前景化理论下电影字幕翻译中人物语言个性化研究.pdf

合肥工业大学 硕士学位论文 前景化理论下电影字幕翻译中人物语言个性化研究 姓名：蔡惠娴 申请学位级别：硕士 专业：外国语言学及应用语言学 指导教师：赵速梅 2011-04 viii 摘要摘要 随着电影行业的迅猛发展，人们对电影字幕翻译的要求也越来越高。不仅仅 要达到一般翻译的“信，达，雅”，电影字幕翻译还应当体现出人物的个性。充 满个性化的语言不仅可以为影片增色不少， 同时它也是塑造电影人物的必要手段。 本文以前景化理论为基础，以电影泰坦尼克为案例，分析了电影字幕翻译中 人物语言个性化这一问题。 本文试图将前景化理论应用于电影字幕翻译中人物语言个性化研究这一课 题，从以下两个方面探索电影字幕翻译中的人物如何实现语言个性化： （1） 个性化的人物语言与电影人物塑造的关系； （2） 个性化的人物语言如何实现。 通过对电影泰坦尼克的案例分析，本文得出以下结论： （1） 个性化的人物语言与电影人物塑造互相影响： a. 个性化的人物语言是人物鲜明个性特点的折射 b. 个性化的人物语言对电影人物的个性再塑造 （2） 个性化的人物语言通常是以语言的前景化来实现： a. 体现人物性格特点的前景化语言存在于两个方面 存在于电影人物本身的语言中 由字幕翻译者为了更加直接体现人物个性而创造 b. 语言的前景化效果是以偏离手段来实现 通过语言偏离使人物个性在字幕中表达更突出 语言偏离以词汇偏离和语义偏离运用得最多 前景化理论在以往的研究中多被应用于诗歌欣赏，文体分析和翻译批评中， 后来这一理论被运用于翻译实践中。本论文将前景化这一理论尝试性地运用于电 影字幕翻译的人物语言个性化研究这一课题，既为影视字幕翻译提供了新的研究 目标和方法，也使本论文的研究有了创新性的研究，从而进一步扩大前景化理论 的应用范围，为电影字幕翻译实践中体现人物个性化提供借鉴。 关键词：前景化理论；字幕翻译；个性化； vi abstract with the vigorous development of film industry, people tend to have a higher demand towards the subtitle translation. not only conforming to the norm of general translation, “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance”, but also the subtitle translation should reflect the figures personality. this thesis, with foregrounding theory as the theoretical basis, english movie titanic as the case study, sets out to be devoted to the analysis of the film figures personalized language in subtitle translation. this paper attempts to apply foregrounding theory to the subject of figures personalized language in subtitle translation, and explore how the personalized language in subtitle translation is realized from the following two aspects: (1) the relation between figures personalized language and film figures shaping (2) how the figures personalized language is realized through the analysis of the english movie titanic in subtitle translation, there are two major findings in this paper: (1) figures personalized language and film figures shaping interact on each other. a. figures personalized language is the reflection of film figures personality b. figures personalized language has an impact on film figures re-shaping (2) figures personalized language is always realized by foregrounding a. foregrounding which gives expression to film figures personality exists in two aspects: it exists in the film characters own language it is manufactured by the subtitle translator for presenting the film characters personality features more directly. b. foregrounding effect is relized by language deviation through language deviation, the figures personality can be expressed more directly in subtitle morphologic deviation and semantic deviation are mostly used previously the foregrounding theory was mostly used in the research of the poetry appreciation, stylistic analysis and translation criticism. later this theory has been used vii in translation practice. this thesis applies this theory into the subject trying to figure out film figures personalized language, assuming that it can provide a new research orientation for the film caption translation which is also the breakthrough and renovation of this thesis. key words: foregrounding theory; subtitle translation; personalized iii 1 chapter one introduction 1.1 significance of the study as a very important form of modern art, film is very close with our life. so the translation of film subtitle which is a new type of translation has become a more and more important field as the vigorous development of film art in the new century. subtitle translation may make a movie successful, and a good movie can also create excellent film figure through wonderful subtitle translation. the main function of subtitle translation is supplying enough information which makes the audience understand the story easily. but it is not just a simple translation between two different language codes, it is an intercultural communication process. film is a sort of dynamic literature which is made up of the discourse and story. characters are the most important part of the film, and the discourse is critical for characters shaping. how to shape the characters personality and reflect the relationship between film figures and plot is a very key issue in the film. the so-called “ figures personalized language, that is, what kind of people to say what remarks, and let characters through their own language to represent his ideas, identity, cultural enrichment, experience and personality and so on.“ character-personalized language can also reveal the character figures mind in a particular environment state. so let the target language audience get the same understanding as the source language audience, that is to say, an issue involves cross culture communication. these excellent film works, only in the high-quality subtitle translation can best be fully expressed. the personalized language in subtitle translation which reveals the film figures personality not only can enhance the audiences experience of appreciating films and make the culture communication more effective, but also get the better effect of the whole film. 1.2 purpose of the study 2 this paper designed to apply the england geoffrey leechs foregrounding theory, which most of the experts and scholars at home and abroad mainly applied to the literary stylistic analysis, poetry analysis and translation criticism, to research film figures personalized language in the foreign film subtitle translation, from the scope of foregrounding effects and deviation. with the purpose to reflect the figures personality through their personalized language in subtitle translation, making the research between the different deviation and the foregrounding effects by analyzing, to explore the how the personalized language is reached in the film subtitle translation. it is an attempt activities using the foregrounding theory to the subtitle translation, which not only provides people with a fresh perspective to look at the issue of translation, but also, more importantly, makes up for the existing translation theories -and practice thus it is a practical and worthy topic. 1.3 structure of thesis this paper consists of six chapters： 1) introduction. 2) the literature review. 3) the preliminary study. 4) case study. 5) results. 6) conclusion and discussion. chapter 1 makes an introduction to the research background, which summarizes the fundamental information about the research: the significance, the purpose and the general contents of the thesis. chapter 2 makes a review on previous research on subtitle translation at home and abroad. chapter 3 mainly focuses on the foregrounding theory; it also explores the relations between the linguistic foregrounding and the linguistic deviation. most of this part is based on the theoretical analysis in order to make a clear statement on the theory of foregrounding. chapter 4 is an experimental part, which is a strong support of the authors proposed theory. this chapter is abundant in examples, which are chosen from foreign film titannics subtitle. it mainly illustrates how the personalized language is revealed in subtitle translation. chapter 5 is the results that the author tries to get from the elaboration of precious 3 theories and case analysis. chapter 6 is the conclusion of the study, which firstly summarizes the whole paper and discusses the limitations and enlightenments which can give the translator some guidance in further study. 1.4 data selection this paper uses movie titanic as the case, both chinese subtitle translation and english version are transcribed from the book selection of wonderful dialogues in english movie (英文电影对白精选), edited by 丁林鹏and朱红梅，published in february 2007, china radio and television publishing house. 4 chapter two literature review as films begin to flourish and serve as a bridge between different cultures， english movies are more and more popular in china， especially for the young people， making it significant to study the translation of subtitle. this chapter makes a review of former study in film subtitle translation at home and abroad. 2.1 foreign research subtitle translation research firstly began in western countries, which can date back from 1950s. so nowadays the research of subtitle translation in west is more systematic than in china. most of active researchers in this field are westerners, especially european researchers. some outstanding scholars and works will be introduced in following parts. the term subtitle originates from intertitles which refers to the parts of text， drawn on oil paper and filled and placed between parts of the film actionin 1909， intertitles became an indispensable part of the film，photographed and printed on the fill strip(ivarsson 1995：294)with the new technological developments, the subtitle had been in flourishing. all of above was introduced by fotios karamitroglou in his book towards a methodology for the investigation of norms in audio-visional translation, published in 2000. and the efforts had been made to convey the actors utterance to the audience almost since the invention of films in the silent erathe most valuable point in his book is that, he first introduced a theoretical approach to norms，and then towards a systematic investigation of norms in audio-visual translationhe did the research in a case study: the choice between subtitling and revoicing childrens tv programs in greecethen he got the conclusion that the 5 polysystem approach in translation allows us to consider the audio-visual translation products as literary facts that can be studied in a systematic way gottlieb henric (denmark) is a pioneer scholar nowadays in 20th century, who specially focuses on the film subtitle translation, began his research at the end of 1980s. some of his works became the classical books in subtitle translation research. in this section, some of works are reviewed in following. subtitling-a new university discipline-gottlieb(1992)focuses on the theoretical aspect of subtitlethe author defines the subtitle，classifies it from the linguistic and technical aspects，and brings up its formal and textual constraints，and offer the translation strategies hoping to give some familiarity to the language receivers subtitling：people translating people(1993)studies on how to do the training of subtitle translation in a technical wayhe points out that equivalence is the final ideal for technical translation, and authenticity is the obligation of subtitle translation， and the foundation of teaching subtitle is the ideals and facts of subtitle subtitling：a unique type of translation(1995)defines distinctive characteristics of subtitle translation as opposed to other translation types you got the picture?-on the polysemiotics of subtitling wordplay (1997) points that the constraints of subtitle translation do not always obstruct the recreation of puns in translated versionsin addition，he tries to combine the roles of descriptive translatologist and inventive practitioner(a scholarly critic and a subtitler in this case) quality revisited: the rendering of english idioms in danish television subtitles vsprinted translations (1997b)studies the translation of idioms by comparing the printed translation and subtitled movie of the same originalgottlieb finds that the renderings of idioms in movies and books show the same statistical pattern in terms of quality, and in both media, more than three quarters of the solutions are correspondent， with renderings of mediocre and poor quality covering approximately 16 and 6 percent of the material respectivelybut deletive strategies are found 11 times more often in the subtitle than in the printed translation， which is no surprise it is also a good evidence to prove that reduction is a most remarkable feature of film subtitling subtitles and international anglification(2004)discusses the present film screen 6 subtitle translation practices and their feature language-political implications subtitling against the current：a danish concept english minds(2005)investigates which translation strategies should be used in anglophone subtitle translation of danish localism besides henric gottlieb，professor yves gambier from university of turku (finland)is also a outstanding scholar focuses on the research of audio-visual translationhe is one of the established experts in media languageapart from many remarkable articles ， his bibliographic work transferts linguistiques et audiovisual(1993)and his organizational impact communication audiovisuelle et transferts linguistiques(1995)，language and the media(1996)，multimedia and translation(1 997)have changed the international research landscapehe also collected many papers for movie translation 2.2 domestic research the earliest subtitle translation in china can be dated back to 1920s. the film lotus girl (莲花女), translated by chen shuren, published by shanghai peacock movie company in 1922, is the first foreign film with the chinese subtitle(/print.php?articleid=1119). then in late time of 1920s, the foreign film with the chinese subtitle became the mainstream of the film translation. but the bloom time of the subtitle translation is after the reform and opening-up, especially last decade. in professor ma zhengqi( 麻 争 旗 )s book scenario translation dubbing(2005)indicates that the film translation work in new china can be traced back to the year of 1958the first remarkable film translation is on may 8th，1958. beijing tv stationpredecessor of china central television(cctv)broadcasted a congratulation letter from germany to celebrate international labor day and trial broadcasting of chinas first tv stationhowever, the real tv translated version appears at the end of 1970sthe development of film and tv subtitle translation in china can be divided into three periods stage one-preliminary period from the end of 1970s to the beginning of 1980s 7 after breaking down of the “gang of four, the culture and art began to revival. watching television became a popular in peoples leisure timecctv began to import foreign programs and foreign films to enrich peoples life some foreign programs, such as foreign art，around the world, and animal word were representative which is popular in whole china in the earl period of translated worksin terms of movies and tv series，french film red and black american tv series the people from the bottom of atlantic ocean were extremely popular at that time stage two-developing period from the middle of 1980s to the middle of 1990s with the china reform and open-up，the international communication was becoming more and more，the direct impact is the great development of tv industrythe most remarkable progress was that some competent local tv station began to import foreign tv plays and movies，established their own team of translationat that time，as chinese tv program could not meet audiences requirement， many foreign tv plays became very popular in 1987， cctv established international department，which specialized in import，translation and broadcasting of excellent foreign programsfrom 1985 to 1992，cctv broadcast 200-300 hour translated program annually,3-5 hours per week，in 1996，we imported over 3000 foreign programs stage three-blossom period from 1 990s to present in the late 1990s， there already have been more than 400 translated films in 2002， translated films accounted for 1 0of the all programs in cctvand now there are many specific programs and channels focusing on foreign movies like cctv 6 and other local television stationsbut most of the translated films are dubbingonly in recent years，more and more original foreign movies with chinese subtitle become increasingly popular nowadays, in china, there are some official professional agencies which gets involve in subtitle translation. for example: shanghai film studio, changchun film studio, august first film studio, beijing film studio, international department of 8 cctv and etc. while in recent years, shanghai film studio and changchun film studio translated many great films which are popular with people, such as the series of harry potter, the series of sherk, the series of spiderman, mr. and mrs. smith, fantastic four etc. some unofficial subtitle translation groups strongly attract our eyes in recent years. they all have great enthusiasm to the foreign movie and tv plays. depending on their passion, they do the subtitle translation in free. so their works cant get a good quality sometimes. from the above, it is assumed that the study of film subtitle translation in our country is far behind that in western countries and that there is a great contradiction between the backward state of the study of film subtitle translation. on the one hand， a great number of imported foreign films are popular with a lot of young people. on the other hand, it also can be concluded that the key issue to the successful introduction of foreign films is on the successful study and practice of film translation，especially the translation of film subtitleas a first task，there is an urgent need for theoretical study on subtitle translationit should move away from the traditional practice of neglecting theoretical study in film translation and adopt proper theories the deficiency of the previous subtitle translation in china although the subtitle translation develops fast in china, but there are still some limitations. subtitle translation is not paid much attention in a long time. professor qian shaochang pointed out that: “ the number of audiences of translated foreign film far exceeds the number the readers of translated literary works, but in opposite, the attention paid to the subtitle translation is more less than that in literary translation”.(2000,61) the history of subtitle translation is rather short than the mainstream literary translation. so subtitle translation does not get enough attention widely. and the subtitle translator only made much on translation pract