The Study Of Subtitle Translation From The Perspective Of Polysystem Theory-Based On The Big Bang Theory

In the context of globalization, cross-cultural communicative activities have becomeincreasingly popular and diversified. In recent years, more and more films and TV plays fromforeign countries, particular the United States, have entered into our view through TV orInternet, e.g. Friends, Gossip Girl, The Big Bang Theory, and The Vampire Diaries. These TVseries, in various plots and forms, enrich our lives, broaden our mind and deepen ourunderstanding of foreign cultures. With the rise of foreign TV dramas and a large amount offilms and TV programmes is translated, the study of subtitle translation, as a burgeoningscientific field, attracts people’s attention. Excellent subtitle translation not only can help theaudience to overcome the difficulties in languages and appreciate the drama plot better, butalso contribute to having a true feel of traditional customs and social culture in differentcountries. As a newly started subject, the research on subtitle translation in China mostlyfocuses on the description of the features of subtitle translation, e.g. the constraints of timeand space, popularity, and fleeting. A large number of papers have been done from thelinguistic point of view, or considering the subtitle translation strategies as isolated, neglectingthe subtitle translation in a dynamic polysystem under the influence of the social-culturalfactors. This thesis takes The Big Bang Theory as a case study to summarize the translationstrategies in target language social-cultural situation in order to be of help to subtitletranslators.This thesis adopt Polysystem Theory to analyze the English-Chinese subtitletranslation. Israeli scholar Itamar Even-Zohar, in1970s, first proposes the term "polysystemtheory ", viewing the translated text as a sub-system within the target literary system, andmakes an objective description of the influence and reception of translation literature in thetarget culture, pointing out that the norms and laws of translation are determined by theposition of translated literature within the literary polysystem. Following Even-Zohar, GideonToury put forward the descriptive translation studies in the framework of polysystem theory.According to Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory, the translation literature usually is in the secondary position of polysystem. In a consequence, the influence of the translatedliterature will be conservative, and the translation strategy will be restricted to the traditionalmode of the target culture to be more acceptable to the target audience. Following themethodology of Toury’s descriptive translation studies, the service situation of every strategyis exhaustively presented in the statistical way. The data show that the strategies offour-character phrase, colloquialism, and the Internet popular vocabulary are the top threelargely used strategies. The application of the strategy of Internet popular vocabulary is theonly one to be on the rise during the four seasons in five years of The Big Bang Theory’ssubtitle translation. It can be concluded that the frequent application of the translationstrategies of four-character phrase, colloquialism, and the Internet popular vocabulary may bethe common characteristics appearing in the marginal translation system in the polysystem.The whole thesis is composed of five chapters. Chapter One introduces thebackground, significance, aim, feasibility, methodology and structure of the research. ChapterTwo makes the literature review of the subtitle translation at home and abroad, andsummarizes the characteristics and constraints of the subtitle translation. Chapter Threeillustrates the theoretical basis of this research. Chapter Four discusses the translationstrategies and makes an assessment of the translation strategies. Chapter Five provides theconclusion, points out the limitation of the thesis and proposes the suggestion for furtherresearch.