Audiovisual Translation As A Norm-governed Activity

This thesis is an attempted study on the norm theory and its guidance to the activity of audiovisual translation. The normative approach to translation studies is an important one to start descriptive translation studies. By the application of and the description to translation norms, the approach intends to provide a way to construct the theoretical system of translation studies and to guide the whole process of translation as well as translation related activities, trying to bring together the study of translation theory and practice and making translation studies a systematic and empirical discipline.Israeli scholars Itamar Even-Zohar and Gideon Toury have made great contribution in the field of descriptive translation studies. Itamar Even-Zohar put forward the polysystem theory in 1970s which sees translated literature as a system operating in the larger social, literary and historical systems of the target culture. Gideon Toury stresses that the norms are a category of descriptive analysis and not a prescriptive set of options. His descriptive translation studies aims at ascertaining these norms and their influence on translation activities and translators' choices of translation strategies. Andrew Chesterman's discussion covers social, ethical and technical norms of translation. After them many scholars like Theo Hermans and Vilen Komissarov also have discussed the norm theory and have great influence on the translation studies.Audiovisual translation as a subfield of translation studies includes subtitling and dubbing. The special constraints and requirements in the audiovisual translation make it different from the other types of translation. The subtitling translation is confined with time and space in the screen; and in the dubbing, the translated speech has to be coherent with the movements of lips. And the translated subtitles and speeches will not stay or last for a long time during the program is going on, so there is no chance for the audience to read the subtitles or hear the dialogues again if they don't catch it.As more and more films and TV programs have been imported and exported, there will be more and more cultural communication between China and other countries. Consequently, as an important way of cultural and social communication, audiovisual translation plays a significant role. However, the audiovisual translation research in China is not as systematic as that in foreign countries, especially in European countries. Since there will be more audiovisual products to be translated between English and Chinese languages, a theoretical system needs to be established in China in order to make the communication profound and effective.