Subtitles Translation Of Film Hero: A Perspective Of Context Adaptation Theory

As a special translation mode, subtitles translation is playing a more and more important and indispensable role in both the practice of translation and intercultural communication. The principles and theories of subtitles translation have been developed in many European countries because of the peculiarities of their own languages. The previous research mainly focused on time and space constraints, its relevance to multimedia translation, strategies adopted, quality control and standardizations. But in China, since the current linguistic and intercultural communication theories have scarcely been used in subtitles translation, the studies on subtitles translation for Chinese movies have relatively lagged behind other countries. Therefore, it is necessary for us to explore the profound significance of subtitles translation of Chinese films from a new perspective.According to Jef Verschueren, language use is a process of continuous choice making at different degrees of salience. The possibility of choice making lies in the three properties of language: variability, negotiability and adaptability. The theory of adaptation advanced by Verschueren can describe and explain the language use from four angles of pragmatic investigation: contextual correlates of adaptability, structural objects of adaptability, dynamics of adaptability and salience of adaptation processes. Subtitles translation is a special form of language use, a cross-cultural communication, and a dynamic process of making adaptation with regard to linguistic structure and context at various levels of salience, which therefore can be approached by Verschueren's theory of adaptation.The originality of the present research is its inquiry into subtitles translation of Chinese films in the light of the Theory of Adaptation and its exploration of the dynamic context adaptation in film subtitles translation from a pragmatic perspective.This paper first makes an introduction to the research background, research objectives, research methodology and thesis structure. Then, it reviews the theoretical foundation: an overview of subtitles translation, Vershueren's theory of adaptation and the classification of context. Next, the paper recapitulates the applicability of context adaptation theory in film subtitles translation, and fully investigates dynamic adaptations to the communicative context and linguistic context between English and Chinese. In the end, the paper tentatively summarizes some subtitling strategies from the perspective of context adaptation theory by analyzing the subtitles translation of film, Hero.Through the above analysis, the paper comes to a conclusion that the theory of adaptation develops a theoretical framework for subtitles translation. It is helpful for us to understand the nature of subtitles translation, and sum up the relevant subtitling strategies.