论文总字数：49536字

摘 要

在全球化的大环境下，各国不仅重视本国经济发展，更把眼光放向世界，将文化输出作为一项十分重要的工作。中国电影作为一个将人文历史地理集一体的文化载体，更是世界了解我国文化的一个重要窗口。而如今，翻译界对影视翻译的重视程度远不及文学翻译。目前，国内有关中国电影英译研究的数量尽管不少，但在研究角度和研究对象仍有局限。

本研究将通过对在2015年引起全球关注的电影《聂隐娘》文言文英译字幕的初步分析，立足于翻译适应选择论，结合字幕翻译的特点和策略，总结归纳出该影片字幕翻译的技巧。

本文作者认为，译者需要在适应翻译生态环境的前提下，从语言维、文化维、交际维三个层面对原文进行分析，做出合适的翻译策略选择，达到最佳翻译效果。电影《聂隐娘》的译者托尼·雷恩正是从三个维度进行了翻译适应性选择：语言维度的选择包括词汇和句子两方面。词汇层面包括了词汇代替句子、短语代替句子；句子层面包括了意译、主动被动语态相互转换、删译、拆句。文化维度的选择包括了替代、概括、直译、意译和压缩。交际维度的选择包括了意译、反正译、归化、删译等。

希望通过本研究引起翻译工作者和学习者对影视字幕翻译的重视，在适应翻译大环境的前提下，做出正确的翻译技巧选择。

关键词： 字幕翻译、翻译适应选择论、《聂隐娘》

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements i

English Abstract ii

Chinese Abstract iii

Table of Contents iv

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the Study 1

1.2 Significance of the Study 1

1.3 Layout of the Thesis 2

Chapter Two Literature Review 3

2.1 Movie: The Assassin 3

2.1.1 The Introduction of the Movie: The Assassin 3

2.1.2 The Textual Features of the Movie: The Assassin 4

2.2 Translation of the Movie Subtitles 5

2.2.1 Translation Features of the Movie Subtitles 5

2.2.2 Translation Strategies of the Movie Subtitles 6

Chapter Three Translation Methods of The Assassin 9

3.1 Adaptation and Selection in the Translation Process 9

3.2 Translation from Linguistic Dimension 10

3.3 Translation from Cultural Dimension 15

3.4 Translation from Communicative Dimension 21

Chapter Four Conclusion 26

References 27

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background of the Study

With the rapid development of globalization, cultures of all countries come to mix together. Since the reform and opening up thirty years ago, Chinese movie producers are paying much more attention to the international market, which has become a significant channel to spread Chinese culture to the whole world. Of all the Chinese movies, ancient costume movies gain the most popularity among foreign audience for their exquisite pictures as well as oriental verve. As one of the keys to the success of Chinese movies in the global market, the Chinese-English translation carries a heavy responsibility, and therefore, is of great importance. A few months ago, a movie named The Assassin was awarded for its best direction at the Cannes Film Festival in France, causing repercussion both at home and abroad. The movie The Assassin is adapted from one story The Assassin of a collection of short stories named The Legend by Pei Xing of the Tang Dynasty. In order to protect and reserve the spiritual value of the original work, the scriptwriter used the classical Chinese dialogue as the movie subtitles. Tony Rayns was responsible for the Chinese-English translation, who is a famed movie critic, film festival organizer in England and is identified as the godfather or bole (talent scout in Chinese) of Asian movies for his efforts to introduce Chinese and Asian movies to the West. At the moment when we research how to help more westerners know more about Chinese culture, Tony Rayns’ successful translation deserves our research.

1.2 Significance of the Study

Chinese movies, especially Chinese ancient costume movies are not only the symbol of the Chinese nationality, but also the important channel for foreigners to know about Chinese culture. The quality of translation of movie subtitles becomes one of the vital factors deciding the development of Chinese movies in the international market. Limited by both space and time, the translation of movie subtitles differs from that of others. Approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection(TAS) is applied by the writer of this thesis, as it is a creative environmental translation method, and it can provide guidance for translation practice in Chinese movies in the future. Besides, by elaborating the importance of the translator, the writer of this thesis intends to draw more attention from readers and relative cultural industry departments onto movie subtitle translators and to encourage more people to devote to the cause of movie subtitling, thus Chinese movies could get more fondness from foreign audience.

1.3 Layout of the Thesis

This thesis will be divided into four parts:

The first chapter is an introduction which is about the background of the study, the significance of the study and the layout of the thesis.

The second chapter is literature review. It can be divided into two sections. The first section is about the movie The Assassin, including the brief introduction and the textual features. The second section will discuss the translation of movie subtitles, including the translation features and the translation strategies.

The third chapter is the translation methods of The Assassin, the writer of this thesis has generated and classified from the case study. Firstly, the theory Translation as Adaptation and Selection will be briefly introduced. Then, it will explore how adaptation and selection is used in the translation of The Assassin from three different dimensions: linguistic dimension, cultural dimension and communicative dimension.

The last chapter is the conclusion based on the previous research and discussions.

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Movie: The Assassin

2.1.1 The Introduction of the Movie: The Assassin

It is the first time for Hou Xiaoxian to direct an ancient costume film. Hou Xiaoxian is famous for the historical panoramas like Flowers of Shanghai, emotional appeals like Coffee Jiko. When it comes to the ancient costume style, many people are worried that whether he could achieve the same success. Finally, a Tang poetry-like movie was produced and it has attracted all the audience’s attention. Audience are amazed at not only the story, but also the beautiful scenes by the use of long lens and the action combination which makes them feel immersive.

Another key to the success of this film is creativity. The original story The Assassin is regarded as one of the popular Tang legends. It was common for candidates for the imperial examinations to contribute works of legend to the officials to show their own talent and to express their personal ideas in the Tang Dynasty. Characters in these legends have super power and are capable of using sorceries to do things beyond common people's ability.

In this story, a girl named Yinniang is taken away by a nun when she is a little child. After 13 years' training by the nun, she is asked to kill her cousin Tian Ji'an, the ruler of Weibo so that the Yuan family can take over control of Weibo. Later, Yinniang discovers Yuan's evil plan to kill her father Nie Feng. She saves him from the killers and takes him to a village to recuperate where she meets her later husband, the boy polishing mirror. Meanwhile, she saves Tian's favorite concubine Huji from black magic conducted by Jiangnu, who supports the Yuan family. Finally, the assassin realizes that killing can not gain and protect peace and finally she gives up killing Tian. At the end, she goes back to Xinro with the man polishing mirror. Apparently, it is a very touching story of the ancient China with a complex plot and intensive cultural background. It is imaginable how hard it is for Hou to transform it into a movie.

2.1.2 The Textual Features of the Movie: The Assassin

The writer of the thesis has noticed that the scriptwriters have kept most of the plots in the original work and recreated some of the plots after extracting some images. But generally speaking, the features of the dialogues have been reserved, which can be seen from many details in the movie.

Classical Chinese was the official language in ancient China. It mainly consists of monosyllables and conveys much information with few words. Though the classical Chinese sentences are mostly short, it is hard for common people to understand unless they have received some training. That is why classical Chinese has been gradually reformed since the New Culture Movement in 1919 in China. At the lexical level, it may use interchangeable characters, words with different meanings in ancient and modern times, words with flexible parts of speech and so on. And at the syntactic level, it has different sentence structures like declarative sentences, sentences with post-positioned adverbials, attributes and so on.

The characters’ dialogues in the movie of The Assassin are mostly in classical Chinese with the result that it carries a style of poetization. “为我刺其首，无使知觉，如刺飞鸟般容易” with the English version of “cut him down for me, expertly. As if he were a bird in flight.” is an example directly extracted from the original work. Sentences like it add classic beauty to the movie, exploring the audience to have a unique view experience.

Finally, this movie is intended to create an atmosphere of grief by creating images like the dancing blue bird. It sets the tone of loneliness throughout the movie. Besides, many images in this movie are endowed Taoism, including the life pursuit and dreams.

Apparently, all these aspects have greatly increased its degree of challenging to the translators.

2.2 Translation of the Movie Subtitles

Doubtlessly, it is the subtitle that enables film and television works to reach the audience and to convey the maximum amount of information in a short period of time when the audience appreciate the original programmes. C-E subtitling is different from other forms of translation as it is controlled by many factors. As is pointed out in the Film Arts Dictionary, methods of translating foreign films and TVs can be classified into two: explanation and subtitling. Thus, subtitle translation is of vital importance.

From the perspective of linguistics, subtitle translation can be divided into intralingual subtitling and interlingual subtitling. Intralingual subtitling is to transform audio materials into texts. Interlingual subtitling is to transform one language into another and to attach the subtitles to the scene, which is sometimes called diagonal subtitling translation. (Gottlir H, 1994)

2.2.1 Translation Features of the Movie Subtitles

So far, there has been an increasing number of scholars who show some interest in exploring the unique features of subtitle translation. Chen Qing and Zhao Hui are the representatives. Chen Qing (2006) put that the dialogues between characters are colloquial, which requires the target language to be concise, coherent and easy. Meanwhile, the linguistic style of the target context should remain consistent with that of the original context to the greatest extent.

Zhao Hui summarized five features of subtitle translation: spoken language, mouth shape, characteristic, emotion and the public. According to her, the translation of colloquial words and expressions needs to be within an inch of daily life, close to target language, culture and habits. These five points should be taken into consideration in the translation practice.

2.2.2 Translation Strategies of the Movie Subtitles

In terms of translation strategies, Chen Qing (2006) proposed two principles: one is to focus on language art, another is to deliver accurate cultural information. Xia Yanzeng once said that, apart from literature, music, dance, drama, painting and sculpture, movie is the seventh art. Movie is the most popular form of art from the aspect of audience. Movie audiences are from all social classes. Movie is accessible to not only upper-class people, but also those who are lower-class and even uneducated. The translation of subtitles should guarantee the accessibility for all the audiences from different levels to enjoy movie art. Three strategies can be applied in order to protect and reserve the accurate cultural information: cultural compensation, cultural transplantation and cultural mediation. Chen Qing suggested to place domestication first, foreignization second. On one hand, foreignization is often applied for reserving and transplanting the foreign characteristics by creating fresh elements. On the other hand, domestication may help the target audience feel comfortable.

Du Jianwei and Tang Haidong (2014) summarized three popular strategies based on the influence of cultural elements on translation: domestication, foreignization and adaptation theory.

Domestication advocates that target language or target language readers and audience are the starting point of translation. That is to say, translators need to get the audiences involved into the translation process by making the source language to be within the cognitive domain of audience. When they are reading the translated version, they would have the similar experience of reading in their mother tongue. "Readers should be put in the first place", argued Nida, a representative translator for domestication. Since the final purpose of translation is communication, it is unrealistic and dangerous to force one culture to another.

On the contrary, foreignization lays emphasis on the importance of source language and creator. Instead, it keeps the uniqueness of the source language and culture, guiding the audience to the creator. Lawrence Venuti, one of the representatives, introduced the idea of anti-translation. Supporters for foreignization think that translation is the transformation of lansign as well as culture communication. As a result, keeping the original expressions is to respect the creator.

Jef Verschueren puts forward adaptation theory in his Pragmatics as a Theory of Linguistic Adaptation. In his opinion, the language use process is a process of selection and adaptation. Language has three features: variability, negotiability and adaptability. Hence, language users have to use pragmatic principles and strategies during language use process.

Zhao Hui also mentioned several common strategies used widely during translation practice, like addition and condensation, expansion, generalization and deletion.

Addition and condensation: addition usually appears in English to Chinese translation, condensation in Chinese to English translation, as a result of the differences between English and Chinese sentence structures.

Expansion: due to the differences in culture, history and other aspects, there must exist some of the words or expressions with specified cultural information unfamiliar to target audiences. In this case, literal translation makes little sense to target audiences because they cannot understand the internal meanings of the words or expressions at all. Therefore, with the help of expansion, in other words, the attached explanation to the expression, it is easier to convey cultural information.

Substitution: it works better to replace the unfamiliar expressions with expressions familiar to audiences when the expressions in source language are beyond audiences' cognitive domain.

Deletion: in order to highlight the most important information in the original contexts, it is also advisable for translators to delete some of the words and sentences which influence the whole context in some cases.

Chapter Three Translation Methods of The Assassin

It is true that many translation strategies are applicable in the translation process. But, in the case of the The Assassin, which has its unique language style and intense cultural background information, the writer of the thesis proposes that the following translation methods hold the priority.

3.1 Adaptation and Selection in the Translation Process

One must make decisions or choices if he or she does translations. As Peter Newmark said, “Translation theory is concerned with choices and decisions, not with the mechanics of either the source language text...or the target language.” Culture is the result of the human being’s communicative activities during a long history, which makes language and helps it to develop. So, when the translator translates the movie The Assassin with a history of over one thousand years, he must involve himself into the translational environment, as Professor Hu Gengshen mentioned in the theory Adaptation and Selection based on Darwin's theory of evolution.

As Gregory Rabassa said in No Two Snowflakes Are Alike: Translation as Metaphor, " Translation is a process of making choices. And translation strategies depend on the translator's instinct. According to professor Hu, during the process of translating, the translator must both adapt and select. Adaptation to the translational eco-environment and selection of three-dimensional transformations are the key points of Approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection.

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