The Construction Of A Model For Subtitle Translation Quality Assessment

Featuring prominently in audiovisual products,translated subtitles have become omnipresent in everyday life.Subtitle translation is of vital importance in facilitating reception and comprehension of films and television series produced in a foreign language.The buoyancy of the global audiovisual market has spawned a heated discussion in industry and academia on the quality issues of pre-recorded interlingual subtitling.Thus far,a significant number of translation quality assessment studies have engaged in the evaluation of monomodal written texts,but the translation quality assessment model for audiovisual texts has been less discussed,let alone a theoretical model that specifically addresses subtitle translation,which still represents largely uncharted territory.Against this background,the present research strives to construct a translation quality assessment model for subtitle translation from English into simplified Chinese.Considering that the interaction between the verbal and non-verbal semiotic modes is crucial to the meaning making of an audiovisual text,this thesis is grounded on the multimodal framework for the analysis of subtitle translation and the systemicfunctional theory of translation,which are geared towards the specific needs of evaluating subtitle translation quality.As stipulated in the multimodal framework for the analysis of subtitle translation,the audiovisual text in which translated subtitles lie is analyzed at four levels,including cultural level,register level,content level,and expression level.Based on the systemic-functional theory of translation in the monomodal and multimodal context,the top-down register analysis and the bottomup metafunctional analysis are indispensable for the theoretical design of the new subtitle translation quality assessment model.With the divergences in monomodal metafunctional meanings between the source and target verbal messages as the starting point,the eclectic theoretical model proposed by this thesis entails register analysis and the analysis of monomodal and multimodal metafunctional meanings in the assessment of subtitle translation quality.On this basis,the evaluator can determine whether the identified divergence is a translation error.Based on the elaboration on the theoretical design and operation of the model,an empirical case study on the subtitle translation quality of one episode of the widely acclaimed documentary series Seven Worlds One Planet is carried out to tentatively apply the newly constructed model and exemplify the operation procedure and the operability of the model.Furthermore,the theoretical reliability of the present research is confirmed by referring to the requisite for legitimate translation quality assessment research and responding to the potential controversy of the current model.This thesis lays a theoretical foundation for future research on the quality of interlingual subtitling.Furthermore,validating the strength of multimodal analysis in audiovisual translation research and practice,the current research moves a step further towards the establishment of a well-founded translation quality assessment model that offers key insights for subtitlers on furnishing audiences with better translations.