E-C Subtitle Translation From The Skopostheorie

Translation is an important communicative tool between different languages andcultures. Subtitles in TV series, as cultural carriers, also need the involvement oftranslation. Subtitle translation has become an important field as the globalization ofeconomy and culture is increasingly developed in the new century and the popularityof foreign TV series in China. Good subtitle translation can enhance the viewers‘experience of appreciating TV series. As a new field of translation, subtitle translationhas reached certain achievements. Especially in western academia, the relevantstudies have proceeded in some width and depth in terms of strategies and qualitycontrol of subtitle translation. However, due to lack of serious attention, the quality ofChinese subtitle translation has been restrained by certain issues, such as the low levelof academic research, unqualified translators and so on. In theory, subtitle translationhas received little scholarly attention. In practice, the quality of film subtitletranslation is yet to be improved.Within the framework of Skopostheorie, translation is regarded as a purposefulaction. In the course of translation, translators make a selective transfer from themulti-information embedded in the source-text in line with the Skopos and specialtiesof the viewers according to the demands of initiator. Actions must take place in acultural loaded place and different cultures share various customs and values; thus,subtitle translation can be considered as an overall multicultural communication intext, image and sound through the media of screen. The initiator defines the purposeof translation and specifies the translation brief while the intention of other relative person or agent influences the translator‘s choice of strategies as well. The finalsubtitles products are also affected by the knowledge and expectation of the initiatorto the intended viewers of the target-text and the translator‘s language capability.The Good Wife is an American legal series premiered in2010which integratedthree elements: law, political scandals and women struggle. Since its premiere, it hasalways been appreciated by both viewers and critics. In the series, there are a lot offast, informative and logical dialogues. Thus, the subtitle translation in this series isdifficult, and of great research value. The data in this paper is mainly from threesubtitles versions of the series. TV version refers to the Chinese subtitles provided bythe domestic TV network, DVD version refers to the Chinese subtitles offered bypublisher and internet version refers to the Chinese subtitles produced by domesticfansub. Based on the disparity of target viewers of each version, the three versions aredifferent from each other. To TV network, since it‘s hard to define a clear scope oftarget viewers, its subtitles tend to be concise and easy to understand. To DVD version,the target viewer can be divided into two groups which are the fans of the series andthe ordinary viewers who have never watched the series. The fans always expect theoriginal flavor to be maintained while the ordinary viewers expect easy-to-understandones. The target viewers of the internet version are the college students and whitecollar who are well educated and in good command of western culture. Therefore, theinaccurate and redundant issues in the internet subtitles don‘t prevent them fromunderstanding the story. Meanwhile, due to the short period of producing internetsubtitles, its quality will be obviously not as good as that of TV and DVD versions.This paper studies three Chinese versions of the series within the framework ofSkopostheorie, discusses various factors which influence or constrains the selection oftranslation strategies, and analyzes the language transfer methods and translationstrategies applied in The Good Wife and the gains and losses. It is found that thepurposes of the initiators and the target receivers‘expectations have a direct impact onsubtitle translation. Although every translator has individual preference in choosing translation strategies and language transfer methods, which will cause thediscrepancies among the three subtitles versions, the subtitle translation is successfulas long as the skopos of translation is achieved.