Movie subtitle translation reference papers

Movie subtitle translation is an important part of multimedia translation and occupies an important position in the field of translation. The following is the content of the reference papers on movie subtitle translation that I have collected for everyone. Welcome to read and refer to it! Reference Paper on Movie Subtitle Translation Part 1

A brief analysis of the difference in translation in movie subtitle translation

1. Introduction

Since the day the film was born, it has won the favor of the audience with its unique and charming artistic expression. Today, with the development of information globalization, film and television works have become one of the important ways to understand foreign cultures and learn foreign languages ??due to their intuitive and convenient advantages. As a result, film and television translation has achieved unprecedented development. Compared with dubbing, subtitle translation (subtitling) has become one of the most commonly used methods for film and television translation due to its low production cost and short cycle time.

However, as Birgit Nedergaard-Larsen said, subtitle translation is a special kind of language conversion. It is not a simple conversion process from the source language to the target language. It involves the processing of many factors other than the text, such as Factors such as the fusion of sound, images, and pictures [1]. Due to time and space constraints, film subtitle translation usually uses methods such as condensation, deletion, and addition to maintain the unity of images, sounds, and subtitles as much as possible. Over- and under-translation are inevitable. At the same time, over- and under-translation have always been hot topics in translation academic circles. Therefore, how to treat over- and under-translation in subtitle translation is urgent and of practical significance.

2. Over-translation and under-translation

Peter Newmark proposed communicative translation and semantics in "Approaches to Translation" The concept of semantic translation. Communicative translation tends to be fluent, simple, clear, and direct, and adheres to a specific register, which is a kind of "under-translation"; semantic translation tends to be detailed, complicated, and obscure. Compared with According to the translator’s intention, translation focuses more on the reproduction of the thinking process, so it is a kind of “excess translation” [2]. Over-translation is the supplementary processing of the translated materials and transformation beyond the scope of translation, while under-translation is a type of language intermediary that does not meet the translation standards in some aspects, such as abbreviation or abbreviation. In short, over-translation means that the target text carries more information than the source text, and the expression is relatively specific; while under-translation means that the target text carries less information than the source text, and the target text is more Generalization[3]. Over- and under-translation are both increases and decreases in information during the translation process, so they can be collectively referred to as under-translation.

3. Over and under translation in subtitle translation

Georg-Michael Luyken proposed in the book Overcoming Language Barriers in Television: Dubbing and Subtitling for the European Audience that it is different from The characteristics of literary translation, oral interpretation, and film and television production subject subtitle translation to limitations from time and space: the screen space occupied by subtitles; the display time of subtitles; the time of switching between subtitles and the display and form of subtitles. At the same time, restricted by cultural factors, cultural vacancy is often a stumbling block in the translation process. Translation methods such as condensation, deletion and addition carried out by translators in order to avoid the above restrictions will inevitably lead to differential translation.

Please look at the following three examples:

Example 1.I supervised 5 officers.That’s 5 personalities, 5 sets of problems.You could be number 6 if you act right.But I ain’ ;t holding no hand, you understand?I ain’t babysitting you.

I have five subordinates with completely different personalities. If you behave well, you will be the sixth. But I won't take special care of you, understand? ("Training Day")

Example 2. Mail has come today and a friend writes this to me:...

Today I received a letter from a friend, which said: amp; hellip; amp; hellip; ("Out of Africa")

In the above example, the original sentence is longer, and if translated word for word, it will inevitably Affects the integration of images, sounds and subtitles. Therefore, the translator re-translated the entire sentence and deleted the italicized part.

Example 3. What about your staying longer?

What's going on? Do you have to stay for a few more days? ("The Jazz Singer")

Example 4.Terrified.Mortified, petrified, stupefied...by you.

Terrified. Trembling with fear, dazed with fear, going crazy with fear! But not afraid of you! ("Beautiful Mind")

In Example 3, the original text was spoken very slowly, so the translator added "What's going on?" Match the progression of the sound. In Example 4, the original text is in an affirmative tone and uses the final rhyme "ied". The translator translated the final rhyme "ied" into the alliteration "fear" and directly translated the negative tone.

From the above examples, it is easy to see that information is added or deleted during the translation process. Although the translation in Example 1 ensures the consistency of the picture and the subtitles and basically retains the information of the original text, it weakens the momentum of the protagonist's attempt to demonstrate. In Example 4, the translator has racked his brains to deal with the ending rhyme. However, if the negative tone implicit in the original text is directly translated, the audience will not be able to appreciate the subtlety of the source language text. So the audience's reaction to the subtitle film Audiences in the original language will also react slightly differently to the film in the original language.

Subtitle translation is often affected by non-literary factors such as images and sounds. If literary translation is "dancing in shackles", then subtitle translation is "dancing in shackles and shackles". The translator can only preserve the information and ideas conveyed by the film as much as possible without affecting the echoes of the images, sounds and subtitles. Over and under translation is inevitable.

4. How to treat the translation gap in subtitle translation

Due to different language structures and cultural differences, translation can never achieve absolute equivalence. Subtitle translation is both literary translation and multimedia translation: on the one hand, it must deal with the cultural factors involved in the text of the lines, and on the other hand, it must also take into account the technical constraints. The addition and deletion of information is inevitable, and the equivalent value is There is no way to talk about it. Fu Lei, a famous Chinese translator, pointed out: "Even the most excellent translation will inevitably have more or less charm than the original text. When translating, we can only try to shorten this distance as much as possible. If it is too good, we should not go too far, and if it is not good, we should not be too short." "The "over" and "under" mentioned by Fu Lei are the translations of excess and underage discussed in this article.

However, although excess and under-account are inevitably common in translation, as long as the degree of "over" and "under" is minimized and the charm of the original text is expressed as closely as possible, subtitle translation is not wrong. The beauty of "killing two birds with one stone"? I put forward the following two points of view, aiming to help the translator look at over- and under-translation from a new perspective during the subtitle translation process.

1. Whether it is literary translation or subtitle translation, over- and under-translation are unavoidable. The gap between the target text and the source text has already existed since the time of translation. In addition, subtitle translation is often affected by non-literary factors such as technology. Therefore, I believe that on the premise of not affecting the normal enjoyment of the film, appropriate excess and Underpaid translations are acceptable. Professor Xu Chongxin once had such a metaphor: when a train is moving, it is almost impossible to avoid the up and down shaking and left and right shaking of the car body, but this shaking and shaking will not affect the smooth operation of the train as long as it is within a certain range. Accidents will only occur within a certain range. Translation is the movement of the train, and "shaking" and "swaying" are inevitable. Such as this dialogue in "Growing Pains":

Example 5. Teacher: ahhhh Mike.Can you explain for us the significance of the sea, in Moby Dick?

Mike: Ah, sure, sure. It's the letter between the I and the K.

The humor of this conversation lies in the homophones of "sea" and "c" It is a pun, but there is no corresponding pun in Chinese, so the translator must use a flexible translation method to ensure the smooth "running" of the "train". The following is a feasible Chinese translation: Teacher: Ah Mike, can you explain to us the meaning of the sea in the book "Moby Dick".

Mike: Oh, of course, of course, the sea is different from the river.

The translator had no choice but to convert the puns in the original text into Chinese alliteration, but the humor of the original text was retained. If the original text is to be translated faithfully, annotations and annotations are essential. Not only is the humor lost, but the space and time factors of the subtitles do not allow for it. Compared with annotations and annotations, the conversion between similar attributes, such as rhetorical techniques, may be more effective in reducing the degree of "jitter" and "sway".

The translation in Example 5 supplements the translated materials and makes modifications beyond the scope of translation, which is an excessive translation. But it is this kind of processing that achieves the intended purpose of the source language film. Therefore, the over-translation here is an acceptable and effective way of processing. In Example 1, abbreviation is necessary due to time and space constraints, and it is inevitable that the amount of information conveyed by the source text will be reduced. However, if the information in Example 1 is completely translated, it will inevitably affect the readability and coherence of the subtitles. Therefore, moderate over- and under-translation due to literary and non-literary factors is acceptable.

2. The moderate control of subtitle translation should be based on the type of movie. Different movie types have different target audiences and different expected effects. For the purpose of this article's analysis, I divide movies into two categories: serious and entertainment. Serious films include documentaries, scientific and educational films, and other films that are used to provide and convey professional knowledge and information; entertainment films are for the audience's entertainment and edification, such as comedies, thrillers, action films, literary films, etc. Subtitle translation for different movie types requires different translation methods. For example, in Example 5 above, "Growing Pains" is a comedy. Its purpose is to make the audience laugh, and puns are one of the jokes. If a literal translation is adopted, the audience will not know what it is, and the comedy effect will be greatly reduced.

Another example is thrillers and horror films. The audience will focus on the development of images, sounds and plots. If the free translation method is used to translate the lines in a literary style, the audience will also laugh and cry because they are incompatible with the plot.

Since serious movies aim at transmitting information, clarity is the key, so they tend to use simple, clear, and direct translation methods, and tend to under-translate; entertainment movies can be translated according to the context. Carry out appropriate "processing" and "transformation", that is, excessive translation. However, the two translations do not take the difference as the starting point and attempt to be unfaithful to the source text. Without conflicting with technical limitations, try to maintain a "zero" difference with the source language text as much as possible.

5. Conclusion

To sum up, subtitle translation is a complicated task. It is limited by literary factors and technical factors. Over and under translation are inevitable. . Translation academic circles have been arguing over over- and under-translation as typical types of errors. I think that in the case of conflicts with technical factors such as time and space, moderate over or under translation can be regarded as a compromise method. Moderate over- or under-translation for different film types not only gets rid of technical limitations, but also achieves the intended purpose of the film.

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