透過字幕翻譯探討國臺語和英語文化衝擊之交錯影響-以國片 為例

Abstract

Based on linguistic and cultural references, Taiwanese films are often categorized as non-canonic ones. With the flourishing of Cape No.7 which is released in 2008, Taiwanese films have started reaching international audiences, and the subtitles between multi-linguistic Taiwanese and English have thus become particularly important. In Taiwan, the multilingualism can no longer be ignored. The code-mixing, colloquialism, idioms, cultural-related puns and pop-songs pose the challenge to audiovisual translators, along with certain restrictions which operate in subtitling. Taking Seven Days in Heaven (父後七日) as a case study, this paper will examine the effects of English subtitles on Taiwanese film, and discuss the difficulties associated with culture-related untranslatability in translation. Because of the time and space, subtitle translation is a triggering problem (Diaz, 2007; Egoyan & Balfour, 2004 ; Gambier, 1997; Gottlieb, 1994 ; Yang, 2008). In order to grasp the insight of audio-visual translation, the data of the specifically-designed questionnaire, completed by 210 students from I-Shou University in Taiwan, will be analyzed, and with the support of translation theories, particular translation strategies will be provided. The translation of subtitle attempts inevitably to bridge the cultural and linguistic gaps. Seeing from this perspective, translation theories and views, such as domestification and foreignization, equivalence, interlinguistic translation, semiotics, polysystem, and descriptive translation, will be further explored, while searching for the solutions to subtitle translation with the cultural bound topics. The purpose of this study is to investigate how English subtitles cater the need of the minority language - Taiwanese. According to Venuti’s (1995) translation theory, it is essential to make a decision of applying domestification or foreignization to help the audience comprehend the movie immediately. Is subtitle translation the continuing life of the movie as Benjamin (1923) proposed? Moreover, which strategy can fulfill the communicative function? And to which level? The issues of rewriting, invisibility of the subtitlers and the continuing life of the source text will be discussed to support our strategic process, designed on purpose for catching the spirit of subtitle translation and for fulfilling its semantic and cultural functions.