On Translation Of Allusion In Film Subtitle Based On Relevance Theory

The quality of subtitle translation of a film, including the translation of allusion subtitle, could have a great influence on people’s understanding and appreciation of the film. It is the translator’s duty to show the target language viewers the original meaning concerning cultural factors of the movie. However, just as Yves Gambier and Henrik Gottlieb point out (2001), research in subtitling is still difficult for lack of theoretical frames and methodological tools. Many theories have been applied in fields of translation; however, very few researches have been done in allusion subtitle translation, especially guided by Relevance Thoery.Relevance Thoery (RT) is a cognitive theory of human communication, which lays emphasis on the importance of optimal relevance. The allusion subtitle translation could be explained better by RT through its principle of optimal relevance. Thus, this dissertation attempts to study allusion subtitle translation on the basis of Sperber and Wilson’s RT, hoping to get a desirable method of allusion subtitle translation and provide a wide theoretical basis for the research of allusion subtitle translation."The Simpsons", which is also known as "the Encyclopedia of America", is an American animated sitcom produced by the Twentieth Century Fox Company, and its movie version has been shown in America since2007. A large number of allusions in the movie make the movie much funnier. Therefore, The Simpsons Movie is chosen to be an example in this dissertation. A qualitative study is adopted in this dissertation in the comparison of two different translation versions of "The Simpsons Movie", including methods such as transcription, descriptive and comparative analysis, and exemplification.This study concludes that achieving Optimal Relevance (OR) plays a key role in translating the allusion subtitles, and RT could be a proper principle to guide the translation of allusion subtitles.