The Application Of Equivalence Theory To English-Chinese Translation Of Films

The popularity of personal computers and the development of the internet bring about a booming market for the film translation. However, as a new form of translation, film translation is still in its stage of exploration, and its practice has not obtained a systematic and theoretical guidance. A lot of wrong translations appear along with the network translation's prosperity. The author tries to find a relatively mature translation theory to guide the work of film translation through the research.This thesis first makes a brief introduction of the history of film and film translation, reviews the studies on film translation in China and abroad, and discusses the feasibility of equivalence theory in the E-C film translation. Then, the thesis analyzes the characteristics of film language through the research of language data from the film series of Harry Potter. Next, the thesis provides a comparison between literary translation and film translation, leading to a conclusion that film translation is a type of hypertext-translation. Subtitling and dubbing are restricted by a series of extra-linguistic factors of constrains. After that, the thesis falls on the comprehensive study of the equivalence at different levels in E-C translation in the light of equivalence theory with detailed data analysis of Harry Potter. This thesis can be seen as an initial attempt to apply Nida's equivalence theory to the film translation.The author of this thesis hopes that this study will contribute to our better understanding and application of Nida's equivalence theory, help promote our film translation studies and improve our film translation practice.