A Report On Subtitle Translation Of Documentary The Journey Of Chinese Plants From Perspective Of Multimodal Discourse Analysis

"The Journey of Chinese Plants" is a scientific documentary about the origin of Chinese plants.It fully demonstrates China’s ecological diversity and explains the country’s confidence and determination for sustainable development.The author participated in the subtitle of two of the episodes(Plant Paradise and Tea Tree).This paper takes this opportunity to explore the multimodal characteristics of documentaries and its influence on subtitle translation.Based on the theory of multimodal discourse analysis,this paper summarizes the complicated process of pre-translation resource integration(audio-to-speech transcription,proper noun integration,punctuation of sentences),in-translation difficulties(colloquial noun translation,audio-visual dual translation standards),and the focus of post-translation inspection.Subtitle translation standards:accuracy,simplicity,consistency are also mentioned in this paper.Based on the above three criteria,this paper starts from the four aspects proposed by Professor Zhang Delu(culture,context,content and expression),and chooses appropriate strategies and methods according to the correlation between the text mode of subtitles,the picture mode and the sound mode of the audio:(1)At the cultural level,in the face of the translation of culture-loaded words,free translation or transliteration should be carried out.In the transliteration,notes can be added to help the target language readers understand the original text;(2)At the context level,it explores the importance of adjusting the word order so that the audience of the translation can capture the core meaning and be limited by the time and space of subtitles as little as possible;(3)At the content level,it explores the complementary and non-complementary relationships among the modes.(4)At the expression level,it can highlight the interest and science of the translation through increased rhetoric,so as to make it more in line with the tonality of the documentary.At the same time,it is also proposed that special treatment of key words,such as all the key words in a line of subtitles,can play an emphasis role.This paper tries to reduce the language barrier between Chinese and English,hoping that the translation views proposed can provide a reference for the field of subtitle translation,inject new vitality into the research practice and theory of subtitle translation,and open up a new perspective.At the same time,it can help the export of Chinese documentaries to achieve better communication effect and give foreign audiences a more comprehensive and better image of a great country.