2.3 Language Features of American Play
As one of the TV programs, American plays not only have the five characteristics of film language pointed out by Professor Qian shaochang, but also have several particular features which most films don’t have.
Chinese TV plays are usually completely done before broadcasting, however, the Americans make and broadcast their programs weekly. So any fresh words or news are likely to appear in the TV plays. People may often find the heroes and heroines talking about the big events which just happened in their real life. For example, when the film Avatar was in smash-hit, it was mentioned frequently in the Big Bang Theory. So when doing the translation work, these details should not be ignored.
Then follows the second feature: culture. Sapir（1921）, the American linguist, has once said that language cannot exist without culture. Since the TV plays are a product of the society, their language is not only simple dialogue, but contains lots of slang and idioms which deliver much cultural information such as history, law, morality and conventions.
Ren Funan（2012）also points out in www.751com.cn er thesis of “A Brief Literature Review on Film Subtitle Translation” that every translator must have a profound understanding of the nuances of the source language, a good writing skill in the target language and a detailed knowledge of the culture of the country or countries in which the source language is spoken. The language transfer worker or team, however, must have all of these qualities and, in addition, empathy with the new audience and an understanding of the audiovisual media. The language transfer worker must be able to discern what film viewers do or do not require in the way of additional information in order to understand and enjoy the program. In language transfer, more than in conventional translation, there is a need for an accurate appreciation of the knowledge which the audience might be expected to have or not to have.电影《死亡诗社》对大学英语有效教学的启示
Take the translation of “The Big Bang Theory” as an example. The Big Bang Theory is among the most popular American TV plays in China. It mainly describes the daily life of four science geeks.
(1) No guts, no glory, man.
“人有多大胆，地有多大产。”
The use of this sentence gives a vivid description to Chinese audience. Most Chinese have a better understanding of this proverb and by this translation, they also have a better understanding of this play.