Translation Of Subtitles From The Perspective Of Catford’s Theory Of Translation Shifts ——With The FEASTCON Videos As An Example

This thesis studies subtitle translation from the perspective of Catford’s Translation Shifts Theory.To understand the video,the audience rely mainly on subtitles,which are instantaneous and space-limited.Due to the differences between the English and Chinese language,the translator should pay more attention to smoothness and readability of the translated subtitle than to its formal correspondence.Therefore,"translation shifts" are certain to happen at all language levels,i.e."departures from formal correspondence in the process of going from the SL to TL"Enlightened by Systemic Functional Grammar,Catford put forward the term "translation shifts" in 1965 and categorized translation shifts as level shifts and category shifts.In the E-C translation practice,the author finds that the translated subtitles are improved to be more natural and expressive thanks to translation shifts including shifts of tense,shifts of parts of speech and shifts among phrases and sentences.This theory,however,fails to take other factors such as culture influences into consideration.Since translation is not only the process of linguistic transformation but a cross-cultural communicative activity,the author,based on the translation shifts theory,tries to propose another translation shift—culture shifts,to compensate for its lack of consideration for culture and provide some reference for its application to translation practice of subtitles.