数：27419字

摘 要

作为一种新型的翻译研究，生态翻译学着眼于翻译生态系统的整体性, 从生态翻译学的研究视角,对翻译的本质、过程、标准、原则和方法等做出新的描述和解释。电影作为独特表现表现手段的艺术形式，已经成为最受欢迎的大众艺术之一，甚至被奉为继文学、音乐、舞蹈、戏剧、绘画、雕塑之后的第七艺术。电影字幕翻译迎合了当今文化交流和文化融合的趋势，极大地便利了不同文化背景的观众。鉴于字幕翻译的功能日益突出，译者应该相应地提高翻译水平，很好地把握电影中的文化背景，并在此基础上精确地进行翻译。本课题从生态翻译学视角，通过从语言维、文化维、交际维三个层面剖析了影片《当幸福来敲门》的语域翻译，探究了原文系统是在译文系统中的移植和再现。

关键词：生态翻译学；《当幸福来敲门》；语域翻译

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………1
2. Literature Review………………………………………………………2

2.1 About Register…………………………………………………...2

2.2 A Brief Overview on Eco-translatology………………………………....4

1. Register Translation of the Film The Pursuit of Happyness from the Perspective of Eco-translatology …………… ………………………...…...5

3.1 The Register Translation from Linguistic Dimension……………………5

3.2 The Register Translation from Cultural Dimension……………………...7

3.3 The Register Translation from Communicative Dimension……………9

4. Conclusion………………………………………………………………..11

Works Cited………………………………………………………………..12

1. Introduction

Nowadays, as mankind marches into the new millennium, cultural globalization, diversification and popularization have become an overwhelming trend as a distinct characteristic of the age. Movie industry, as one of the most acceptable cultural industries, has been an indispensable part in people’s daily lives. As a result, film subtitle translation has raised considerable concern, for it is a key point for people of different cultural backgrounds to understand the meaning conveyed by the foreign films. Unfortunately, owing to the existence of cultural gaps, mistranslation of film subtitles may often occur when translators ignore the cultural background or misunderstand the real meaning of the film.

The newly-put-forward theory of eco-translatology can be applied into the field of film subtitle translation so as to boost its development. Eco-translatology is a new model for translation studies mainly proposed by Chinese scholars like professor Hu Gengshen, who attempt to describe and analyze translation from an ecological perspective, taking the assumption as its conceptual foundation that translation could best be understood in terms of a harmonious eco-system. Professor Hu considers that to integrate and develop translation studies from the view of ecology will not only enrich the theory of translation studies, but also make it step into a new stage. People can get rid of the traditionally single translation studies and march into a more effective and accurate translation system. Although eco-translatology is still in the initial stage of its development, this multidisciplinary approach reflects the trend towards theoretical diversification in translation studies and may mark a new point of departure for the discipline as a whole. Currently, eco-translatology is devoted to taking relevant research from the perspective of linguistics to explore the general and integrated way of translation studies and then constitutes an organic whole of translation ecosystem. As an organic component of eco-translatology, register has been studied in the field of translation research, which can provide us with a specification on describing some super-language factors like context and subjective intention to help us realize “the transformation of meaning” successfully.

The Pursuit of Happyness is an American biographical drama film directed by Gabriele Muccino and released on December 15, 2006 by Columbia Pictures. The film is based on the true story of Chris Gardner. The screenplay by Steven Conrad is based on the eponymous best-selling memoir written by Gardner with Quincy Troupe. For performance Smith received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and a Golden Globe nomination. It is an inspirational film which tells how the smart salesman and family man Chris Gardner encountered challenges and finally succeed. The wonderful plot as well as vivid languages rich in philosophy has made the film very popular around the world. Its subtitle translators have also made great contribution to the popularity of the film, who take into consideration many factors, such as plot, culture, communication, audience and so on and its register translation make the film more accurate and vivid for Chinese audience.

So far, there have appeared quite a few academic papers on the subtitle or the register translation of the film The Pursuit of Happyness, but few scholars have tried to analyze from the perspective of eco-translatology. As an attempt, this essay will launch an initial study on this film’s register translation from the eco-translatological perspective.

2. Literature Review

2.1 About Register

The term register was used for the first time by Reid in 1956 when Reid studied language phenomena. Such term was used to describe language variables. In 1994, the British linguist Halliday put forward the term “register” in his Linguistic Science and Language Teaching, considering that “language varies as its function varies; it differs in different situations. The type of language which is selected as appropriate to the type of situation is a register.” (Halliday,1964: 65) He distinguishes three variables that will determine the register, including field of discourse, tenor of discourse and mode of discourse. Field concerns what’s going on--the social processes and the domains of subject matter created by language in the realization of these social processes. Tenor concerns who’s taking part--the social roles and relations of those taking part in the interaction and the speech roles and relations created by language in the realization of these social roles and relations. Mode concerns what role language is playing in the context--its distance to those involved according to medium (spoken, written and various more complex categories) and channel (face to face, telephonic, etc.), is complementarily with other social processes (from ancillary to constitutive), and its rhetorical contribution (didactic, instructive, persuasive, and so on). Field tends to be realized by ideational meanings, tenor by interpersonal meanings, and mode by textual meanings. (Halliday, 2009:88)

Based on the register theory proposed by Halliday, Martin further developed his studies. According to Martin, Field is the contextual projection of experiential meaning and so alongside ideation puts at risk the clause rank systems transitivity, circumstantiation and agency, as well as systems generating numerative, epithet, classifier, thing and qualifier in nominal group structure and various other group/phrase systems, all of which need to be interpreted as embracing lexis as delicate grammar. (Martin, 1992:537）Tenor refers to the negotiation of social relationships among participants. Within register, it is the projection of interpersonal meaning, and so is realized primarily through the interpersonal meta-function in language. Tenor thus puts major phonological and lexicogrammatical systems such as tone, mood, key, polarity and various attitudinal systems across ranks and permeating lexis at risk, as well as the system of negotiation at the level of discourse semantics (Martin,1992:523). Mode refers to the role language is playing in realizing social action. Within register, it is the projection of textual meaning, and so is realized primarily through the textual meta-function in language. Mode thus puts major systems such as tonality and tonicity in phonology, and theme and information, deixis, tense and substitution and ellipsis in the grammar at risk, and because of their textual orientation impacts on all systems at the level of discourse semantics. (Martin, 1992:508)

The study of field, tenor and mode above indicates that these three factors are closely related and each can reflect the context. In view of their significant roles in the context, it is advisable for translators to take register into consideration while translating film subtitles so as to make translation correctly and fluently.

2.2 A Brief Overview on Eco-translatology

With the ecological wave of “return to nature”, many people go in for ecological food, environment-friendly houses, environmentalist travel and so on. Many translators are also trying to combine translation studies with ecology in an effort to turn cultural attention back to the wider living environment and words like “ecology” “environment” “adaptability” have been occurring frequently in the translation studies. Eco-translatology tries to explore the mutual relationship, basic features and fundamental law of translators’ adaptation and selection and make a new explanation for the nature, process, standard, principle and method of translation from the perspective of “adaptation” and “selection”.

Eco-translatology is mainly proposed by Professor Hu Gengshen in one of his articles Translation as Adaptation and Selection in 2004. Based on the principles of “natural selection”, “survival of the fittest” as well as the classic Chinese thought like “the union of nature and man” and “modest and still”, he raised the theory of translation as adaptation and selection. Within the theoretical framework of translation as adaptation and selection, the process of translating is a production of target texts by “natural selection” through the translator’s adaptation to the eco-environment and the translator’s selection of both the degree of the adaptation and decisions about the form of the final target text in terms of the Darwinian principle of natural selection. According to “approach to translation as adaptation and selection”, best translations are those with the highest degree of holistic adaptation and selection. Professor Hu holds that “degree of holistic adaptation and selection” means the combination of the degree of multi-dimensional transformation and the degree of adaptation selection of other translational eco-environment. As a result, translators may take the translation strategy of three dimensional transformations into consideration, which comprise the linguistic, cultural and communicative dimensions.

At present, many scholars have applied these translation theories into different fields, such as literary translation studies, business translation studies and film translation studies so as to enrich the eco-tranlatology theories and try to transplant the original language system in the target language system. Since eco-translatology is still in its development stage, its connection with other fields is still very limited. This thesis attempts to analyze the register translation of the film The Pursuit of Happyness from the perspective of eco-translatology so as to do some contribution to the study of eco-translatology.

3. Register Translation of the Film The Pursuit of Happyness from the Perspective of Eco-translatology

The inspirational movie The Pursuit of Happyness has won its popularity around the world. In this part, the thesis will focus on its register translation of the film from eco-translatology to see how the original language system is transplanted in the target language system from three-dimensions, namely, language dimension, cultural dimension and communicative dimension.

From the perspective of functional linguistics, the linguistic dimension is concerned with the expression of text language, the cultural dimension is concerned with the expression of contextual effect and the communicative dimension focuses on the interpersonal intentions. These three dimensions are connected with the three variables in register, including field, tenor and mode to some degree.

3.1 The Register Translation from Linguistic Dimension

Since people in different nations have their diverse cultural background, thinking habits and reasoning modes, their literary works are not easy to be understood without appropriate translation. As a kind of literary translation, film subtitle translation should also make relevant adjustment so as to make audiences of different cultural backgrounds understand the film plot better, so linguistic dimension should be considered first in translation. Adaptive selection and transformation from the linguistic dimension refers to the adaptive selection and transformation for the language form during the translation. Since English belongs to the Indo-European family while Chinese belongs to the Sino-Tibetan family, the language vacancy between them exists in lexical, grammatical and semantic aspects. Therefore, translators must adapt themselves to the translational eco-environment of two different languages before doing translation. That is to say, translators should be very familiar with the audiences’ habits of language expressions including the grammar and semantic factors like pronunciation, intonation, words and phrases, sentence pattern, sentence group and structure, and various styles, structure, logic, rhetoric skills of language and ways of expression. (Wang Zuoliang, 2010:153)

For example, in the film The Pursuit of Happyness, the writer used the word “happyness” to substitute for “happiness” to reflect the theme. The “Y” and “I” here is a pun, which tells that there is no “y” (why) in happiness, but “i”, and people should rely on themselves to confront obstacles rather than just complain. Before translating the subtitle, the translator should thoroughly understand its implication and use related words to reflect the contextual effect. In the film, the translator skillfully translated the word “happiness” into the word “幸福”, and “happyness” into “辛苦” to realize the conversion of meaning.

Chris: Oh, excuse me...when is somebody gonna clean this off?

Worker: I can’t speak English.

Chris: And the Y? The Y. We talked about this. It"s an I in "happiness. "There"s no Y in "happiness." It"s an l.

克里斯：对不起…呃…什么时候会找人清洗一下？

清洁工：我不会说英文。

克里斯：我提过的，幸福的“幸”写错了, 这里写成了辛苦的“辛”。

Simultaneously, the field of discourse has also been considered while translating this dialogue. Field of discourse signifies the ongoing social activity carried on by the text, i.e. the subject matter of the discourse. It tells what is going on, the nature and characteristics of social activity and the objects which are described or mentioned by language. The theme of this dialogue is the distinction between the word “happiness” and “happyness”. If the translator failed to recognize the implied meaning and the field of the original text, he would feel confused and just regard it as the spelling mistake without any extended meaning, and it would be impossible for him to find the appropriate equivalent in the target language. In this film, the translator has tactfully made use of the principle of the field equivalence and translated the word “happyness” into “辛苦” to unfold the subject matter of the discourse.

The following example is also verifiable:

Linda: Come back without that, please.

Chris: Oh, yeah. I’m going to. So, go ahead, say goodbye to it, because I’m coming back without it.

Linda: Goodbye and good riddance.

琳达：那玩意儿卖了再回来。

克里斯：奥，我正有此意。快点和它道个别，回来可就看不到它了。

琳达：再见，“可喜的摆脱”。

This is a dialogue between Chris and his wife, Linda. Since the instruments that Chris promoted were not salable, his wife felt depressed and urged Chris to sell them as quickly as possible. It is manifest that the dialogue centers on the instruments, which is the field of discourse. Accordingly, it is advisable for the translator to center on this field, translating “Come back without that” into “那玩意儿卖了再回来”. And from the perspective of the linguistic dimension, if the translator translated the word “that” directly, Linda’s disgust for the instruments would not be reflected. The words “那玩意儿” and “可喜的摆脱” succeed in expressing the speaker’s attitude and standpoint.

3.2 The Register Translation from Cultural Dimension

Adaptive selection and transformation from the cultural dimension means that translators should have the cultural consciousness in translation and should understand that in cross-cultural communication, the biggest obstacle is not the language itself, but the unique culture which the language depends. They should try to overcome the obstacle caused by cultural differences between Chinese and English. Translators should be aware of the cultural gap between nations and figure out the meaning of information provided by the source text, and then convey the meaning to the target language. In short, “translator should be a man of culture in its real sense” (Wang Zuoliang,1989:18) and spare no effort to convey the cultural connotations.

Film industry, as an effective means of spreading contemporary cultures, has close-knit connection with the culture pattern. It is a vehicle for mutual understanding around the world and it has become a powerful tool for reaching cultural diffusion by carrying abundant cultural information and shouldering a great cultural responsibility. Therefore, translators ought to be adapted to the cultural dimension of the source text and embody the appropriate selection and transformation in the target text.

For example, when Chris Gardner was faced with the economic burden and had difficulty raising his family, his wife left him and he was depressed. He thought of the magnificent words of “the Declaration of Independence” written by Thomas Jefferson, which reads “we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

...and the part about our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

And I remember thinking: How did he know to put the "pursuit" part in there?

That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue.

And maybe we can actually never have it...

那一刻我想起了Thomas Jefferson，想起了“独立宣言”。想起了其中对生存权、自由权、以及追求幸福权利的描写。我一直在想，他是怎么知道要把“追求幸福”那部分放进去的？也许幸福只能去追求、但是却永远也追求不到，无论如何也追求不到的。

“The Declaration of Independence” is a unanimous declaration of the thirteen united states of America passed in the Second Continental Congress in the Independence Hall in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776. It was raised to oppose the feudal rank system and the absolute power of emperor and guarantee people’s liberty and happiness, including black Americans as well as slaves. However, black Americans are still difficult getting rid of the dilemma and live at the bottom of society, struggling for survive. So Chris Gardner couldn’t help sighing with such emotions when he looked at the head portrait engraved in the coin. If the translator failed to recognize the cultural background of the film and just translated it directly, it would be difficult for audience to understand the speaker’s intention. As a result, it may result in a failure to reckon with the cultural dimension in the meanings of words. By supplementing “我想起了Thomas Jefferson，想起了‘独立宣言’。”, the cultural dimension is transplanted and understood by Chinese audience.

Following example is also sufficient to support this idea:

I even asked the landlord to take a picture. So if i lost one, it was like losing a month"s groceries.

我甚至请房东给我们照了相，所以丢了一台仪器就意味着损失以一个月的伙食。

The word “grocery” here is slang for food. Since Chinese audiences are not familiar with American slang, the translator has taken the three-dimensional transformations into consideration and translated “grocery” into “伙食”，rather than “杂货铺” directly so as to convey the original meaning at cultural dimension.

3.3The Register Translation from Communicative Dimension

The adaptative selection and transformation from the communicative dimension means that the translator should pay close attention to the adaptative selection and transformation of bilingual communication purpose. Since film translation is a kind of functional text used for audience to master the plot as well as the theme of the film, translators must follow the principle of communication and use words that are in step with the personality, relationships and the different situations so as to make it possible for audiences to learn the communicative purpose from the translation. In terms of register, tenor is concerned with the communicative dimension. Tenor refers to that aspect of situations which involves particular role relationships between participants, both social and conventional. It is the interpersonal aspect of situation and is mainly reflected between interlocutors in formality, politeness and accessibility.

Gregory considered that tenor of discourse not only reflects the relationship between addresser and addressee, but also embodies the intention of the addresser.（Zhu Yongsheng, 1997:25）Accordingly, he divided tenor of discourse into two parts: personal tenor and functional tenor. Personal tenor expresses the various roles assumed by the participants and the degree of formality of their relationships. That is to say, people’s status and roles in the society determine the language style they use. The participant relations that determine the tenor of discourse range through varying degrees of performance. For example, in the film The Pursuit of Happyness, dialogues vary form the formal to the informal in accordance with participants’ relationships and their social status.

Christopher: I think I should make a list.

Chris: What do mean? For your birthday gifts?

Christopher: Yeah.

Chris: You know you"re only getting a couple of things, right?

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