A Contrastive Study Of Professional Subtitling And Fansubbing In Light Of Nord's Translation Criticism Model

With the internet upgrade and popularity of video software,people have become used to watching foreign audiovisual contents subtitled into Chinese.The quality of interlingual subtitles also attracts more attention.Based on Christiane Nord's translation criticism model,this thesis conducts a contrastive analysis of the Chinese subtitles of an American TV series The Handmaid's Tale made by professional subtitlers at the SBS TV(Australia)and YYeTs fansubbing(fan-subtitling)group(China),aiming to discover the differences between professional subtitlers and fan subtitlers in translation organization,strategies and ethics as well as to assess the qualities of the two sets of subtitles in view of their respective translation purpose.The translation briefs show that even though the SBS subtitling project is to support a multilingual and multicultural Australian society while the YYeTs subtitling project is to attract more loyal audience,both groups have to achieve the referential and expressive functions of the target texts first,i.e.,to build a horrifying dystopian world of theocracy(Atwood,2017).When analysing the intratextual factors,i.e.,lexis,presuppositions,verbal-visual coherence and suprasegmental features,the study finds that the professional subtitlers 1)strive to preserve the “uniqueness” of lexis and religious references through literal translation;2)explicate the references to the material life in contemporary America to assist the audience's understanding;3)identify the logic and meaning of dialogues with the help of synchronized visual frames or successive camera shots;4)comply with the writing punctuation conventions and adjust diction to reflect the intonations,stresses and pauses of the lines.On the other hand,the fan-subtitlers often 1)improperly substitute lexical items to make expressions look “natural”;2)slip prejudiced translations into subtitles;3)neglect or ruin the coherence between verbal information and visual images;4)give upon optic representation of intonations,stresses and pauses.Therefore,the referential function and expressive function of the TV series are more adequately realized in the SBS version than the YYeTs version.In terms of translation ethics,the professional subtitlers have to abide by the norms of subtitling industry and be loyal to the show creator,project commissioner,audience and themselves.These dimensions of loyalty responsibility converge in this case study.Meanwhile,the fansubbing group plays multiple roles.Sometimes they mix their roles as translators with the roles as members of the audience,thus bringing personal opinions into subtitles.Except for the limits of linguistic competence and cultural horizon,the fansubbing group also suffers from the lack of time for preparation and revision.Hence,it is difficult for them to present their best performance or remain loyal to themselves.Nord's translation criticism model provides a comprehensive and flexible framework for the assessment of subtitles by assisting the critique to consider the shared features between subtitling and translation and to take into account the multimodality of subtitling predetermined by its medium.Besides,the function-oriented model avoids criticizing the fansubbing activity with a single set of professional standards.Moreover,with a commercializing tendency of fansubbing groups,the concerns given to the loyalty responsibility will help fansubbing groups reflect on their roles in translation activities,thus targeting at a practical issue.