Translation Report On Discovery Of The Jin’gang Tower

Subtitle translation of documentaries is greatly restricted by time and space: time refers to that the lines of subtitles stay on the screen(time for the audience to read subtitles); space refers to that the lines of subtitles occupy on the screen. Hence, how to deliver the meaning of the source subtitles accurately within certain time and space is a crucial point for translating subtitles. In the thesis, the documentary Discovery of the Jin’gang Tower is presented for the case study, and features of subtitle translation of documentaries are discussed. Instructed by Relevance Theory and the concept of Communicative Translation, how to make the translation be “properly faithful” and “properly space-saving” are analyzed meticulously in the thesis. Besides, the problems confronted in the documentary and the corresponding solutions and strategies are discussed soundly, such as how to deal with tenses, proper nouns, etc. However, besides the restriction of time and space, it is also impacted by cultures. Therefore, there are many problems yet to be solved, such as: how to maximize the faithfulness within the time-and-space limitation; how to deal with words with culture connotations more effectively; how to make sure that the subtitles synchronize with the pictures; if the documentary needs to be dubbed, how should the translation strategies and principles be adjusted.