Film Translation In The Postcolonial Context

Compared with literary translation, there is an obvious discrepancy between the importance of film translation and the limited attention it has so far received, but film translation has far more viewers than that of literary translation. Sino-U.S. film communication has accelerated especially since China's entry into WTO, and this makes film translation study more and more urgent. But little scholarly attention, however, has been paid to this new area. This is probably because scholars of social sciences tend to select their study topic on the basis of cultural prestige rather than the real need of society. In fact, film translation is an important study area, whose significance is being accepted by more and more scholars and translation practitioners.Current film translation study in China is still not satisfying. Few books on film translation are available, and it is only referred to in some chapters. Compared with the research at the end of 20th century, though the researchers dig deeper, most of the researches are still confined to researchers'translation experience, theoretical studies being not enough. Film translation studies started much later than literary translation, the focus of which has shifted from the internal research to external research after the"Cultural Turn"in Translation Studies. If we use the same criteria of distinguishing internal and external research to study film translation, it's easy to conclude that the current film translation studies still belong to internal research. In this kind of research, little importance is attached to the social and historical factors behind film translation, and film translation is regarded as a process without the involvement of power differentials.Thus this thesis takes postcolonial theories as the theoretical basis, analyzing Sino-U.S. film translation after China's entry into WTO. The first chapter is the introduction to this thesis, dwelling on the reasons why the author chooses this topic, and the organization of this thesis. In the second chapter, the author talks about the studies of traditional film translation and analyze its problems, pointing out that external researches are scarcely done so far. Taking into consideration the Cultural Turn in Translation Studies, the author proposes to study film translation in the postcolonial context. The third chapter touches upon the postcolonial theory and at the end of this chapter, the author introduces three giants in postcolonial studies, namely Edward Said,Gayatri Spivak and HomiBhabha. The fourth chapter is the most important one of this thesis which is composed of four sections, with the first one dealing with the investigation into Sino-U.S. film communication after China's entry into WTO, the second one with the choice of films to translate in the postcolonial context, the third one with the translation strategies, and the last one with the effects of film translation as a positive force of decolonization. The last chapter is the conclusion of this thesis...