A Study Of English To Chinese Subtitle Translation Methods Of The Originals(the Third Season) From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

In1970s,Hans Vermeer and Katharina Reiss put forward the concept of Skopos Theory.They admit the translation purpose is the primary principle that determines translation activities.There are three main rules of Skopos Theory: first is the skopos rule,translation is an activity with an aim,so does the English to Chinese subtitle translation.English to Chinese subtitle translation is a conscious activity,and its main purpose is to effectively and accurately express the needed information,so as to let the target audience can have better understandings on the source film or television works;second is the coherence rule which meansEnglish to Chinesesubtitle translation should not only be coherent and rational in the context,but its sentences should also be fluent and natural;the last one is the fidelity rule,it requires the target translation text should be in accordance with the source text,which means the translator's translation cannot derive from the original text.With China's increasing introduction of foreign countries' excellent film and television series,subtitle translation of film and television works has become more influential in the field of translation.Subtitle translation's own limitations and characteristics constrain the choice of translation methods in subtitle translation process.The Originals is a very famous series in America,and it also has a great number of fans in China.The main English to Chinese subtitle translation methods which are utilized in The Originals(the third season)will be analyzed and explored thoroughly in this thesis.Based on the study,the author finds that under the guidance of Skopos Theory,there are nine methods used widely in English to Chinese subtitle translation.They are metaphrase,paraphrase,transliteration,reduction,amplification,transcreation,translating with Chinese four-character idioms and proverbs,translating with buzzwords and chunking.Besides,reduction is divided into condensation,reductive paraphrasing and deletion,and amplification includes adding words to subtitles and adding annotations to screen.Translation is a kind of human action,so there may be some translation mistakes.What's more,the differences in thinking,knowledge and cognition between diverse translators may lead to different translation versions of the same text.Therefore,the author also makes some improvements to the problems showed in the research subject.There are a lot of articles discussing translation from the perspective of Skopos Theory,but the author has not yet found any published article on translation methods of the subtitle in The Originals from the perspective of Skopos Theory.Therefore,this study has some significance of practical guidance to subtitle translation of film and television works in the future.