Comparative Study On Dubbed Chinese Versions Of Mulan Based On Translation As Adaptation And Selection

Since the1990s, with the influx of foreign language movies, China’s dubbed filmindustry turns a beautiful landscape. It spreads the knowledge of Western culture and customs,promotes mutual understanding between Chinese and Western peoples. Audience not onlyopens their horizons, but also sees the charm of languages. As a cultural feast, dubbed filmwidely appeals to audiences in different cultural levels. Because of the indispensable positionof dubbed film in contemporary society, its corresponding translation can not be ignored.What’s more, the Chinese translation theoretical framework is inseparable from the theorydevelopment of dubbed film.So far, there is yet not any theory put forward specifically for the study of dubbed filmtranslation. In2004, An Approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection propped by HuGengshen, a professor of Tsinghua University. The theory of TAS decodes the translationactivities from a macro perspective, illustrates the translation essence and principle from anew angle, at the same time it simplifies the translation strategy as “three-dimensionaltransformation”, which means under the guidance of the translation principle of“multi-dimensional adaption and adaptive selection”, the adaptive transformation relativelyfocuses on linguistic dimension, cultural dimension and communicative dimension.As a unique style of translation, dubbing translation is of its own characteristics. As theauthor summarized, the characteristics of dubbing translation include colloquialism,instantaneity, synchronization and listening. Combined with the four features, this thesiscompares the Mainland and Taiwan versions of dubbed film Mulan within the theoreticalframework of TAS. With a great deal of comparison at micro level, author analyzes how thedubbing translation of Mainland version realizes multi-dimensional adaptation and adaptiveselection, in which the four features of dubbing translation how to be reflected. The researchproves that a translation is not just a language activity but an ecological activity, the translator’s decision in translation process must adapt to the corresponding translationaleco-environment, and the more highly adapt to eco-environment in the multi-dimensions, themore successful is the translation version. It also proves that the theory of Translation asAdaptation and Selection is of operable and explanatory power in producing a correcttranslation text, can be applied in translation activities of different ways and different styles,including the translation of dubbed film.Although it is a case study only for Chinese dubbing, this thesis is benefit for improvingthe dubbing translation level of other language forms and hopes to attract more attention tothe field of dubbing translation that needs to be explored. At the same time, this thesis alsohelps deepen our knowledge and understanding to the theory of Translation as Adaption andSelection and inspire more combination of translation theory and practice.