A Study On Movie Subtitle Translation From The Perspective Of Functionalist Skopos Theory

Movie, apart from architecture, music, painting, sculpture, poem and dancing, is known as the 7th art. As globalization is continually developing, in recent decades a number of foreign movies have swarmed into China. Due to linguistic disparity, however, most Chinese audiences fail to understand the original movies. Movie subtitle translation therefore becomes the bridge of cultural exchange. Movie subtitle features time limit, space limit, colloquial style and cultural disparity, which makes it difficult to realize completely literal equivalence. The main target of subtitle translations is to convey the information of source language to the full extent under the limits of time and space. Functionalist skopos theory is a new rising translation theory which started from Germany in the 1970s. It requires translators to choose optimum translation strategies to realize the purpose of translation. This thesis aims to analyze the writer’s subtitle translation of "Guardians of the Galaxy" from the perspective of functionalist skopos theory and hence present translation strategies to the difficulties in translation process.This thesis consists of five parts:Part One is a description of the translation project background; Part Two is a brief introduction to functionalist skopos theory and the guidance of it on the project; Part Three is an introduction to subtitle translation; Part Four, the focus of the thesis, is devoted to the analysis of the problems encountered during translation process and translation strategies on the basis of functionalist skopos theory; Part Five serves as the summing-up of the translation experience that has been learned.