An Overall Assessment Of Official Chinese Subtitling

In recent years,China has imported a great many foreign films,and these films have become an important contributor to the box office,attracting tens of millions of moviegoers every year.However,with more and more moviegoers having some knowledge of the English language,the translation quality of official subtitling has become a topic of heated discussion.Among the movies being discussed,Jia Xiuyan's version of the Marvel blockbuster Guardians of the Galaxy has perhaps triggered the most controversy,and the translator herself is also put under the spotlight.Many question her language proficiency as well as her qualification as a translator,some even say that her translation cannot compare with that of most fansubs.Thus,in order to find out if Chinese netizen's criticism towards the official subtitling is well-grounded,this thesis sets out to use ideas from Reception Aesthetics as theoretical framework and conduct an assessment of the official subtitling,combining quantitative methods and qualitative methods together,utilizing textual analysis and questionnaire in an attempt to evaluate the quality as well as the popularity of both the official subtitling and the fansub Yyets.com's subtitling.At the same time,Jia and a translator from the fansub are also interviewed so as to discover deficiencies in the official subtitling mechanism and dig into the question why the Chinese official subtitling of foreign films is so often criticized by moviegoers.The results of the textual analysis and the questionnaire show that Jia's subtitling as a whole is not of lower quality than that of the fansub,nor does it cause more dissatisfaction,as many of the research participants seem to enjoy her translation just as much as they enjoy fansub's translation.All in all,it can be seen that Jia has taken into consideration the expectations of the audience when making translation choices,and the final product seems to be acceptable for many,which can be perceived as a recognition of her translation quality,for seeing from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics,it is the audience and their attitude that in fact decide the assessment of a translation.Then,after interviewing Jia and the fansub translator,we can see that the translation produced by official translators is very much restrained by the current subtitling mechanism.Firstly,by referring to Lefevere's theory of "translation as rewriting",we may realize that professionals and patronage can assert great influence on the translator's translation choices so that their translation cannot fully reflect their competence as a translator.Secondly,the limited time given to official translators as well as the missing of effective proofreading process both make it hard for translators to produce high-quality subtitles.In the end,three suggestions are put forward in order to improve the quality of official subtitling:1)proofreading process in official subtitling should be strengthened,and there needs to be a person specially responsible for proofreading;2)when translating movies like Guardians of the Galaxy that have a great many memes and allusions,outside help needs to be invited;3)official movie studios could initiate cooperation projects with universities that have English or translation majors with the purpose of searching for and training potential subtitle translators that would work for them in the future.All in all,although the official subtitling of China's imported films is not of poor quality,there is still much room for improvements.