An Analysis Of Sitcom Subtitle Translation Strategies From The Perspective Of Memetics

In recent years,with the development of the technology and Internet,the communication between eastern and western culture becomes more and more frequent.A great number of foreign films and televisions,especially for American sitcoms,are introduced into our country.On account of clear difference between eastern and western culture,most of Chinese audience find it hard to understand the sitcoms without the help of subtitles.In order to promote the transmission of sitcoms and culture,an accurate and natural subtitle translation could be particularly important.Perfect subtitle translation not only can be noticed and accepted by audience,but also be transmitted by them.However,lacking of specific subtitle translation theories,domestic subtitle translation studies still remain in the primary stage.Considering such a situation,this paper conducts an effective study on subtitle translation from the perspective of memetics and takes Modern family as a case study,analyzing interlingual subtitling strategies and hoping to enlighten following researches.Benefiting from its unique plot,humor language,and appropriate subtitle,the sitcom Modern family is popular with American and Chinese audience.Memetics is a brand-new evolution theory in cultural field based on an analogy with Darwinian evolution.As cultural genetic factors,memes can be transmitted by imitation.And in the course of cross-cultural communication,language memes spread in the form of subtitle through translators,so subtitle itself is a kind of meme.This thesis adopts documentary collection,description analysis and case study as research methodology,focusing on subtitle translation strategies under the guidance of memetics.This paper begins by reviewing of classification and research status of subtitle translation.Then it introduces the origin and research findings of memetics,conforming a combination between memetics and subtitle translation.Using Modern Family as case study,this thesis mainly studies application of strong memes in interlingual subtitling and reflection of memetic genotype and phenotype on subtitle translation strategies.This paper chooses memetics as the theoretical foundation to make a research on subtitle translation strategies of sitcoms,hoping to make contributions to interlingual subtitling translation and exploring new methods to foreign films translation.