An Analysis Of The Subtitle Translation Of Confucius From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Nowadays, the film industry has been playing a significant role in cross-culture communication. A large number of foreign films have been introduced into China, meanwhile, an increasing number of Chinese films have been introduced to foreign countries and won international reputation and great popularities. In this process, subtitle translation has played a critical role. Europe has been making extensive and intensive studies in subtitle translation and reached a consensus and formed standards in translation strategy, standardization and quality control. Compared with Europe, our country is lagging behind in the study of subtitle translation. We not only start the study late but also lack industry standards, as well as pay insufficient attention to film subtitle translation. Therefore, it is still a field remaining largely unexplored and it is necessary to find out some effective principles and strategies to guide Chinese film subtitle translation so as to guarantee the achievement of a film’s set goal.There are two different types of film translation, dubbing and subtitling. This thesis focuses on the study of subtitling, adopting a descriptive-explanatory method along with a case study of the film Confucius from the perspective of Skopos Theory. According to Skopos Theory, subtitle translation is an action with purpose, which is to most effectively convey the most relative information to audience in certain cultural background. The specific purpose of subtitle translation is determined by producer and director who are the initiators of translation action and TT receiver. This thesis discusses the suitable principles and strategies in translating film subtitle based on film producer and director’s intention and TT receivers’ expectation.In terms of the purpose of the film Confucius is, on one hand, to make world people further know Confucius through film and understand the long history of traditional Chinese culture, and on the other hand, as a commercial film, to earn money as much as possible; in terms of TT receivers’ expectation, they mainly expect to enjoy the film while appreciate Chinese culture. Vermeer’s Skopos Theory proposes that the end justifies the means. Under the guidance of Skopos Theory, this thesis analyzes the subtitle translation of film Confucius from two perspectives, translation principles and translation strategies. Based on the Skopos Theory and characteristics of subtitle, it puts forward three principles, conciseness, popularization and understandability, and characterization and emotionalization, at linguistic level, and two, fidelity and flexibility at the cultural level. In terms of translation strategies, this thesis proposes three strategies, reduction, clarification, syntactic edition, at linguistic level, and two, foreignization and domestication at cultural level.In summary, this thesis focuses on the principles and strategies applied in the field of subtitle translation. This thesis is just an attempt to analyze C-E subtitle translation. It is, to some extent, helpful to the progress of Chinese film and to the promotion of Chinese culture. However, the study perspectives of linguistic and culture needs to be elaborated by future researchers in this field of translation.