For truly successful translating, biculturalism is even more important than bilingualism, since words only have meanings in terms of the cultures in which they function (Nida, 2001:82)。 With a view to better understand western culture, this thesis tries to analyze some lines in Jurassic World, a 2015 American adventure science fiction film, from the cultural perspective proposed by Nida。 Set 22 years after the events of Jurassic Park, Jurassic World takes place on the same fictitious island of Isla Nublar, off the pacific coast of central America, where a theme park densely populated with cloned dinosaurs has operated for ten years。 The park plunges into chaos when a genetically modified dinosaur, Indominus Rex, break loose and goes a rampage across the island。 Since its premiere, the show enjoys great popularity both at home and abroad。 It is widely believed that culture tends to be an extensive notion which can hardly be defined exactly or precisely。 The classification of cultural system is quite persified, and Nida’s category of cultural system is easier and simpler to put into practice。 According to Nida, cultural elements in a language can be classified into five types, namely: ecological culture; material culture; social culture; religious culture; linguistic culture (Nida, 1964b:91)。 Taking the movie Jurassic World as an example, this thesis attempts to offer some insights into subtitle translation from the dimensions of social culture, religious culture as well as linguistic culture。论文网
2。 Literature Review
2。1 An Overview on Subtitle Translation of Jurassic World
As a strong way in boosting cross-cultural communication, movies, especially Hollywood blockbusters, are deeply affecting our daily life and perception of the world。 Since the first show of Jurassic Park in 1993, many related topics have become research hotspots in the academic circles。 Various kinds of academic journals, graduation thesis and conference papers published one after another。 Admittedly, much ink has been spilled about the Jurassic Park movie series before this paper。 However, there is no disguising the fact that previous researches on this movie series were mainly conducted from such perspectives as political philosophy or economic value。 Few papers on its subtitle translation were released。。 To fill the gap, it is necessary and worthwhile to probe into the subtitle translation since Jurassic Park is one of the most successful film franchises in the world。
As the fourth installment in the Jurassic Park series, Jurassic World enjoys worldwide popularity and has broken box office records around the world。 It is extremely famous in China because the subtitle translators manage to grasp the prominent features of the Chinese language and culture。 They adopt so many expressions and idioms which are familiar to the Chinese audience insomuch that the translation can readily resonate with them。 Although subtitle translation studies have been carried out for many years, continuous exploration and perfection are still in need。 According to previous studies, few integration researches have got involved and the research perspective is still limited。 Therefore, further study on the subtitle translation with cultural perspective should be added。
2。2 Previous Study on the Subtitle Translation
As a kind of supplementary explanation to the characters’ dialogue and other related information, subtitles are derived from either a transcript or screenplay of the dialogue or commentary in films, television programs, video games and the like, usually displayed underneath the pictures。 They can either be a form of written translation of a dialogue in a foreign language, or a written rendering of the dialogue in the same language, with or without added information to help views who are deaf and hard of hearing to follow the dialogue, or people who cannot understand the spoken dialogue or who have accent recognition problems。 The adding of subtitles well reserves the original audio effects when a foreign movie or television program is shown。 Subtitles offer the target receptors a platform on which they are capable of grasping the movie’s scenarios from both the visual and the audio methods synchronously。文献综述