2。 Brief survey to translation in Film’s subtitles

There are mainly two forms of film translation: dubbing and sub-titling。 Dubbing means that replacing the original speech in a film with words in another language。 According to Jacobson, “subtitle translation is the interpretation of 1anguage symbols by means of other kinds of language” (Jacobson, 1959：203)． In the Dictionary of Translation Studies Shuttleworth and Cowie define subtitles as “the process of providing synchronized captions for films and television dialogues(and more recently for 1ive opera)” ( Shuttleworth & Cowie, 1997：211)。 In a word, subtitle translation is to translate the source language into the target language。 It usually placed at the bottom of the screen, synchronizing with the development of films to provide audience with a better understanding and appreciation of films。

A questionnaire on the web site shows that at least 87 percent of people love watching subtitled films, while only 14 percent of people like dubbed films。 So the Trend to Film’s Subtitles Translation is inevitable, and it is necessary to do the research。 “Successful motion picture translating is increasingly vital to the cinema industry, for at least three fourth of the receipts from a foreign film depend upon its being adequately translated” (Nida: 1964:178)。 Thus, in the thesis, I will mainly discuss the subtitle translation。

2。1 Features of Film’s Subtitles Translation论文网

As a special kind of literary translation which is an integration of sounds and images, subtitle translation is different from other literary translation and it has its own characteristics。 Qian Shaochang points out that “Subtitle translation involves not only the 1inguistic elements of general 1iterary 1anguage but also has its own particularities: audibility, comprehensiveness, instantaneousness, popularity and no annotation ”  (Qian，2001:61)．

As far as I am concerned, there are four Characteristics of film subtitle translation。

Firstly, subtitle’s translation is mostly colloquialism-based。 Colloquialism means the film subtitle needs not only to be fluent in the words, but also close to our life。 It must be accordance in Chinese’s culture and our way of language。 It translated from the source text, but we can understand the meaning of the sentence immediately。。 

Secondly, the translation style must reflect the character of actors in the film。 In this feature, the translator needs to understand the actors very well, and put himself into the role。 Only in this way will the translation version of the film more close to the source text, and it can make the player’s character livelier。 

Thirdly, subtitle translation must have fine synchronicity。 In the film, subtitles must appear synchronous with pictures, sounds, and correspond with the actions of players。 Suppose that the film subtitle appears fast or slow, the audience will feel confused about the films and thus will not totally understand the film。 

The last characteristic is the limit of length in the film。 As the same reason of synchronicity, the subtitles must appear synchronous with pictures, sounds, and correspond to the acts of players, so the space and length of subtitle is limited。 The translator should finish the entire sentence in a limited space。 This is one important feature of film subtitle translation, but also one difficulty in film subtitle translation。

2。2 Functions of Film’s Subtitles Translation

The following functions of film subtitles are as follows。 First of all, film subtitle can help audience conquer linguistic barriers。 Due to different cultural backgrounds and different way of thinking, the meaning of foreign film can’t be totally accepted by Chinese audiences, we can solve this problem through film subtitle。 Secondly, through film subtitle translation, we can translate the indistinguishable sound track into recognizable visual words。 Some words have the same sound, so we can’t distinguish it clearly。 But film subtitle can help people distinguish it by visual words。 Last but not least, the hearing-impaired people can benefit from the film subtitle and enjoy the film。