（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）影视字幕汉译研究——以《阿凡达》为例.pdf

v 摘 要 本文旨在为英汉电影字幕翻译实践做出正确的指导。这项研究具有深远的意义。音 像制品是大众媒体传播的重要手段，并且广泛影响着人们的生活。本世纪以来文化交流 比以往任何时候都更加频繁，音像制品的字幕翻译在国际交流中也占据日益重要的地 位。但是在我国，字幕翻译的质量却不尽如人意，英汉电影字幕翻译急需规则指导。作 者在 gottlieb 字幕翻译策略的基础上找到适合英汉字幕翻译的策略，同时提出对字幕翻 译实践步骤的建议。 希望这些策略和建议能在翻译实践过程中对字幕翻译工作者们有所 帮助。 本文采用了实证调查的研究方法，通过对电影阿凡达大陆字幕译本和台湾字幕 译本的对比， 做出调查问卷， 试图找出较好的译本。 作者引用了丹麦字幕翻译学家 henrik gottlieb 有关字幕翻译策略的论述为理论基础，并根据汉语自身特点分析，指出其中不 适用于英汉字幕翻译的部分。 之后， 结合 阿凡达 字幕对比， 通过实例论证， 对 gottlieb 翻译策略加以改写和补充。同时，作者引用了欧洲字幕翻译学家 mary carroll 和 jan ivarsson 共同制定，并受到欧洲影视翻译协会认可的“成功字幕翻译实践守则”。该守 则由于研究地域、文化、语言差异，带有自身的局限性，并且太过笼统，并未对字幕翻 译实践中所遇到的不同情况如何应对做出相应的回答。作者在此守则基础上，结合阿 凡达字幕分析，对英汉字幕翻译实践给出了更加详尽的建议。 本文共分为五部分。第一章作为文章的导论，介绍了研究的背景、范围、结构、方 法以及意义。字幕翻译研究作为翻译研究的一个分支，一直以来在国内并未受到重视。 虽然近两年有越来越多的学者对该领域加以关注， 字幕翻译研究在国内并未形成自己的 理论体系。本文的研究也只局限于英汉字幕翻译实践，对于国际上视听翻译领域所热门 的配音与字幕翻译的差异、听力障碍人群对于字幕的接受等热门议题只有介绍，并未 涉及。通过对阿凡达对比字幕的分析，作者试图找出适合英汉语字幕翻译的策略， 并进一步制定出对英汉字幕翻译实践的规范。 第二章文献综述共分两个部分。第一部分作者首先介绍了电影字幕，然后分别回顾 了西方和中国各自的电影字幕发展历程。西方电影字幕的发展自 1903 年起，已经历了 vi 超过一个世纪的漫长历程。 而中国对西方电影字幕技术的引进和应用也发生在上世纪 10 年代。 作者在第一部分最后说明了字幕和配音的区别， 以及关于它们各自优缺点的争议。 本章的第二部分是对字幕翻译研究的介绍。 作者详细列举了学者们对字幕翻译的定义和 分类，以及字幕的特点和限制因素。并对于国内外字幕翻译研究成果进行了回顾。 第三章理论框架中，作者引入了丹麦字幕翻译学家 henrik gottlieb 有关字幕翻译策 略的论述， 以及欧洲字幕翻译学家 mary carroll 和 jan ivarsson 共同制定的 “成功字幕翻 译实践守则”。gottlieb 的翻译策略共分十项，其中有三项并不适用于英汉字幕翻译， 另外七项中有四项近似可以总结成一项。 而 carroll 与 ivarsson 的守则过于笼统， 并且侧 重于技术层面，并未对翻译实践中的具体情况做出具体要求。对于引用理论中的局限性 和不足之处，作者会在第四章通过实例分析加以补充和改正使之适用于英汉字幕翻译。 第四章是对字幕分析进行理论论证。本章共分为三部分。第一部分是对于问卷调查 的具体说明，证实了该调查结果的真实可靠。在第二部分中，作者去除了 gottlieb 翻译 策略中不适合英汉翻译的策略，并将近似策略合并，在此基础上，通过阿凡达字幕 大陆译本和台湾译本举例的对比分析，结合问卷调查结果，证实策略的正确运用受到了 观众的肯定。作者在第三部分试着提出了对英汉字幕翻译实践的建议，以期对译者的字 幕翻译实践具有一定的指导意义。 最后一章总结了本文的研究发现和对于今后研究的一些建议。 关键词关键词：英汉字幕翻译，字幕翻译策略，字幕翻译实践步骤建议，阿凡达字幕 i abstract this research aims at making a proper guidance to english-chinese film subtitle translation practice. this aspect of study has profound meaning. audiovisual products as a popular means of mass media have great influence on peoples lives. as the communication of cultures continue in the most rapid pace than ever before in this century, the audiovisual subtitle translation is playing a more and more important part in international communication. yet the quality of subtitles in our country is far more from satisfying. there is an urgent need for some guidance on english-chinese subtitling. in this thesis, by adopting gottliebs tightrope translation strategies and the code of good subtitling practice, the author intends to find proper english-chinese subtitle strategies based on gottliebs subtitle translation theory and will try to establish suggestions of steps for english-chinese subtitle translation practice. hopefully, subtitlers will find the proposal of translation strategies and suggestions of steps helpful in their translation practice. this thesis adopts positive study, illustration analysis and induction research methodology. through the comparison of subtitle translation of film avatar between the mainland china and taiwan subtitles, a questionnaire has been designed for respondents to select a better version between the two. the author uses danish screen translation expert henrik gottliebs tightrope translation strategies as the theoretical foundation and at the same time points out that these strategies are not all applicable to english-chinese subtitle translation. after the analysis of two subtitle versions of avatar, the author will rewrite gottliebs translation strategies and make some adjustments. meanwhile, the author adopts the theory of code of good subtitling practice as well. it was proposed by european scholars mary carroll and jan ivarsson and approved by european association for studies in screen ii translation. due to the geographic, cultural and lingual differences, this code is limited to the subtitle translation between english and european languages. besides, it is too general. for the various situations that a subtitler could encounter in translation process, the author intends to propose suggestions of steps for english-chinese subtitle translation through analysis of avatar subtitle. there are five chapters in this thesis. chapter one, as an introduction, writes about the research background, scope, organization, methodology and purpose. subtitling translation as a branch of translation studies has not drawn enough attention in our country. this thesis will only focus on english-chinese subtitle translation. for the popular topics in international audio-visual translation study field today, for example, differences between dubbing and subtitling, the acceptance of film subtitles by hard of hearing audience etc., the thesis will only present them but with no further discussion. through the analysis of avatar subtitle, the author tries to find proper strategies for english-chinese subtitle translation and proposes suggestions of steps for english-chinese subtitle translation practice. chapter two is literature review. it is divided into two sections. in the first section, the author presents the developing process of both western and chinese film subtitling. there has been over a century since the invention of the first film subtitle in western world. the import of western film subtitle technology in china started, in shanghai in 1910s. then differences between dubbing versus subtitling and arguments about each of their advantages and disadvantages are shown in the end of the first section. the second section is the introduction to subtitling studies. the author lists scholars definition and classification of film subtitling as well as its features and constrains. studies in this field both at home and abroad are also reviewed. in the third chapter, theoretical framework, tightrope subtitle translation strategies and code of good subtitling practice are discussed. in gottliebs ten strategies, there are four of iii them that cannot apply to english-chinese subtitle translation. as for the other seven strategies, three of them are very much the same that can be categorized into different situations in one strategy. the code is too general and does not provide very proper solution for the various situations that a subtitler could encounter in translation. the author makes corrections and complements for the limitations and inadequacies in these theories in order to adjust them for english-chinese subtitling practice in the next chapter. chapter four is the theoretical demonstration through subtitle analysis. there are three sections. section one is the explanation of the questionnaire, which has been proved to be authentic and reliable. in section two, the author removes the inadaptable strategies from gottliebs theory and makes adjustments to others. these strategies are then demonstrated by comparative analysis of the mainland and taiwan subtitles of avatar using the questionnaire results. the author proposes suggestions of steps for english-chinese subtitle translation practice in the third section. these suggestions of steps will provide subtitlers some guidance in future translation. the last chapter summarizes findings and limitations in this research and makes recommendations for the further study. key words: english-chinese subtitle translation, subtitle translation strategies, subtitle translation practice suggestions of steps, avatar subtitle 关于学位论文独创声明和学术诚信承诺 本人向河南大学提出硕士学位申请。本人郑重声明：所呈交的学位论文是本人在导 师的指导下独立完成的， 对所研究的课题有新的见解。 据我所知， 除文中特别加以说明、 标注和致谢的地方外，论文中不包括其他人已经发表或撰写过的研究成果，也不包括其 他人为获得任何教育、科研机构的学位或证书而使用过的材料。与我一同工作的同事对 本研究所做的任何贡献均已在论文中作了明确的说明并表示了谢意。 在此本人郑重承诺：所呈交的学位论文不存在舞弊作伪行为，文责自负。 学位申请人（学位论文作者）签名： 201 年 月 日 关于学位论文著作权使用授权书 本人经河南大学审核批准授予硕士学位。作为学位论文的作者，本人完全了解并同 意河南大学有关保留、使用学位论文的要求，即河南大学有权向国家图书馆、科研信息 机构、数据收集机构和本校图书馆等提供学位论文（纸质文本和电子文本）以供公众检 索、查阅。本人授权河南大学出于宣扬、展览学校学术发展和进行学术交流等目的，可 以采取影印、 缩印、 扫描和拷贝等复制手段保存、 汇编学位论文 （纸质文本和电子文本） 。 （涉及保密内容的学位论文在解密后适用本授权书） 学位获得者（学位论文作者）签名： 201 年 月 日 学位论文指导教师签名： 201 年 月 日 a study of film subtitle translation from english into chineseexemplified by avantar 10 chapter one introduction 1.1 research background with the convenience of the internet, the world became a much smaller place, even small enough to the point where almost everything is reduced to nothing more than a few clicks. however, even with such developments, there are just some obstacles that are bound to remain. of these obstacles, the one that continues to separate people the most is language barrier. we all say that translation is the bridge that we have to cross when trying to communicate with a different culture. it is unquestionable how important a role that translation has played in the process of human civilization and communication. though translation has not been studied as a science for a very long time, it was already developed its own systematical theories. film subtitle translation, as a branch in audio-visual translation, is relatively new in the field of translation study, especially in our country. subtitle translation is one of the basic methods of bridging the gap in language differences. films are translated using reader-specific language subtitles. it allows the same film to become localized and readily comprehensible. through subtitle translation, the same film can be shown in multiple languages, thereby reaching a larger range of targets. good subtitles can enhance the audiences experience of appreciating foreign films and make the culture communication more effective. this thesis conducts a survey on last years film avatars subtitles and tries to find the successful subtitle translation strategies used in this film. moreover, endeavors will be made to establish suggestions of steps for english- chinese subtitle translation practice. chapter one introduction 11 1.2 scope of research this thesis is intended to explore the english-chinese translation of subtitling by adopting two different versions of avatar chinese subtitles. film subtitle translation is a branch of audio-visual translation. nevertheless it has its own distinctive features from tv shows and tv series. as for this thesis, we will only focus on the film subtitle translation. there are mainly two types of translation: interlingual and intralingual, which is determined by whether it is consistent between the source language and the target language. as for this thesis, the focus will be specifically on the interlingual translationenglish to chinese film subtitle translation. film translation has taken two forms: dubbing and subtitling. dubbing has more constrains and more work to do than subtitling because of the synching and tone issues. we will discuss the differences between dubbing and subtitling later in the next chapter. as for the thesis, subtitling will be our only focus. a questionnaire is designed based on two different subtitle versions of avatar to find out which translation of the picked sentence in either two versions is better received than the other. 1.3 methodology of the research the author intends to use three research methods in this thesis: positive study, illustration analysis and induction. first of all, a questionnaire will be designed to compare the two versions of avatar subtitles. the questionnaire will be carefully designed and conducted to ensure the reliability of the results. it will later be used to demonstrate the success of translation strategies adopted in avatar subtitle. this is the positive study. afterwards examples in both the mainland and taiwan avatar subtitles will be analyzed to find the translation strategies that have been used in them. after the illustration analysis, rules about english-chinese translation can be discovered and will be summed up into suggestions of a study of film subtitle translation from english into chineseexemplified by avantar 12 steps for english-chinese subtitle translation. that is where induction is used. 1.4 significance of the research this research aims at finding a better solution for english-chinese film subtitle translation. this aspect of study has profound meaning. in our society today, audiovisual products can be seen everywhere around the world as a popular means of mass media whether from the internet or on the screen. as the communication of cultures continue in the most rapid pace than ever before in this century, the audiovisual subtitle translation is playing a more and more important part. yet the quality of subtitles in our country is far more from satisfying. there is an urgent need for some suggestions of steps of english-chinese subtitling. in europe, studies in this field started at late 1950s. the range of study in multimedia translation has widened from subtitle translation, screen translation to audio-visual translation today. in this thesis, by adopting gottliebs tightrope translation strategies and the code of good subtitling practice, the author intends to find proper english-chinese subtitle strategies based on gottliebs subtitle translation theory and will try to establish suggestions of steps for english-chinese subtitle translation practice. through the guidance of translation strategies and suggestions of steps, subtitlers will do their work better accordingly. film market will be no longer filled with various versions of poorly subtitled films that can only confuse the audience. 1.5 research organization this thesis consists of five chapters. the first chapter will introduce the background, scope, organization and methodology of the research as well as its significance. chapter two is literature review. it is divided into two sections. in the first section, the author presents the developing process of both western and chinese film subtitling. then differences between chapter one introduction 13 dubbing versus subtitling and arguments about each of their advantages and disadvantages are shown in the end of the first section. the second section is the introduction to subtitling studies. the author will list scholars definition and classification of film subtitling, followed by its features and constrains. studies in this field both at home and abroad are also reviewed in this section. the theoretical framework will be presented in the third chapter, which includes henrik gottliebs tightrope subtitle translation theory and code of good subtitling practice. chapter four is the theoretical demonstration through subtitle analysis. there are three sections. section one is the explanation of the questionnaire, which is proved to be authentic and reliable. in section two, adjustments will be made on film subtitle translation strategies. these strategies are then demonstrated by a comparative analysis of the mainland and taiwan subtitles of avatar, using the questionnaire results. the author will propose suggestions of steps for english-chinese subtitle translation practice in the third section. the last chapter will summarize this thesis and point out the limitations and recommendations for the further study. 1.6 summary in this chapter, the author introduced the research background, scope, methodology, purpose and organization. subtitling translation as a branch of translation studies has not brought to our attention for a long time. although more and more scholars begin to be interested in this area in recent years, subtitle translation study has not established its own theoretical framework. this thesis will only focus on english-chinese subtitle translation. for the popular topics in international audio-visual translation study field, like differences between dubbing and subtitling, the acceptance of film subtitles by hard of hearing audience etc., this thesis will only present but with no further discussion. through the analysis of avatar subtitle, the author endeavors to find proper strategies for english-chinese subtitle a study of film subtitle translation from english into chineseexemplified by avantar 14 translation and will makes more efforts by proposing suggestions of steps for english-chinese subtitle translation practice. chapter two literature review 15 chapter two literature review 2.1 film subtitling subtitles are textual versions of the dialog in films and television programs, usually displayed at the bottom of the screen. they can either be a form of written translation of a dialog in a foreign language or a written rendering of the dialog in the same language, with or without added information to help viewers who are deaf and hard-of-hearing to follow the dialog, or people who cannot understand the spoken dialogue or who have accent recognition problems. but we will only focus on the film subtitling from english to chinese in this thesis. 2.1.1 western film subtitling history film is a kind of multi-media art, transferring information with visual images and soundtracks. thus, film subtitling translation, with various distinctive features is more complicated than other literary style translations. the year 1895 is worth remembering, for it witnessed the invention of film. in december 1895, the lumiere brothers, louis and auguste, paid public performances of their films (including feeding the baby, the arrival of a train at the station, workers leaving the factory, etc,) in a basement cafe in paris (ellis, 1990:2). not long after the invention of film, people endeavored to convey the dialogues of actors to the viewers. in 1903, for the first time, they inserted into edwin s. porters film, uncle toms cabin, titles that we now call “intertitles” or “insert titles”: texts, drawn or printed on paper, filmed and placed between sequences of the film (ivarsson). at that time, these terms meant something totally different from what they mean today. an “intertitle” or “insert title” was a replacement shot for a part of a film that contained