Abstract
Films are the reflection of the mainstream ideology in a specific culture. More importantly, the process of film translation itself is equivalent to the rewriting process by the translator (Lefevere 1992), which embodies and even strengthens the manipulation of social ideology. As the “Main Melody” films that focus on propagandizing the official messages of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Wolf Warrior II (2017) and The Wandering Earth (2019)’s rewritten subtitles intensively embody the ideology manipulation under the regime of the CPC and the Chinese government. By discussing how audiences from different social, cultural, ethnic backgrounds might employ their experience and knowledge about the Chinese society and politics to decode the subtitles in ways that contradict the intended meaning, this paper seeks to investigate the effectiveness of the rewritten subtitles’ ideological manipulation towards the Chinese audience and the English-speaking audience.
Highlights
Rewritten Subtitles of Audiovisual Products as the Embodiment of Ideology ManipulationAs we have seen through the influence of Hollywood films, audiovisual products that are widely disseminated can boast great influence around the world
The rewritten subtitles of Wolf Warrior II and The Wandering Earth reveal the manipulation of Chinese national political ideology under the regime of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese government as well
The subtitle translation in Wolf Warrior II profoundly and skillfully conveys China’s current orthodox ideology under the leadership of the CPC, while that of The Wandering Earth, as well as the “visually transmitted verbal sign” (Delabastita 1989: 199), which refers to “the written documents [like letters] that appear on the screen” (Díaz Cintas and Remael 2014: 47), implies the acknowledged ‘politically correct’ messages in Chinese society
Summary
Rewritten Subtitles of Audiovisual Products as the Embodiment of Ideology Manipulation. Formed in a certain social-political and cultural background, ideology is a kind of “social cement”, which serves to stabilize the society with “collectively shared values” (Thompson 2013: 9). These collectively shared values are embedded in numerous audiovisual works. Lefevere (1992) introduced the concept of “rewriting” in translation studies He believes that translation itself is a rewriting process of the original text, and rewriting embodies manipulation. In the process of subtitle translation of audiovisual works, the subtitler may fall into ideology manipulation, which makes their completed audiovisual works embodiments of ideology in turn
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