A Study Of E-C Subtitle Translation Of Desperate Housewives From The Perspective Of Functionalist Approaches

With the deepening process of globalization, cultural communication between China and Western countries is increasing rapidly. As an inseparable part of cultural communication, a large number of foreign film and television works gradually comes to China’s market. Film and television works is the carrier of the culture and it is the mirror of people’s living styles, thinking patterns, social customs and values in a country or in a region. As a bridge for different countries and different cultures, film and television works plays an important role in promoting the communication between cultures. But there are cultural barriers existing in the cross-cultural communications because of the difference in languages. Audio-visual subtitle translation is an essential element of film and television works and it plays a crucial role in breaking the barriers. So it develops fast in recent years and receives extensive attention from the scholars in the translation field.Different from the literary translation, subtitle translation has its unique features and is constrained by some factors. China starts late on subtitle translation, and we lag far behind Western countries in this field. Therefore, we need a systematical theory to support us for further study and research in this field.German’s functional approaches mainly include Kantharina Reiss’text typology, Hans Vermeer’s Skopos theory and beyond, Manttari’s theory of translational action and Nord’s function plus loyalty. The core theory of functionalist approaches is Skopos theory which thinks that every text is produced for certain purpose and should serve this purpose. German’s functionalist approaches break the limit of the traditional translation theory and provide a wide view for translators. Since their foundation, functionalist approaches acquired vigorous development and they were applied to many translation researches. German’s functionalist approaches offer high referential value to subtitle translation.Desperate Housewives is a prevalent television series all around the world. The show follows the lives of four housewives living in a fictional place Fairview from the perspective of a housewife who commits suicide. It includes eight seasons and there are new plot lines and stories in every season. The plot covers love, family, friendship, family ethic, morality, life philosophy and so on. With the high audience rating, it acquires several famous awards in America. Desperate Housewives also begins to form a cultural phenomenon all around America. And more than100countries including mainland China broadcast this television series.Guided by the functionalist approaches, this thesis aims to analyze and discuss the features, methods and strategies of subtitle translation. It is hoped that this thesis can help improve the subtitle translation quality, encourage more translators to get involved in this field and then to promote the development and prosperity of subtitle translation in China.Chapter One covers the research background, objectives and significance of the thesis, research methodology and thesis structure.Chapter Two presents the definitions, features and constraints of subtitle translation and the literature review at home and abroad.Chapter Three is the theoretical framework of this study. It briefly introduces functionalist approaches and takes this theoretical system as the guiding theory. And then it presents the important contents and development of functionalist approaches. Finally it elaborates the feasibility of applying functionalist approaches to subtitle translation.Chapter Four is the main body of this thesis. It firstly makes a brief introduction to the Desperate Housewives and four main characters. Then the author applies the Skopos theory to discuss the subtitle translation cases. It is mainly presented from the three rules of Skopos theory, including the Skopos rule, coherence rule and the fidelity rule. In addition, Nord’s function plus loyalty principle is also applied to analyze the typical examples. Next, the author relates the theory of translational action to the analysis of subtitle translation and introduces the relationship between them. Finally, the author analyzes the E-C subtitle translation strategies of Desperate Housewives and discusses the reduction, addition and domestication strategies with examples. Chapter Five draws a conclusion of the study and summarizes the findings and implications of this study. And it also points out the limitation and proper suggestions.