（英语语言文学专业论文）语境分析在影视作品语际字幕翻译中的应用研究.pdf

iii 摘要摘要 随着外国影视作品在外语学习和跨文化交流中的重要性的增加，人们对影视 作品的语际字幕翻译的质量提出了更高的要求。本文以哈提姆和麦森的“三维语 境”为理论基础，试从语境分析角度研究影视作品的语际字幕翻译，希冀能为这 块新兴的研究领域尽绵薄之力。 论文由导言，四个主要章节和结论六部分组成。在导言中，作者介绍了本论 文的研究目的，范围，理论基础，研究方法和结构。第一章详细介绍了语际字幕 翻译，并对中国现阶段影视作品语际字幕翻译的研究做了简要的文献综述。第二 章提供了论文的理论框架，从交流维度，语用维度，符号维度三方面介绍了语境。 在第二章的基础上，第三章详细分析了影视作品语际字幕翻译中的语境因素及其 对语际字幕翻译的影响。第四章通过个案分析说明语境分析在字幕翻译实践中的 应用。最后，作者在结论部分总结了论文的主要观点，指出了该论文的局限性和 未来可能的研究领域。 通过研究， 作者认为影视作品的语际字幕翻译有丰富的语境信息， 这些信息 在给字幕翻译提供帮助的同时也提出了挑战。语际字幕翻译中语境因素的分析对 译者在翻译过程中的决策及字幕翻译质量的提高都有很大帮助。 关键字：关键字： 语际字幕翻译，语境，交际语境，语用语境，符号语境。 ii abstract the increasing importance of foreign films and tv series in language learning and intercultural communication imposes higher quality standard on interlingual subtitling. this thesis, adopting “three dimensions of context” proposed by hatim and mason as theoretical basis, carries out a tentative research on the application of context analysis in english-chinese interlingual subtitling for films and tv series, hoping to make its part of contribution to this new and intriguing field. this thesis is made up of six parts: an introduction, four chapters and a conclusion. the introduction elaborates the purpose, scope, theory, methodology and organization of this thesis. chapter one gives a detailed introduction to interlingual subtitling, and a brief review of past studies on interlingual subtitling for films and tv series is made. chapter two provides the theoretical framework of this thesis and the communicative dimension, pragmatic dimension and semiotic dimension of context are introduced respectively. chapter three presents a detailed analysis of the contextual factors in and their influences on interlingual subtitling for films and tv series. chapter four applies contextual analysis in a case study to show how it may help in the practice of subtitling. finally, the author summarizes the main findings and limitations of the thesis as well as possible fields for future study in the conclusion. through research the author finds that interlingual subtitling for films and tv series is faced with ample contextual information, which presents both aids and challenges. the analysis of contextual factors can help subtitlers in decision-making in the process of subtitling and in improving the overall quality of the translated subtitles. key words: interlingual subtitling, context, communicative dimension, pragmatic dimension, semiotic dimension iv list of tables and figures table 1.1: the number of thesis on interlingual subtitling collected in cdetd.21 table 1.2: theories concerned in these theses in cdetd.21 figure 2.1: three dimensions of context.29 figure 2.2 user-use related variation30 figure 3.1 the context of subtitling for films and tv series37 figure 3.2 mode of discourse46 1 附件四附件四 上海交通大学上海交通大学 学位论文原创性声明学位论文原创性声明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的学位论文，是本人在导师的指导下， 独立进行研究工作所取得的成果。除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本 论文不包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的作品成果。 对本 文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。 本人完全意识到本声明的法律结果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名：孙娜孙娜 日期： 2006 年 12 月 30 日 2 附件五附件五 上海交通大学上海交通大学 学位论文版权使用授权书学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定， 同意学校保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版， 允许论文被查阅和借阅。 本人授权上海交通大学可以将本学位论文的 全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫 描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。 保密保密，在 年解密后适用本授权书。 本学位论文属于 不保密 不保密。 （请在以上方框内打“”） 学位论文作者签名： 孙娜孙娜 指导教师签名：胡开宝 胡开宝 日期： 2006 年 12 月 30 日 日期： 2006 年 12 月 30 日 1 introduction 0.1 purpose of the thesis the world today is characterized by globalization, inter-cultural communication, and boom of economic and technological development. with the “opening-up policy” and chinas entrance into wto, communication between china and other countries increases greatly. the obvious evidence of this is the fact that more and more foreign films and tv series are imported each year for chinese audience. the development of the internet and free downloaded tools also contribute to the spread of foreign films and tv series. thus there is a great need for interlingual subtitling, or subtitle translation. the importance of interlingual subtitling in todays society has been realized by many researchers, and a lot of studies have been made to account for the nature of subtitling. the special characteristics and constraints of subtitling have been pointed out. principles guiding subtitling have been summarized by subtitlers according to their experience of subtitling. theoretical application has been made to better analyze the problem. all these studies and researches have enabled us to better understand subtitling and to improve its quality in practice. however, the literature review of the current studies of interlingual subtitling in china also reveals that the attention that it has received does not do justice to its importance. more in-depth researches are needed. it should be noted that of all these studies and researches the importance of context, which attracts many translation theorists attention in other fields of translation studies, has been overlooked to some extent in subtitling. no comprehensive analysis of the context of subtitling is made. when context is mentioned, it is not dealt with in detail. context, however, is the underlying factor for the special characteristics of subtitling and is the crucial factor guiding the subtitle translators decision-making. the present thesis, focusing on english-chinese interlingual subtitling for films and tv series, makes a tentative research on the context of subtitling. the research is made for the following purposes: 1) to provide a detailed analysis of the characteristics of 2 context of subtitling; 2) to illustrate how context predetermines the special features of subtitling as a kind of translation; 3) to see how context analysis may help to solve some of the problems and improve the quality of subtitling. 0.2 scope of study, theory, methodology and data of this thesis the context of subtitling is too complex and wide a topic for a short thesis like this, so before a brief introduction of this thesis, some qualifications have to be made. 1. scope of study: subtitling is too wide a term. this thesis will be confined to the discussion of english-chinese interlingual subtitling for films and tv series, though the general term subtitling will be used for convenience. except in chapter one, the subtitling mentioned in this thesis only refers to subtitling of this kind. 2. theories applied: the concept of “context” has not been unanimously defined. hatim and mason, in discourse and translator, discuss context from three dimensions. the context in this thesis is based on hatim and masons model, and will be discussed from communicative, pragmatic and semiotic dimensions. 3. methodologies: the three dimensions of context in subtitling will be analyzed in detail, and examples are provided for better illustration. a case study is also provided to test its applicability 4. data: the examples in this thesis come from two sources: 1) selected lines from films and tv series with chinese translations in some publications; 2) the dialogues and subtitles of some examples are transcribed from dvd or on-line versions of the films and tv series. 0.3 organization of this thesis: this thesis consists of 6 parts, an introduction, four chapters and a conclusion. chapter one is a general introduction to the topic of this thesis. first, it discusses the change of the concept of translation and the general development and trend of translation studies up to now. then in accordance with the functional/communicative approach stemmed in germany in the 1970s which considers translation as an act of intercultural communication, the author argues that subtitling is a special kind of 3 translation. the special characteristics of subtitling are introduced, and the importance of subtitling is explained. a literature review of current studies on subtitling is also presented. the literature review reveals that detailed study on contextual factors of subtitling has never been conducted, and thus the author makes a tentative research on it. chapter two provides the theoretical basis for the thesis. the different definitions of context are introduced. the three dimensions of context, which are adopted as the theoretical basis of this thesis, are introduced in detail. chapter three provides a detailed analysis of the contextual factors in subtitling. the three dimensions of context of subtitling are examined carefully. the influence and importance of each contextual factor is explained, with examples provided to illustrate the point. from the analysis, it is found that subtitling for films and tv series is faced with ample contextual information, which presents both challenges and aids to subtitling. chapter four is a case study. through the analysis of the case, the author shows how context analysis may help the subtitler in subtitling, for example, in decision-making or in assessing the qualities of subtitles. in the conclusion, the author summarizes the main findings and limitations of this thesis, and points out possible fields for future study. 4 chapter one interlingual subtitling: a special kind of translation 1.1 translation and translation studies 1.1.1 what is translation? translation as a practice has a long history, maybe as long as the tower of babel, beginning from the time when god, fearing the power of a unified human being, confuses the language system and makes translation inherent in human communication. however, what is this that we call translation? in the broad sense, translation is related to any kind of communication, according to george steiner, “when we read or hear any language from the past, or when we receive as human beings any message from any other human being, we perform an act of translation” (hatim xiii). when jeremy munday talks about the concept of translation in his book introducing translation studies, he comments, “the term translation itself has several meanings: it can refer to the general subject field, the product (the text that has been translated) or the process (the act of producing the translation, otherwise known as translating)” (4-5). russian-born american structuralist roman jakobson divides translation into three areas, namely “intralingual translation, a rewording of signs in one language with signs from the same language; interlingual translation, or the interpretation of signs in one language with signs from another language (translation “proper”); and intersemiotic translation, or the transfer (“transmutation”) of the signs in one language to non-verbal sign systems (from language into art or music)” (gentzler 1). in translation studies, what jacobson calls “translation proper” is the most widely discussed. at “the international conference on translation and interdisciplinary studies” held in shanghai jiao tong university on may 12, 2006, professor wang rongpei from suzhou university called on the researchers on translation studies to pay attention to the definition of “translation proper”. however, even if the scope of discussion is narrowed down to “translation proper” of jacobson, the task of defining does not become any easier. 5 various attempts have been made to arrive at a definition, but no consensus has been reached up to now. each definition only seems to approach the problem in one aspect and fails to provide an overall picture. catford defines translation as “the replacement of textual material in one language (sl) by equivalent textual material in another language (tl)” (20), and considers the central problem of translation as finding tl translation equivalents. newmark, in the introduction part of his work a textbook of translation, says, “what is translation? often, though not by any means always, it is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text” (5). fully aware of the inadequacy of his definition, newmark devotes more than five pages to explain it, saying that translation is firstly a science, but also a skill, an art, a matter of taste, etc. justa holz-mnttri defines translation as “a complex action designed to achieve a particular purpose” (nord 13). she holds that the aim of translation is to “transfer messages across culture and language barriers by means of message transmitters produced by experts” (ibid). hatim and mason, adopting a communicative approach, claims that the central concern of their work discourse and the translator is to consider “translating as a communicative process which takes place within a social context” (3). finally, with the participation of deconstructionists in translation studies, the study of translation resists systems of categorization of any kind, since any one of them will exclude the possibility of other equally reasonable ones. translation under the context of deconstruction, as gentzler puts it, “offers, as near as may be approached, a mode of differing/deferring that subverts modes of traditional metaphysical thinking that have historically dominated assumptions about translation specifically as well as philosophy in general” (147). after numerous attempts in defining translation, what the theorists agree on is that translation is much too complex, maybe too complex to be defined. i. a. richards claims it to be the most complex type of event in the history of the cosmos. in “general editors preface” to hatim and masons work in language in social life series that he 6 edited, candlin writes: it translation sets us a problem. it asks us to explore our ideologically and culturally based assumptions about all those matters on which we utter, in speech or in writing, or in signs. it tests our communicative competence, both linguistic and cognitive, to the utmost, and most intimately, it requires us to cooperate with our fellow communicators in coming to our understanding. (ix) he considers the description of translation “a tall order for a library, let alone a book” (x). therefore, a short thesis here will not venture to give any kind generalization, and just stop at a general understanding of the complex nature of translation. 1.1.2 major trends and theories of translation studies although the practice of translation boasts a long history, the study of translation has not been recognized and accepted as an independent academic subject until the 1980s, with the publication of james s. holmes “the name and nature of translation studies”. generally speaking, translation studies are characterized by plurality of approaches, widely differing methodologies, overabundance of terminologies and linguistic jargons. before the recognition of translation studies as an independent discipline, research on translation has been carried out for a long time. the debate of literal (word for word) versus free translation has dominated the studies of translation for a long time. the superiority of an original text to which the translator must be faithful as a slave is faithful to its owner was taken granted by many scholars of the day. this is not surprising because most of the materials translated at that time were religious texts, in which every word is holy and any violation is unforgivable. therefore it is also not surprising that translators are of a secondary status. after the century-long debate over literal and free translation, the new prominent debate of meaning and equivalence has dominated translation studies for many decades beginning from the 1950s. roman jakobson takes linguistic meaning and equivalence as the key issues of interlingual translation. translation, according to jakobsons description, is to find “equivalent message” in the target language of the source text. 7 he said, “translation involves two equivalent messages in two different codes” (qtd. in munday 37). equivalence is also a key term for catford, for he declares that “the central problem of translation-practice is that of finding tl translation equivalents” (catford 21) and the “central task of translation theory is that of defining the nature and conditions of translation equivalence” (21). translation, in nidas definition, is to seek the maximum equivalence between the two languages, either it be formal or functional. what he attempts to do is “to move translation (bible translation in his case) into a more scientific era by incorporating recent work in linguistics” (munday 38), and his discussion of formal and dynamic equivalence seems to give the debate over meaning and equivalence a happy ending. the 1970s and 1980s saw a move away from the static linguistic typologies toward a functional and communicative approach of translation, researchers from which group “broadly represent a view which refuses to divorce the act of translating from its context, insisting upon the real-world situational factors which are prime determinants of meaning and interpretation of meaning” (baker 29). hans j. vermeer takes the lead in this approach with his skopostheorie (a theory of purposeful action). according to him, skopos or aim or purpose of translation is a decisive factor in determining the method and technique of translation. it is clear that under skopostheorie, “the st is dethroned and translation is judged not by equivalence of meaning but by its adequacy to the functional goal of the tt situation as defined by the commission” (munday 87). following vermeer come justa holz-mnttri and her theory of translational action. for holz-mnttri, translation is a complex action, and translational action, as she puts it, “is the process of producing a message transmi