On Chinese-english Translation Strategy Of The Cultural Vacancy In Subtitles Of Historical Plays From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

With the deepening of globalization and the aggravation of international cultural industry competition,the cross-cultural communication of films and TV plays has gradually become an important part of the soft power competition among countries.In recent years,under the influence of various film and television industry support policies,more and more Chinese films and TV plays begin to go abroad.The historical drama,as the most unique one among all themes of many films and TV dramas in China,carries more symbols and connotations of Chinese culture.At the same time,it is also the theme that most foreign audiences who are interested in Chinese culture prefer to choose.This paper selects the subtitles of the fifth to seventh episodes of The Serenade of Peaceful Joy as the translation materials,in which the characters’ dialogues adopt a language style of half classical and half vernacular Chinese.It not only contains a large number of poems,idioms and other unique Chinese language and cultural elements,but also contains many unique Chinese and even the Song Dynasty’s cultural words.It is sometimes difficult to find the corresponding English concepts of the meaning of Chinese culture in the process of translation,resulting in a large number of cultural vacancies,which greatly increases the difficulty of translation.The translation of cultural vacancy has an important impact on the overall quality of subtitle translation,and high-quality subtitles of historical plays are more conducive to the spread of excellent traditional Chinese culture and the “going out” of Chinese cultural industry.In view of this,this report,based on literature analysis and case analysis,guided by relevance theory and the powerful explanatory power of its key concepts such as cognitive context and optimal relevance,explores the translation strategies of cultural vacancy in the subtitles of a historical play.This paper consists of five chapters.The first chapter is the introduction,which introduces the research background,the research significance and the paper structure.The second chapter is the task process,which describes the complete course of the translation practice task in three stages.The third chapter is a literature review,which introduces the research status of subtitle translation at home and abroad and the relevance theory used in this paper,and discusses the feasibility of applying this theory to this research.The fourth chapter is a case study,which focuses on the cultural vacancy phenomenon in the subtitle translation of historical plays,classifies it according to the specific cases in the translation practice,and analyzes the methods that should be adopted from the perspective of relevance theory.The fifth chapter is the conclusion,which summarizes the gains and enlightenment in this translation practice,and discusses the limitations of this research and the thinking it brings.