Abstract：With the rapid development of globalization, the exchanges between Chinese and foreign culture have become increasingly frequent. A large number of British and American film and television works flow into China, attracting many audiences. In order to help the domestic audience to appreciate the movies and TV dramas better, some translation enthusiasts spontaneously created amateur subtitle groups and systematically translated the English movies and TV dramas. However, the translation ability of amateur sub fan groups varies greatly, and the quality of their translated works is uneven. The translation of subtitles with poor quality hinders the audiences from understanding the cultural characteristics of the story and television dramas. It is imperative that subtitles translation be guided by systematic translation strategies and methods. Relevance theory was first proposed by Sperber & Wilson, and was first applied to the interpretation of translation phenomena by Gutt. Relevance theory’s translation can capture the essential characteristics of translation problems with relevance, which is of great significance for guiding translation. 

This project attempts to study the subtitle translation of English TV play Game of Thrones in conjunction with relevance theory and analyzes its characteristics from the aspects of language, and culture. It is hoped that a set of translation principles and tactics can be concluded, which can be used to guide subtitle translation and help make translation achieve optimal relevance, so that translators can perform subtitle translations better and readers can understand English TV dramas with minimal effort.

Keywords:  relevance theory  subtitle translation  optimal relevance

Contents

Abstract

摘要

Chapter One Introduction-1

1.1 Background of this Thesis-1

1.2 Literature Review-1

1.3 Significance and Structure of this Thesis-2

Chapter Two Theoretical Background-4

2.1 Definition of Relevance Theory-4

2.2 Optimal Relevance-4

2.3 Relevance Theory in Translation-5

Chapter Three Features of Subtitle Translation of Game of Thrones-6

3.1 Brief Introduction to Game of Thrones and Its Subtitle Translation-6

3.2 Features of Subtitle Translation-6

3.2.1 Linguistic Features-6

3.2.2 Cultural Features-8

3.3 Summary-10

Chapter Four Relevance-Theoretic Principles and Techniques of Subtitle Translation-11

4.1 Relevance-Theoretic Principles for Subtitle Translation-11

4.1.1 Conveying Communicative Intention-11

4.1.2 Creating Mutual Cognitive Environment-11

4.2 Relevance-Theoretic Based Techniques of Subtitle Translation-12

4.2.1 Adaptation-12

4.2.2 Recreation-13

Chapter Five Conclusion-15

References-16