论文总字数：36935字

摘 要

由于受诸多因素影响，如空间、时间、语境和文化的影响，字幕翻译策略与其它翻译领域的策略有明显的不同。本文认为关联理论通过字幕翻译对电影所期望获得的交际目的具有极大的影响力。基于Sperber和Wilson提出的关联理论，本文试图研究《疯狂动物城》的字幕汉译所采用的翻译策略并且试图为电影字幕翻译提供一些新的思路和方法。因此，字幕翻译者能够通过应用关联原则让目的语观众获得轻松完美的观影体验。

关键词：关联理论；字幕翻译；《疯狂动物城》；翻译策略

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………1
2. Literature Review………………………………………………………….....2
3. Relevance Theory and Subtitle Translation….…………………………......5

3.1 A review of relevance theory….…………………………………………….5

3.2 Relevance theory and translation………………………………………........6

3.3 Relevance theory and subtitle translation…………………………………...6

1. A Case Study of Zootopia…………………………….…………………….7

4.1 An introduction to the movie………………………………………………….7

4.2 Explicitation strategy..……………………………………………………...8

4.3 Deduction strategy...……………………………………………………….10

4.4 Domestication strategy.…………………………………………………….12

5. Conclusion…………….…………………………………………………..14

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...15

1. Introduction

Along with the rapid development of digital technology, movies now have gained much popularization all over the world and have raised public demands for entertainments to a large extent. In recent decades, thanks to the globalization which enhances cross-cultural exchanges, the number of foreign films introduced into China has risen drastically. Watching foreign movies has been a good way for domestic viewers not only to enlarge their horizons, but also to know foreign cultures, customs and lifestyles. Subtitle translation, as an indispensable bridge for cultural communication, plays a crucial role in helping the foreign audience better appreciate an imported movie and share diverse cultural messages, for an foreign film is an essential carrier of foreign languages, values, ideas and other cultural elements. Therefore, movie subtitle translation has drawn much attention in the translation field.

Subtitle translation stems from western countries where many great contributions have been made by plenty of renowned scholars. Mayoral, Kelly and Gallardo have proposed the main characteristic of subtitle translation which is called synchrony and they hold that the synchrony should be embodied in five aspects: time, space, content, language and characters (Mayoral, Kelly and Gallardo 359). Henrik Gottlieb deems that the two main constraints of subtitle translation exist in those in form and presentation. For this reason, the stylistic feature of subtitle translation should be more colloquial (Gottlieb 164). Compared with western countries, China lags behind in studying subtitle translation and only a few translation researchers have attached importance to movie subtitle translation, which results in lack of brilliant subtitle translators at home. Therefore, exploring a series of strategies for movie subtitle translation is of much urgency. A great deal of suggestions have been put forward by some well-known Chinese translators. Zhang Chunbai argues that free translation is the major method which should be adopted in subtitle translation (Zhang Preliminary 53). Qian Shaochang puts forward some specific methods to translate address, culture-loaded words and puns respectively by means of summarizing his practical experience in translation (Qian Film 62).

This article holds that Relevance Theory can be the guideline for movie subtitle translation and proves that the application of relevance principle can make it possible for subtitle translators to bring the target language audience an expected viewing experience. It is well-known that Zootopia is the 55th Disney animated feature movie which was well welcome among international viewers, especially enormous Chinese audiences. In part, the great success of Zootopia justifies the requisite to study its subtitle translation which makes the audience achieve the expected viewing experience. Thus, for the purpose of figuring out practicable subtitle translation strategies to realize the expected communicative effect, this article discusses the case study of Zootopia under the guidance of Relevance Theory.

This article comprises of five parts: an introduction, a literature review about concepts of subtitles and previous studies of subtitle translation, a presentation of the correlation between Relevance Theory and subtitle translation, a case study of Zootopia on subtitle translation strategies and a conclusion.

2. Literature Review

Since the introduction of foreign movies serves as a cultural bridge between countries, subtitle translation plays an increasingly important role in cross-cultural communication. Therefore, it becomes a necessity to learn more theories about movie subtitle translation. In this section, relevant studies will be presented from two aspects: studies on concepts of subtitles, and previous studies about subtitle translation.

2.1 Concepts of subtitles

Quite a few scholars have come up with a large quantity of definitions about subtitles. In Luyken’s opinion, “subtitles appear and disappear in the pace of the corresponding sentences or expressions of the original conversation and are often attached to moving pictures with an ensuing action at a later time” (Luyken 31). More systematically and authoritatively, Gottlieb describes subtitles as “a written, additive, synchronous type of translation of a fleeting and poly-semiotic text type” (Gambier amp; Gottlieb 311). In other words, subtitles are added words which can be viewed as an attachment of the source text to enhance the understanding and communication.

No matter how the scholars define subtitles, the aim of translated subtitles is to provide the target language audience with maximum comprehension and appreciation of the source film by maximizing the legibility and readability of the inserted subtitled text. Linguistically, intra-lingual subtitles and inter-lingual subtitles are two kinds of subtitles. Intra-lingual subtitles include subtitles for people who are deaf or hard of hearing when watching domestic programs, and subtitles for language learners when watching foreign language programs. Thus, intra-lingual subtitles refer to transcribe dialogues and narration from sound track into written form within one language. Whereas inter-lingual subtitles refer to the creative translation between the source language utterance and the target language words.

Since the specialty of subtitles increases the difficulty of the translation, a subtitle translator cannot come up with the ideal version successfully unless he or she is quite clear about the features of film subtitles. The first feature is instantaneity. Unlike literary translation which people can read repeatedly, subtitles pass by so quickly that the target audiences have no time to watch them again. Thus, the length of subtitles is strictly limited, and only the concise ones can help the target audience have an immediate and overall understanding. The second is synchronicity. Being different from written works, subtitles do not exist alone, but exist in combination with the film images and sounds for the audience to appreciate. Hence, subtitles must synchronize with film images, plots, dialogues, music and sounds. The third is colloquialism. Zhang Chunbai once said “in most cases, the translator must see to it that the translated dialogues are comprehensible to most Chinese viewers with a minimum level of education or even those without any schooling such as some illiterate elderly people and preschool children” (Zhang Direct 16). Therefore, in order to meet common people’s needs, subtitles should be translated with colloquial style for the purpose of avoiding obscure words and being easily understood.

2.2 Previous studies about subtitle translation

Over the past decades, tremendous achievements have been made in the study of subtitle translation. For the reason of its rising importance in intercultural communication, subtitle translation has drawn much attention at home and abroad.

In the western world, the history of subtitle translation can date back to the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1974, Dollerup published the first article concerning subtitle translation in the Babel, which inquires into various kinds of mistakes that emerge in the subtitles of television programs. In 1992, on the basis of his deep understanding of subtitle translation, Ivarsson put forward an all-round introduction of subtitle translation which covers from a thorough history of the technical aspects of subtitling to a general description of subtitling for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Yves Gambier and Henrik Gottlieb, are well-known scholars who could be recognized as the masters of subtitle translation. They proposed the new concept “multimedia translation” and claimed that screen translation (film, domestic and corporate video, TV programs), translation of offline products and services might come under the same umbrella of “multimedia translation” (Gambier amp; Gottlieb 11). Therefore, viewed as a part of the multimedia translation, subtitle translation in movie and TV programs would become a multi-disciplinary research.

Compared with researches in the West, studies on subtitle translation in China are still in the stage of infancy. With the further development of reform and opening-up, a great deal of foreign language films has been pouring into Chinese market, thus the studies of subtitle translation enjoy a great popularity among Chinese scholars. To begin with, some scholars proceed from exploring the principles and standards of subtitle translation. Ma Zhengqi proposes five basic principles of language use in subtitle translation: colloquialism, maintenance of style, recurrence of tones, consistence with gestures and popularization (Ma 82). Mou Li embraces the idea that subtitle translation should be easily understood, ensure the progress of plots and preserve original aesthetic value (Mou 88). Besides, many scholars attach much importance to the strategies of subtitle translation. Qian Shaochang argues that it is beneficial to apply recreation in translating puns (Qian Translation 48). Whereas Li Yunxing holds that reduction should be the primary choice of subtitle translation (Li 38).

Therefore, aiming to figure out practicable subtitle translation strategies to better promote intercultural communication, this article discusses the case study of Zootopia from the perspective of Relevance Theory.

3. Relevance Theory and Subtitle Translation

As Relevance Theory has provided great guidance for translation, this article is intended to conduct an analysis on the movie subtitle translation from the perspective of Relevance Theory. Thus, the basic knowledge of Relevance Theory and its relationship with translation and subtitle translation will be introduced and discussed in this section.

3.1 A review of relevance theory

In 1986, Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson put forward the concept of “relevance theory” for studying communication and cognition in the book Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Since then, Relevance Theory has been gradually developed into the cognition-oriented theory on human communication. Some key ideas of Relevance Theory will be explained in the following.

The first notion is the ostensive-inference model. Communication contains two aspects called ostension and inference. In terms of the speaker, communication is a process of making ostension, which means that the speaker conveys his or her intention vividly to the hearer in an ostensive way. While in terms of the hearer, communication is a process of making inferences, which means that the speaker’s implied intention hidden in the information is provided for the hearer to infer. In other words, the speaker can offer the inferential cognitive environment to the hearer by expressing the utterance clearly and the hearer can obtain contextual assumptions and generate various contextual implications from such environment.

The second is relevance and contextual effect. Contextual effects are composed of three steps: deducing contextual implications, intensifying preconceived hypotheses, and then eliminating contradicted ones. Processing effort has some connection with the degree of difficulty in disposing of the information. Relevance can be defined in terms of the following two conditions: Extent condition 1: an assumption is relevant in a context to the extent that its contextual effects in this context are large. Extension 2: an assumption is relevant in a context to the extent that the effort required to process it in this context is small (Sperber amp; Wilson 125). Thus, it can be concluded that relevance rests on two factors: processing efforts and contextual effects. More obvious contextual effects and less needless processing efforts can make greater relevance.

The third is the principle of relevance theory. “Human cognition tends to be organized so as to maximize relevance; Every act of ostensive communication communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance” (Sperber amp; Wilson 158). Relevance Theory underlines that it is of great significance to pursue the optimal relevance which can make a successful communication. Under the principle of Optimal Relevance, the hearer can make a success of obtaining obvious contextual effects without superfluous processing efforts.

3.2 Relevance theory and translation

In 1990s, Gutt first applied Relevance Theory to translation field and claimed that relevance-theoretic account of translation is neither descriptive nor prescriptive but explanatory (Gutt 190). In Relevance Theory, translation is considered as an interpretive tool among languages, which makes more clear the information that the source language trys to convey. The core factor in the interpretive use is to pursue the interpretive similarity between the original text and the target language text. Obviously, different cognitive contexts will result in different understandings. Thus, it is critical to a successful communication that the original text has a correlation with the target language text. Lin Kenan is a pioneer to introduce relevance theory of translation into China (Lin 7). Later, scholars in China began to realize that cognitive context, inference, and optimal relevance could make a difference to studying translation and started to embrace the idea that translation is an ostensive-inferential communication. In conclusion, what the translator requires to do is to seek the contextual relevance between the source language text and the target language text, carry out necessary inference to find the optimal relevance, and then transmit it to readers. In this way, target readers can enjoy the text with minimal efforts.

3.3 Relevance theory and subtitle translation

Relevance Theory of translation claims that it offers a universal explanation for all kinds of translation, so unexceptionally, subtitle translation can also be successfully studied in light of Relevance Theory. According to Relevance Theory, subtitle translation is a diagonal process of interlingual and intercultural communication between the movie characters and the target language audience. Since they have to spare their attention to scan the subtitles for the necessary comprehension of dialogues, the target language audience bears more stress than the original language audience. Because of gratuitous processing efforts spent, their appreciating becomes more difficult than the original audience. What’s more, as the utterances and dialogues in movies are showed in a flowing manner, subtitles are fleeting for the sake of being displayed with the original film at the same time. Hence, it is the maximum length for the subtitle to have two lines or 30 words. Space and time constraints are two challenging obstacles in movie subtitle translation. As a result, for one thing, the target language audience hope that they can spare as many efforts as possible to appreciate the performance instead of the printed subtitles. For another, it is hoped that culture-loaded contextual effects can be obtained by the target language audience. This contradiction obliges subtitle translators to take into consideration the cognitive ability and the viewing habit of target-language audience and make certain compensation for cultural-related elements or embedded background information when necessary. Only in this way can subtitle translators ensure that the target language audience can enjoy a relaxed and perfect appreciation without gratuitous processing efforts.

4. A case study of Zootopia

4.1 An introduction to the movie

Zootopia is the 55th Disney animated feature film and premiered in Belgium on February 13 in 2016, receiving much praise for its screenplay, animation, voice acting and subject matter. In China, where it is locally known as Crazy Animal City (疯狂动物城), the film achieves a great success beyond expectations for it has topped the Chinese and Korean box office for two weekends. It describes the amazing partnership between a rabbit police officer and a red fox con artist, and they disclose a conspiracy which is related to the disappearance of savage predator inhabitants of a mammalian metropolis.

In detail, Zootopia, a world populated by anthropomorphic mammals, is like a melting pot where animals, whether the big elephants or the small mouse, all live in harmony with each other. Although people around her all doubt her ability, rabbit Judy Hopps from rural Bunnyburrow fulfills her childhood dream of becoming a police officer. To prove her competence, Judy volunteers to detect a case that helps an otter named Mrs.Otterton look for her missing husband Emmitt. Judy blackmails Nick, a con artist fox, into assisting her and with the proceeding of investigation they gradually become friends. However, they find that the missing predators which have gone savage, are imprisoned at Cliffside Asylum and behind the case, there is a prey-supremacist conspiracy which is rigged by the new mayor Bellwether to frame predators as dangerous and savage. With the help of Zootopia Police Department, the savage animals are cured under the cooperation of Judy and Nick. At last, Nick graduates from Zootopia Police Academy as the city"s first fox police officer and becomes Judy"s partner.

The main character in the movie is Judy Hopps and Nick Wilde. Optimistic, outgoing and ambitious, Judy Hopps is Zootopia"s first rabbit police officer who perseveres in her dream despite of being made fun of her potential and competence. Brave and brilliant enough, she confronts and uncovers the conspiracy manipulated by the authority. Without discrimination, she is kind and open-minded to make friends with the con artist fox. Nick Wilde, charming but cunny, is a con artist fox with a big mouth who suffered from prejudice in his childhood and gave up his dream. When cooperating with Judy, he always comes up with novel ideas and at the crucial moment, he never hesitates and retreats.

As is mentioned above, it is the considerable achievement of Zootopia that proves the desirability to study it. Under the guidance of Relevance Theory, three subtitle translation strategies are proposed in this thesis: explicitation, deduction and domestication. They will be specifically discussed with examples below.

4.2 Explicitation strategy

Explicitation is a widely used strategy in translation to make the target text more straightforward when conveying the implied information of the source text. According to Relevance Theory, subtitle translation is a diagonal process of interlingual and intercultural communication between the movie characters and the target language audience. In order to better understand the real intention of the source text, the translator has to generalize the gist of the speaker and transmit it to the hearer during the process of translation. With regard to time and space constraints in subtitle translation, explicitating the implied meaning of the original text when translating is a must to help the target language audience keep pace with the development of plots in the movie.

Example 1:

Judy: You didn"t happen to catch the license plate number? Did you? (你不会刚好记得车牌号码吧？)

Yax: Oh, for sure. It was 29THD03. (哦，那当然。是29THD03)

Yax: Told you Nangi has a mind like a steel trap. (我告诉过你她总是有超好的记忆力)

This dialogue happens in a naturalist club where the missing otter Emmitt often goes to attend yoga classes. Yax, the boss of the club is a yak and Nangi, the yoga teacher is an elephant. In order to find the missing otter, Judy manages to collect some clues from Nangi. Yax helps Nangi recall the details but speaks out all things by himself including the number of the car which the missing otter took. Amazingly, Yax praised Nangi, not himself, for having a mind like a steel trap. The implied meaning of “a mind like a steel trap” is having a good memory. If it is literally translated into “有捕兽夹一样的脑子”, the translation can not precisely convey intended meaning of the original utterance. Whereas the translation “有超好的记忆力” makes the implied meaning explicit to Chinese audience and conforms to the cognitive environment of Chinese audience. Relevance Theory underlines that it is of great significance to pursue the optimal relevance which can make a successful communication. Such explicit translation yields the best contextual effects and achieves the optimal relevance, hence the target language audience can comfortably appreciate the movie with the least processing efforts.

Example 2:

Leodore Lionheart: Okay, Officer Hopps. Let"s see those teeth! (合个影吧，警官，一起说茄子！)

Being the first rabbit officer, the badge is presented to Judy at the graduation ceremony by the mayor. Confronting the media, the mayor manages to take a photo with Judy. By saying “Let"s see those teeth”, the mayor wants Judy to keep smiling. According to Relevance Theory, more obvious contextual effects and less needless processing efforts can make greater relevance. The literary translation “一起露出牙齿吧” would be vague in meaning, which results in more processing efforts of target language viewers. Chinese people often say “茄子” to make themselves smile beautifully when taking photos. Thus, the translation “一起说茄子” explicates the implied meaning of keeping smiling and caters to Chinese culture, which reduces the processing efforts and reaches the same contextual effect. In this sense, with the help of explicitating the original utterance, the target language audience can gain the intended meaning from subtitles and experience the film more comfortably.

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