| Metonymy is studied and explained from a new angle by the cognitive linguists, who maintain that metonymy is not only a linguistic phenomenon or a figure of speech but also an important cognitive instrument of human beings. Linguistic theories impose a considerable impact on translation theories; unexceptionally, the newly developed cognitive linguistics has been influencing the translation theories and practices, showing its extraordinary explaining power in translation. Cognitive linguistics'interpretation of translation and its understanding on metonymy are able to provide study on translation of metonymy with a new perspective and theoretical foundation. Generally speaking, the translation of metonymy should be oriented on human cognition and experience. Based on translation of texts like literature works, some strategies have been concluded for metonymy translation so far. Current study focuses on translation of metonymy in subtitles inasmuch as films reflect daily life and communicative discourse. A study on metonymy and translation of metonymy in films is an exploration of metonymy in daily communication and cross-cultural communication, keeping to cognitive linguistics'estimation of communication and language use.Subtitles are different from other types of texts due to the technical constraints which constrain subtitling as well. Sharing certain similarities, translation of subtitles is different from that of other texts for the purpose of conciseness. Subtitling allows some free translation, focusing on the transference of pragmatic effects, freeing the translator from individual language items. The cognitive translation strategies of metonymy should reserve the original metonymic model in that language form, in a way, shows people's cognition. A balance should be kept between the freedom offered by subtitling and reservation of the linguistic form demanded by cognitive study in discussing translation strategies of metonymy in subtitles, which are investigated by selecting and classifying metonymies in the English subtitles of Friends and analyzing the relative Chinese translation. Metonymy with various functions should be treated with various translation strategies; five alternative cognitive translation strategies of metonymy in subtitles are proposed in this thesis. Current research aims to present a new perspective on translation of metonymy, which is a significant contribution to subtitle translation studies, particularly studies on translation of metonymy in subtitles. Properly translated subtitles enable audience to better understand not only the language but also the culture in the film. |
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