A Study On Subtitling Of Culture-specific Items In How I Met Your Mother

Along with the increasing cultural exchange between east and west, more and more people want to know their differences on the lifestyle, cultural value, etc. Film and TV series happen to be the easiest way to offer the opportunity to conduct cross-cultural communication, which leads to the fact that subtitling has been brought to the limelight. However, as Nida(1982:4) puts it, “comparatively speaking, research in translation studies has, for a long time, focused on literary works”. As a result, a systematic theory on subtitling has not yet been formed, so the quality of subtitling can not be guaranteed, especially that of Culture-specific Item(CSI) which obvious is a very important and difficult aspect in subtitling. The translation of CSI requires translators know well of the customs, religious beliefs, cultural values, etc. in source and target culture. Only in this way, can translators assure film and TV series truly become the media of cross-cultural communication.Ever since Aixelá defined the term CSI and brought up the eleven strategies to translate CSIs, scholars in many countries started to work on the strategies to deal with CSIs, but Aixelá’s strategies stay to be the comprehensive conclusion. Based on Aixelá’s theoretical framework, this thesis collects, then classifies CSIs in American TV series How I Met Your Mother(HIMYM) by the five kinds of CSI proposed by Nida to find their corresponding main methods which are in light of Aixelá’s eleven strategies and to see if these main methods are valid when dealing with a certain kind of CSI. The author hopes that this study can provide guidance for further study on subtitling.The research shows that the most frequent methods in subtitling of HIMYM that are identical with Aixelá’s are orthographic adaptation, linguistic(non-cultural) translation, intratextual gloss, extratextual gloss, limited universalization, absolute universalization and naturalization, combined or individually translating different kinds of CSIs. The most effective way to deal with 1) Ecological Culture is absolute universalization. 2) Considering the rhyme division in Linguistic Culture, the most valid method is naturalization(plus extratextual gloss); while the acronym division is intratextual gloss or extratextual gloss;and the pun division is intratextual gloss. 3) Material Culture, the most valid solution to deal with good and food are orthographic plus intratextual or extratextual gloss, limited universalization; while the locations and institutions are linguistic(non-cultural) translation/orthographic plus extratextul/intratextual gloss. 4)Religious Culture, the most valid methods are naturalization and intratextual gloss; 5) Social Culture, sports and entertainment are applied to naturalization plus intratextual gloss or extratextual gloss; and the characters is orthographic adaptation plus intratextual gloss or extratextual gloss; while when it comes to customs and idioms, the methods are linguistic(non-cultural) translation plus extratextual gloss, absolute universalization, naturalization,limited universalization according to different situations.