A Study On Subtitling Strategies From The Perspective Of Skopos

Nowadays, cultural communication is increasingly frequent, and films and TV programs are playing the irreplaceable roles in spreading a country’s culture and ethnic spirits and showing its soft power. As a part of films and TV programs, subtitling is important in cross-cultural communication. With the import and export of a large amount of films and TV programs, the current situation of subtitling in China is not satisfying, which reflects on the translators’ poor skills, lack of professional training, poor translation qualities and inadequate theoretical studies. In this situation, the further subtitling study is very necessary.Scholars in western countries started to study subtitling in the earliest time; they are still the pioneers in this field and have gained plenty of leading achievements. Apart from the personal achievements, some subtitling research organizations have been built, and the seminars are held frequently, promoting the rapid development of subtitling study in western countries. Compared with those in western countries, subtitling study in China started late, and it has not been done well in the numbers of scholars and research extents. So far, only a few scholars who have engaged in translation work for a long time have put forward some important views based on their translation experience. Therefore, subtitling development in China lacks of theoretical guidance.Directors have their purposes to make films and TV programs. Skopos focuses on the text function and emphasizes the purpose of translation practice. It has something in common with films and TV programs creation, so the writer of this thesis chooses Skopos to guide the subtitling study. In Skopos, the expected acceptors of target text are the most key factors in determining the translation purpose, and translation purpose determines the translation strategies, which makes the translation standard turn from Equivalence into Adequacy. The standard grants translators more choices in determining translation strategies on the premise of respecting the source text. It not only realizes the communication purpose of the translated text, but also enables audience to enjoy the authentic films and TV programs.This thesis studies the strategies that can be used in subtitling from the perspective of Skopos based on the translation practice of the fifth episode of A Bite of China Ⅱ. A Bite of China Ⅱ is a documentary on food culture. It describes China’s rich delicacies and shows Chinese people’s spiritual world. To make the research result more scientific, the writer of the thesis also studies the theories about subtitling. On the basis of information provided by the scholars and authoritative books, the writer summarizes characteristics of subtitling. They are popularity, instantaneity, synchronicity and no interpretation. In addition, subtitling is restricted by the time and space, so the strategies that can be used are different from those in other styles. The writer of this thesis takes a full consideration of characteristics and restriction factors of subtitling when summarizes the strategies to make the strategies targeted and practical.The strategies used in the translation practice of the fifth episode of A Bite of China Ⅱinclude addition, amplification, domestication, literal translation, clarification, condensation and omission on the guidance of three rules of Skopos. The thesis explains the connotation of the three rules of Skopos, their requirements on subtitling strategies and the meaning of strategies used in this thesis. Meanwhile, the thesis analyses the strategies with some examples to talk about the writer’s view in translation.The thesis does not do well in some aspects, and it needs to be improved. The writer of this thesis hopes the study on subtitling strategies from the perspective of Skopos can provide some reference for translators in their work and perfect subtitling strategies to promote China’s subtitling theoretical study.