1.1 Research Background
1.1.1 Studies Abroad
Studies on the translation of TV dramas and movies started earlier in the west. The comprehensive studies owns to the unique development of history as well as the culture of melting pot.
Studies on the translation of TV dramas and movies dated back to the end of 1950s and the beginning of 1960s. At the very beginning, studies in this area was as dead as a door nail, letting alone perse schools of thoughts’ contention. There are only few articles about dubbing. In 1974, Dollerup published an article On Subtitles in Television Programs, where he pointed out the several mistakes of translating English dramas into Danish. Dollerup has made contributions in two ways. On the one hand, he’s the first person who put forward the important role of subtitle translation in teaching domain; on the other hand, he regarded that people can make full use of subtitles to learn foreign languages.
Reid has made brilliant achievements in the end of 1970s and throughout the 80s. She analyzed more the connections between audience and subtitles together with its functions in a professional point of view. As far as she is concerned, the deficiency of subtitles can be made up.
In 1982, Titford’s publication Subtitling: Constrained Translation talked about restricted translation. It refers to the main trouble translators confronted with is from movie and television themselves.
It was not until 1990s that theories about television and movie translations in the west made a breakthrough. In 1991, Luyken cooperated with other experts in television and movie translation and published Overcoming Languages Barriers in Television: Dubbing and Subtitling for the European Audience. It mentions different modes of translating upon language shift. What’s more, the amount of films and TV dramas with translation, cost of staff as well as audience’s preference are studied thoroughly and systematically.
In 1992, subtitle translator Ivarsson from Sweden published the very first work comprehensively studying subtitle translation: Subtitling for the Media: A Handbook of an Art. It introduces the development history of subtitle translation technology in detail.
After 1995, the research entered into a period endued with rapid development. Until now, Gottlied’s theory in movie and TV drama’s translating is the most systematic. It involves translating idiom, importance in teaching and influence upon languages inside Denmark under the population of English movies with dubbing and subtitles.
In recent years, translation of movie and TV drama has received awareness in Europe, where a mature scale and system has formed. The view of studying tends to be persified. Last but not the least, the research results enjoys higher status in academia.
1.1.2 Studies at Home
Compared with western countries, studies in China were much later and seemed to be low-level, for there was no complete and systematic theory. Even though scholars and experts worked on finding out more effective methods, the outline was still not clear.
Until 1921, with the slow development of domestic film industry, as well as the increasing introduction of foreign films into China, subtitle translation draw more scholars’ attention. The approach they applied in subtitle translation is dubbing, however, there emerged a few problems in the process. To name a few, inaccurate language, improper writing and discrepancies between original text and translation. Anyway, the development of subtitle translation in the country was quite slow.
Since more and more foreign works are introduced to China entering 21st century, translating methods became various. After the reform and opening-up policy, Zhang Chunbai, Qian Shaochang, Li Yunxing, Zhao Chunmei and Ma Zhengqi successively published their articles on many core journals related to the researches on subtitle translation. 目的论《生活大爆炸》的字幕翻译(2):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_32682.html