Abstract

Since the 21st century, with the vigorous development of the film and television industry and network technology constantly, the audience can cross the boundaries between the country, nation and culture, admire all outstanding film and television works together, with understanding and learning characteristics and differences between different countries. Demand drives production, due to more and more film and television fans are looking forward to creative and innovative works, the film industry all over the world strive to get rid of the stale and bring forth the fresh, namely, they hope they can make a satisfactory film and TV series. Especially in recent years, Chinese audience, predominantly youngsters, are keen on foreign film and television works which led by the US films and TV series. Compared with the domestic works that inclined to combine with real life, the US drama’s plot is not only bold but thrilling, full of imagination, and create another fantasy world for the audience, which explains why Chinese adolescents, especially college students tend to appreciate the US films and TV series.

However, in contrast to the relatively mature translation study of literary field, Chinese translation fans and scholars’ translation of film and television subtitles are not completed yet, and did not form a scientific theoretical system for successor to learn and use for reference. It can be seen that there is an urgent need to increase the research in Chinese subtitle translation field, which is of great significance to promote the Chinese audience’s appreciation and understanding of foreign film and television works and English translation teaching.

Based on the Functional Equivalence Theory proposed by Eugene A. Nida who is an American, this paper combines the film and television subtitles of Game of Thrones, a large-scale fantasy TV series which is extremely popular in the United States and China. Through concluding the differences among Chinese and English language, culture, aesthetics, the author studies the characteristics, requirements and principles of translation. In which, the linguistic aspect includes discourse, syntax and vocabulary; the cultural aspect mainly contrasts the translation of some subtitles between Chinese and English, which covers the culture and customs of each country. Aesthetics mainly discusses the perfect equivalence idea of the pursuit of beauty and antithesis translation ideas. At the end, the author summarizes a little enlightenment generated from some translation skills and principles of subtitle translation which has discussed in this essay to the Chinese and English teaching and translation.

Key words: subtitle translation; Functional Equivalence Theory; Game of Thrones

Contents

Abstract

摘要

Introduction-1

0.1 Research Background-1

0.2 Research Significance-2

0.3 Thesis Structure-3

Chapter I  Literature Overview-4

1.1 Film Subtitle Translation-4

1.1.1 Definition of Film Subtitle Translation-4

1.1.2 Classifications and Characteristics of Subtitle Translation-4

1.2 Film Subtitle Translation Overview-6

1.2.1 Domestic Status of Film Subtitle Translation-6

1.2.2 Shortcomings of Domestic Film Subtitle-7

1.2.3 Prospect of Domestic Film Subtitle Translation-7

Chapter II  Functional Equivalence Theory-8

2.1 Definition of Functional Equivalence Theory-8

2.2 Standards and Principles of Functional Equivalence Theory-8

2.3 Influences of Functional Equivalence Theory-9

Chapter III Subtitle Translation of Game of Thrones Under the Guidance of Functional Equivalence Theory-10

3.1 Brief Introduction to American TV Series Game of Thrones-10

3.2 Analyzing the Subtitle Translation from Subtitle of Game of Thrones-10

3.2.1 Linguistic Aspect-11

3.2.1.1 Discourse Level-11

3.2.1.2 Syntactical Level-12

3.2.1.3 Lexical Level-14

3.2.2 Cultural Aspect-16

3.2.3 Aesthetic Aspect-16

Chapter IV Enlightenment-17

4.1 Enlightenment to Translation Teaching-17

4.2 Enlightenment to Chinese and English Translation-17

Conclusion-19

Bibliography-20

Acknowledgements-21