A Study Of Subtitle Translation Of Empresses In The Palace From The Perspective Of Manipulation Theory

On March 18,2015,English vision of The Legend of Zhen Huan,that is Empresses in the Palace,was showed in the top premium video portal network in the world—Netflix.It intensively exhibited traditional Chinese culture and history about the Qing Dynasty to western audience and became the first Chinese TV play broadcast in American mainstream media.A lot of researches on subtitle translation of Empresses in the Palace from the perspective of cultural translation theory,functional equivalence theory,feminism,intercultural communication and Skopos theory have been done in translation circles.This thesis tries to deeply explore translator' initiative function and constrained factors based on the opinion of manipulation theory.Manipulation theory proposes that: Translation is manipulation;it is obtained by the interaction of three manipulation factors,namely ideology,poetics and patronage.Ideology determines translator's basic translation strategies and interpretation processing to the source language and culture;poetics influence translators' interpretation for literary and art;patronage makes a vital impact on the trend of translation activities,developmental prospect of translatology,and on translators' social status;as the embodiment and defenders of ideology,poetics and prtronage also manipulate the selection and translation of the text.The rewriting of the source text and the generation of the target text is the results of the manipulation of the translator.Under translator's subjective manipulation,translation will effect the target culture in a certain way.The translator,the text and the target culture are the three core constrained objects in the translation manipulation.This thesis conducts relatively systematic research on subtitle translation of Empresses in the Palace.Overall,translators accurately capture and reproduce the charm of the original drama.The English version still has some defects for the cultural differences among China and the west.Meanwhile,this thesis analyzes how the three elements of manipulation theory manipulate translator's translation behavior.It aims to provide a new research perspective and materials for future research,and offer some reference and inspiration for translating subtitles of Chinese film and TV drama and cross-cultural communication,making more high-quality film and television works with national characteristics understood and accepted by more audiences and truly go abroad to the world.This paper mainly comprises six chapters.Chapter 1 makes an introduction to research background,significance,methodology and thesis structure.Literature review is arranged in chapter 2,in which the current situations of subtitle translation at home and abroad and research on subtitle translation of Empresses in the Palace are covered in this chapter.Manipulation theory under the background of cultural turn and its significances are introducedin Chapter 3.Chapter 4 involves a brief introduction to The Legend of Zhen Huan and Empresses in the Palace,as well as their cross-cultural communication value.Chapter 5analyses the dilemma of subtitle translation caused by cultural differences and characteristics of subtitle translation.Chapter 6 mainly discusses the application of manipulation theory and analyzes how the three control factors,namely patronage,ideology and poetics manipulate the C-E translation of Empresses in the Palace,in which detailed examples are listed to specifically trace some translation methods and handling strategies used by American translators in translation process.What's more,some improper manipulations are also particularized.Last,chapter 7 summarizes the chief points and limitations of this thesis,and makes some suggestions for further studies on subtitle translation of Empresses in the Palace and other Chinese TV drams.