Abstract

With the development of society and deeper communication between various cultures, countries communicate and cooperate with each other in more aspects. A movie, which undertakes the responsibility to disseminate culture, is a bridge to facilitate the interflow of different cultures. However, language barriers may cause target language audience to have wrong understandings towards the connotation of movies, and impede the development of cross-cultural communication.

The core of Functional Equivalence Theory put forward by the famous translation expert E. A. Nida is equivalence. He values equivalence of content more than equivalence of form. When these two kinds of equivalences have conflicts, content equivalence is prior to form equivalence. In the theory, Nida highlights functional equivalence. He proposes that translation activities as a means of cultural communication have three functions: first, translation should make people have no difficulty to comprehend message; second, translation should let people have emotional resonance; third, translation should cause people proper reaction. The above functions can be known as informative, expressive and imperative function, which is closely related to the three objects which movie art pursues.

Movie, as a kind of cultural communication activity, has three goals: first, to let target audience comprehend and appreciate foreign culture; second, to let target audience feel the thoughts and emotion spread in the movie; third, to let the movie have rallying point. In short, the first goal is “informativeness”, the second “expressiveness”, the third “public appeal”. According to functional equivalence theory, in movie subtitle translation, translators should achieve the equivalence of three functions and three goals. 

In this paper, many movie subtitle translation versions from the movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire are studied from different levels of functional equivalence such as lexical level equivalence, grammatical equivalence, equivalence of idioms and expressions, contextual equivalence. Problems and barriers are found during the translation according to functional equivalence theory, when principles and strategies like corresponding, recasting and decolouring can be applied to overcome difficulties.

Keywords: Movie subtitle translation; Functional Equivalence Theory; cross-cultural communication

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

Chapter 1 Introduction-1

1.1 Research Background-1

1.2 Significance of the Research-2

1.3 Organization of the Paper-2

Chapter 2 Literature Review-4

2.1 Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory-4

2.2 Related Researches on Movie Subtitle Translation-4

Chapter 3 An Overview of Movie Subtitle Translation-7

3.1 Definitions of Movie Subtitle-7

3.2 Distinct Features of Movie Subtitle Trsnalation-7

Chapter 4 A Case Study on Movie Subtitle Translation from the Perspective of Functional Equivalence Theory-9

4.1 Introduction to the movie – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire-9

4.2 Analysis of movie subtitle translation-9

4.2.1 Lexical Level Equivalence-9

4.2.2 Grammatical Equivalence-10

4.2.3 Equivalence of idioms and expressions-11

4.2.4 Contextual Equivalence-12

4.3 Principle and Strategies-14

Chapter 5 Conclusion-17

References-18