On Film Subtitle Translation from the Perspective of Communicative Translation —A Case Study of Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child

Abstract

Continued economic globalization, international cultural integration and rapid technological development have led to a boom in the multimedia industry. Film and TV drama is one of the primary approaches for foreign cultural communication, and subtitle translation is a crucial part of ensuring the effectiveness of cultural communication. Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child, a national comic masterpiece, has successfully won the 2019 box office championship and ranked second in China’s box office history，becoming the “light of national comics” and successfully going out of China to the world．Based on the rich cultural information contained in this film with Chinese characteristics, this essay takes Peter Newmark’s communicative translation as the theoretical framework, and some subtitles of the film Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child as the corpus. It summarizes the three principles of accuracy, conciseness, and instantaneous readability embodied in the subtitles from the perspective of communicative translation. According to this, this thesis draws some experience and finds suitable strategies for film subtitle translation, providing assistance to subtitle translators, with a view to enriching translation research in this field.