A Research On Dubbing Translation Of Audiovisual Works From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Nowadays, domestic and overseas markets of audiovisual works in accelerating exchange call for an unfailing supply of such an influential cultural commodity. Most audience, however, have to resort to subtitled or dubbed versions in appreciating imported or exported works due to the ubiquitous but inevitable language barrier and cultural differences. Being prone to quickness, the growing network subtitle translation groups help to meet the quantity but disappoint the audience time from time for their frequent violation of accuracy, faithfulness, or even of laws and morality.The professional and normative dubbing translation still stands the mainstay of domestic audiovisual translation and it is worth researching to promote and standardize subtitle translation.While audiovisual translation study is flourishing in European countries,domestic study in this field has always been marginalized. With the fast development of Chinese film and TV industry in the recent two decades, Chinese scholars are paying more attention to the theory and practice of audiovisual translation with heated discussions on audiovisual works and translating process but scarce studies on the translators and the audience. Standing at the end of operation circle in film and TV industry, the audience determines the survival and development of audiovisual works through their reception or rejection. In this sense, it is foremost to consider the target audience in introducing or marketing audiovisual works with high quality and great aesthetic value.Basically as a theory of literary criticism, Reception Aesthetics has been developed to cover almost every research aspect involving aesthetics and reception. In this theory, the focus of criticism is shifted to the reader whose central role in aesthetic reading and “horizon of expectation” are the major concern. Scholars of Reception Aesthetic hold that the life of literary works with indeterminacy in meaning is saved and continued by the reader's reception when the “fusion of horizon” is realized and proper “aesthetic distance” is kept. This thesis adopts main concepts of Reception Aesthetics to analyze the well-received Chinese dubbed version of Frozen with focus on the dual role of the translator, the influence of intended audience on the translator and dubbing translation strategies under Reception Aesthetics.The major findings of this study can be concluded as the following aspects. From the perspective of the reader's role, the translator, the first reader of the original work and the creator of the target work, has to make a balance between the horizon of expectation in the original work and that of the target audience since the reaction and reception of the target audience directly decides the survival and development of thetranslated work; Based on the concept of “horizon of expectation”, transformation on linguistic level and cultural level is vital to deal with dialogues or asides with high aesthetic value or portraying the characters vividly by adopting proper translation strategies including domestication and foreignization and choosing literal translation,free translation and other specific translating skills with the target audience's directional and creative expectations being the reference and their reception of the translated version as the ultimate goal; As for appealing structure, the language of audiovisual works, mostly derived from real conversations in daily life, makes the interpretation more difficult because of the inborn high degree of indeterminacy in meaning and its “deviation” from daily expression and common usage for its literary characteristics. Meanwhile, such language features also endow the translator with the right to fill up the indeterminate spots in the original text creatively which has to be executed with the target audience's reception as precondition, otherwise the dubbed version is doomed to be devalued in appealing structure and aesthetic experience. This study is a meaningful attempt to broaden the research scope of Reception Aesthetics and promote audiovisual translation as a whole with its enlightenment on the practice of dubbing translation.