Study On Subtitle Translation Of Documentary From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Globalization and Chinese“building a culturally strong country”strategy make China and western countries exchange in economy and culture increasingly.Chinese and western films have been widely disseminated with powerful mass media and mutual communication which provide people with a new perspective to recognize and understand the world.Documentary films have become an important way of cross-cultural communication with its real and artistic characteristics.To understand documentary films accurately and easily,the study on subtitle translation of documentary film is of great importance.The documentary film The Story of China is selected as the research text,which includes 6 episodes.Episode One is Ancestors,which mainly tells Chinese people?s awe of their ancestors;Episode Two is Silk Roads&China Ships and it presents China?s major achievements in 15^th century B.C.;Episode Three is The Golden Age while Episode Four is The Ming.The former represents the Tang Dynasty and the latter states the Ming Dynasty;Episode Five is named The Last Empire and Episode Six is named The Age of Revolution,which narrates the Qing Dynasty and Chinese reform and opening up in new age.The Story of China introduces 4000 years Chinese history and opens a new door for western people to fully appreciate Chinese culture.Based on Skopos Theory,adopted the text analytical method,this thesis states the features,determinants and constraints of documentary film subtitle translation,and further explains the historical development,basic concepts and three rules of Skopos Theory.The skopos rule,the coherence rule and the fidelity rule are the key bones of Skopos Theory.They provide a point of reference when translators deal with the subtitle translation.This thesis also states the feasibility of Skopos Theory to documentary subtitle translation.Moreover,factors concerning intended text function,audience,medium,reception time and place and motive should be considered in documentary subtitle translation in The Story of China.Most important of all,author mainly illustrates five following subtitle translation strategies with 45 examples:literal translation,domestication,reductive translation,expansion,adaptation.And the following research questions will be answered:First,what translation strategies are employed in the subtitle translation of The Story of China?Second,how the translation strategies are applied in the subtitle translation of The Story of China?These subtitle translation strategies can help translators to do a better work so as to make the target audience understand the documentary film accurately and easily.It is obvious that the documentary film is popular nowadays,however,documentary subtitle translation research has not yet attracted sufficient attention at home.Therefore,taken Skopos Theory as the theoretical foundation and The Story of China as research text,this thesis aims at analyzing documentary subtitle translation and exploring the function of Skopos Theory,thus finding the most efficient translation strategies of documentary subtitle translation.This thesis hopes to make a little contribution to the study of documentary subtitle translation.