中国电影《私人定制》字幕翻译中的文化空缺

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Abstract With the booming of Chinese film industry, manufacturers of Chinese films are eager to win the global market all around the world. So Chinese films always provide foreign audiences English subtitles. However, it is impossible to dissociate culture from language. The culture vacancy between different languages becomes the main barrier for the target audience to appreciate the elements with Chinese characteristics in the films, especially in the comedy films. Therefore, subtitle translators are important in eliminating culture barriers and helping Chinese films to reach out to the world. However, scholars have not paid enough attention to the researches on subtitle translation yet and there are not any mature theories guide the subtitle translation practice, which leaves plenty of space for further study. This paper attempts to analyze some examples chosen from the Personal Tailor to explain the culture vacancy in subtitle translation and conclude the translation strategies such as domestication and foreignization adopted in translating culture vacancy to help the target audience get the same appreciate experience as the local audience to a large extent.59091

Keywords: subtitle translation; culture vacancy; Personal Tailor

摘要随着中国电影业的高速发展，中国电影制片者为了赢得国际电影市场，通常提供给国外观影者英文版电影字幕。语言与文化共生，因为中西方文化空缺的存在，中国电影尤其是中国喜剧电影中很多中国特有的文化因素很难被西方观众理解，因此，电影字幕翻译者在消除两种文化交流之间存在的障碍以及帮助中国电影走向世界的过程中起着重要的作用。然而，有关学者并未对字幕翻译给予太多重视，指导字幕翻译的理论至今尚未成熟，仍有很大的研究空间。因而，本文旨在以电影《私人定制》为例，通过对该电影字幕翻译中译例的分析，总结译者如何使用如归化、异化等翻译策略处理电影字幕翻译中的文化空缺，令观影者最大程度上获得与本土观众相似的观影感受。

毕业论文关键词：字幕翻译；文化空缺；私人定制

Contents

1. Introduction1

2. Literature Review ...........2

2.1 Previous Studies on Subtitle Translation.2

2.2 Previous Studies on the Culture Vacancy..3

3. Translation of Culture Vacancy in Personal Tailor.4

3.1 Translation of Material Culture Vacancy.5

3.2 Translation of Social Culture Vacancy ......7

3.3 Translation of Religious Culture Vacancy ...9

3.4 Translation of Linguistic Culture Vacancy10

4. Conclusion..11

Works Cited..13

1. Introduction

Film production has been dominated by the Americans since the early 20th century. Nowadays, there are nearly two main types in films industry. One is the Hollywood type film, which is produced in English, is the main stream in this area. The other is non-English film produced by other countries apart from the United States. In order to survive in the fierce competition with Hollywood films, gain more market share in the film industry and win more film awards, film producers in non-English countries have begun to provide English versions of their films to gain their market share in the English speaking countries.

With the flourishing of China’s economy and its opening up to the world, a lot of China’s films are spreading all over the western countries. This can generate opportunities to accelerate the communication of culture background and traditional values. Therefore, subtitled film can give the target audience all the access to a foreign language and its culture.

Nowadays, few scholars pay attention to the subtitle translation from the culture perspective. Yet, the subtitle translation of comedy film seems hard to make target audience form a different cultural background to get the humor factors. Because of culture vacancy, foreigners who speak different languages probably think Chinese-style comedy is boring. To reach the foreign audiences and make people all over the world able to enjoy what Chinese culture offers and understand better, it is necessary to study the Chinese-English subtitle translation strategies and get to know how to achieve humorous effect in subtitle translation of comedies.