A Tentative Exploration Of E-C Film Translation

It is the communication of film that holds an essential position in China's cultural exchanges with foreign countries, which results in a new translation area --- film translation. Nowadays, more and more foreign films have appeared on the domestic screen with the deepening of China's reform and opening-up. However, film translation has not got enough attention in the field of Chinese translation research. Fewer books and articles have touched this specific area --- English-Chinese (E-C) film translation. Though some theories of E-C film translation have been proposed, the research so far is neither systematic nor comprehensive.In order to fill this gap, this paper is intended to study E-C film translation, adopting Skopostheorie as the theoretical basis and combining the peculiarities of film translation, and tries to establish a new set of principles that can guide the practice. Its focus is only on the study of E-C film translation due to limited space.The paper holds that film can not exist without its audiences because it is an art of popularity. Furthermore, film translation like any action with a purpose must take its main purpose --- to meet the need of the audiences as the final standard; that is, the translated version is not satisfactory without the audiences'reception and appreciation. Therefore, film translators should take into consideration the target language audiences'acceptability and aesthetic expectation, and try to make the translated work acceptable to the Chinese audiences. Meanwhile, the characteristics of film such as possessing dialogue as the primary component, and employing language full of colloquialism accompanied by colorful body language should be given full consideration to and well represented in the target text. In addition, film is not only the carrier of culture, but also an integral part of culture. And the numerous differences between the English culture and the Chinese culture greatly challenge the E-C film translators. Thus, the translators must get knowledge of not only linguistic level but also cultural one, and practice the film translation in a specific socio-cultural context.This paper is altogether composed of six parts. Chapter One introduces the nature and function of film, present domestic situation of E-C film translation study, and the significance of this paper. Chapter Two is a general introduction of film translation, dealing with its research object, definition, characteristics, categories and constraints. Chapter Three introduces Skopostherie, and discusses its inspiration on E-C film translation. Chapter Four addresses in detail the differences of the English culture and the Chinese culture, and their displays in film. Chapter Five attempts to sum up practical strategies for E-C film translation. The last chapter is the summary remark of the whole paper.