On The English Translation Of Documentary Subtitles From The Perspective Of Cultural Translation Theory

In this paper,an analysis is made about the strategies of the English translation of documentary subtitles from the perspective of cultural translation theory.The translation of the documentary,Mei Ren Yu Ji,is taken as a case study.The author discusses the translation of culture-loaded words,the application of reductive translation method and sentence restructuring,based on a thorough understanding of the subtitle and its language style in Mei Ren Yu Ji as well as the common features of subtitles in documentaries.In this study,much consideration is given to how to keep a balance between conveying the cultural implications fully and keeping the target text concise,because on the one hand,according to the theory of cultural translation,the cultural information implicit in a source text should be fully conveyed in the target language;on the other hand,documentary subtitles are subject to constraints of time and space.With the translation of culture-loaded words,the author gives priority to literal translation or transliteration,but in some cases,free translation can be adopted because of cultural differences.With the application of reductive translation method,the author adopts condensation,reductive paraphrasing and deletion.As for sentence restructuring,the author adopts parataxis conversion to hypotaxis,focus transferring and subject substitution.By adopting these translation strategies,the author wishes to convey fully the cultural implications of the documentary to the target audience in a smooth and effective way.