Film Subtitles Research Articles

Corpus-based cultivation of critical language awareness: A case study on English film subtitles

Corpus-based cultivation of critical language awareness: A case study on English film subtitles

Effects of English Film Subtitle on the Vocabulary Level of Grade-11 Students in a private school in Sipocot, Camarines Sur

This study aimed to determine the effects of reading subtitles on the vocabulary level of Grade-11 students in a private school in Sipocot, Camarines Sur. The study employed a pre-experimental design with static group comparison and descriptive correlational methods. The data gathering tools used were a survey questionnaire and a researcher-made test. The test was used to assess the vocabulary level of the respondents. The study found that there was a significant difference in the language proficiency of respondents who read subtitles and those who did not, in terms of vocabulary, form, meaning, and use. The respondents who read subtitles demonstrated a higher level of language proficiency in vocabulary compared to those who did not read subtitles. The study also found that there was no significant relationship between the extent of reading subtitles and vocabulary level in terms of form and meaning, but there was a significant relationship in terms of use only. Based on the findings, the study concluded that reading subtitles while watching English films can expand vocabulary level for further purposes.

Metode dan Strategi Penerjemahan Bahasa Arab ke Bahasa Indonesia pada Subtitle Film “Ar Risalah”

This study discusses the application of translation methods and strategies in the subtitles of the film Ar Risalah from Arabic to Indonesian. The film Ar Risalah is a religious film that tells the story of the life of the Prophet Muhammad SAW, which has strong historical and cultural values. This study aims to identify the methods and strategies used in translating dialogue sentences in the film's subtitles. Using a qualitative descriptive research method, data were collected through direct observation of the film's dialogue. The researcher classified the translation methods based on Newmark's theory and translation strategies from Pamungkas and Akmaliyah. The results of the study showed that there were seven translation methods used, namely word-for-word, literal, faithful, semantic, adaptation, free, and idiomatic translation. In addition, there were four translation strategies, namely prioritizing and ending, reducing, adding, and replacing. These findings indicate that translators must consider lexical, contextual, and cultural aspects in producing translations that are communicative and in accordance with the target language. This study provides in-depth insight into the complexity of the film translation process, which is expected to be a reference for subtitle translators in the future.

A Study on Subtitling Translation from a Multimodal Pragmatic Perspective: A Case Study of the English Subtitles of Return to Dust

Return to Dust is an outstanding mainland Chinese film that was nominated for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. This paper, using the theories of conversational implicature and the relevance principle, explores the implicit meanings in the film's subtitles from a multimodal perspective. It also examines whether the subtitling translation of the film is reasonable and appropriate. The paper argues that the subtitling translation should pay more attention to the cultural context of the dialogues and the pragmatic ambiguities within the film. By doing so, it can better convey the plot and adopt more suitable translation techniques and methods.

A Study on C-E Translation of Culture-Loaded Words in the Chinese Film Chang’an from the Perspective of Transknowletology

With the continuous intercultural communication between China and Western countries, the film subtitle translation has become more important than ever before. From the perspective of transknowletology, this paper explores the culture-loaded words in the English subtitles of the film Chang’an through four categories: ecological culture-loaded words, material culture-loaded words, social culture-loaded words, and linguistic culture-loaded words, and analyzes how translators can more accurately convey the knowledge and values of these words. Through the deep analysis of the film subtitle translation, it concludes that the knowledge-transfer can facilitate translator better translate the culture-loaded words, enhance translation quality, aid in the dissemination of local knowledge to the world, and promote the global spread of Chinese traditional culture.

Research on the Subtitle Translation of The Legend of Sealed Book from the Perspective of Multimodal Discourse Analysis

With the innovation of multimedia technology, a vast array of Chinese films has been rapidly translated and disseminated internationally, significantly enhancing the soft power of Chinese culture. As a quintessential multimodal text, the subtitling of films necessitates an analysis and interpretation of the multimodal discourse within them. The theory of multimodal discourse analysis, which takes multimodal discourse as its subject, provides a scientific analytical framework and practical guidance for the multimodal translation of film subtitles. Therefore, this paper employs the framework of multimodal discourse analysis theory, drawing on Zhang Delu's proposed dimensions of cultural, contextual, content, and expression levels, to conduct an in-depth analysis of the subtitle translation of the film The Legend of Sealed Book. The aim is to offer insights into the practice of film subtitle translation and to further the international dissemination of Chinese culture.

A Study on the Subtitle Translation of Moon Man from the Perspective of Eco-Translatology

With the deepening of cultural exchanges among countries, film subtitle translation plays an increasingly important role in cultural exchanges. The quality of subtitle translation will also directly affect the speed of international transmission of Chinese films. The science fiction comedy, Moon Man, contains many humorous language, superb sets and stunning effects to make the film stand out. This paper intends to study Moon Man's subtitle from the perspective of Eco-Translatology, analyze the ecological environment of film translation, and illustrate how the translator adapts and selects translation to adapt to the translation ecological environment from the perspective of three-dimensional transformation, and achieve the maximum multi-dimensional selective adaptation and adaptive selection.

Subtitle Translation of Chinese Elements in View of Cultural Translation: A Case Study of Ne Zha: I Am the Destiny

Guided by Bassnett’s cultural translation theory, this paper probes the strategies and methods used in subtitle translation of film and television productions containing Chinese elements. Taking the translation of lines from Ne Zha: I Am the Destiny, it analyzes the language expressions of Chinese tradition and categorizes the methods of dealing with cultural elements in the translation process. The aim is to elevate the translation quality of film subtitles from a cultural perspective, facilitating better communication between the original-language films and target-language audiences, and promoting cross-cultural exchanges.

Methodological Foundations of Film Speech Analysis Using Corpora: Technical, Social, and Cultural-National Aspects

The aim of this study is to describe the possibilities and limitations of the corpus approach to the analysis of film subtitles, taking into account their technical, social, and culturalnational features. It offers a review of existing film content corpora accompanied by their critical interpretation, firstly from the perspective of subtitle quality as empirical data for linguistic research, and secondly from the perspective of corpus quality as an environment for quantitative analysis of empirical material. Furthermore, based on established subtitling practices, the author proposes her own viewpoint on subtitles as material for studying film speech, considering technical (line length, screen size adaptation), social (subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing), and cultural-national (subtitling countries vs dubbing countries) aspects of subtitling in different languages and countries. In the course of the work, it was found that the largest number of subtitles available in open repositories are translated equivalents of cinema speech. It is noted that subtitling is preferred in the USA, UK, India, China, and Japan. The features of subtitling in countries such as Serbia, Finland, and Russia are described. The author concludes that these features are important for the quality of linguistic research on the basis of translated movie speech represented by subtitles.

Translation Accuracy of English Idiomatic Expression into Indonesian in Soul Film Subtitle by Disney+ Retail

The difficulty of translating idiomatic expressions arises when there is no direct equivalent between the source and target languages. In order to discover how translators deal with those issues, this study aims to identify types of idiomatic expressions and examine the accuracy of Soul film subtitle with the inspection of strategies used by the translator. This study used a qualitative descriptive method by applying the classification of idioms based on McCarthy and O’dell’s theory, the strategy in translating idioms by Mona Baker, and the translation accuracy level by Nababan. The data was gathered by watching the film, reading the subtitles, and noting the idiomatic expressions present in the film. This study took 14 samples to be analyzed from the 98 data found in the source text. From all data, there are 8 types of idioms which are verb + object, prepositional phrases, compound, simile/simili, binomial, whole clause/sentence, cliché/fixed statements, and euphemisms. The translator used 5 strategies in translating the idioms which are using an idiom of similar meaning and form, using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form, translation by paraphrase, translation by omitting the play of the idiom, and translation by omitting the entire idiom. As for the accuracy, this study found 94 data of accurate translation, 2 translations of almost accurate, and 2 translations not accurate. However, it can be concluded that the translation has a high-level accuracy making the quality of the translated idioms in the subtitle is good, although it can be still improved. Keyword: Idiomatic expressions, translation strategy, and accuracy level

Analysis of the Subtitle Translation of The Shawshank Redemption from the Perspective of the Skopos Theory

Translation is an important communication skill between different languages. In modern society, audiovisualproducts are distributed to worldwide areas as a popular means of mass media. As the globalization of economy and culture is advancing in the new century, audiovisual subtitle translation plays an increasingly important part. Good subtitles can enhance the audience’s experience of appreciating foreign films and make cultural communication more effective. This thesis conducts a brief survey on the strategies for film subtitle translation using the case study of the famous film The Shawshank Redemption. In this paper, based on Skopos theory, the author made a comprehensive analysis of subtitling activities and pointed out that subtitling, as a specialized area of translation, is not only guided by translation studies but also under the constraints of film properties. The Skopos theory of film subtitle translation is to provide, within the constraints of time and space, a well-translated subtitle that can contribute to a good understanding of what is happening on the screen. In short, the end justifies the means. Therefore, during the process of subtitle translation, the subtitler should take all the factors into consideration to identify the translation purpose, and then adopt corresponding translationstrategies. From this perspective, the author takes the Skopos theory as instruction and applies the reduction and addition method to analyze the film subtitle translation. In the age of globalization, foreign films are increasingly entering people’s lives. Watching foreign films is a popular and effective way to understand foreign cultures. However, in China, subtitle translation has not attracted as much academic attention as it deserves and few theories could be appropriately applied to subtitle translation. Therefore, the author hopes that subtitle translation could be paid more attention in terms of crosscultural communication.

Study on Subtitle Translation of the Battle at Lake Changjin under Translation Shifts Theory

As an important medium of cultural communication, film plays an important role in promoting Chinese culture to go abroad. The Battle at Lake Changjin is a war film with the background of the second battle of resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea, which restores the real scene on the battlefield to the greatest extent and shows the heroic and tenacious fighting spirit of the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army. Since its release, the film has been well received at home and abroad. The subtitle translation plays a vital role in it. Based on Catford’s translation shifts theory, this paper takes the Battle at Lake Changjin as an example to analyze the application of level shifts and category shifts in subtitle translation, in order to provide some references for film subtitle translators.

功能对等视角下《哪吒之魔童降世》的字幕维译研究

The secret to effective film communication is excellent film subtitle translation. The reproduction of the original text is emphasized by Eugene A. Nida’s functional equivalence theory. This paper explores the movie subtitle translation from the standpoint of functional equivalence theory at the lexical, syntactic, and phonetic levels, using the Uyghur translation of “Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child” as an example. It then illustrates the issues with the translation and suggests solutions. The study found that functional equivalence theory can examine the Uyghur translation of movie subtitles thoroughly and offer guidelines for translators to raise the quality of their work.

生态翻译学视角下的电影字幕翻译

Eco-translatology holds that, under the constraints of language, culture, and communication in the interactive context, translators should adapt to the translation ecological environment and choose translation strategies reasonably, in order to achieve translation ecological balance. As one of the genres of literary translation, film subtitle translation is also an effective way to promote Chinese culture to go global. Taking the film Chang An as an example, this paper discusses the application of the “three-dimensional transformation” of Ecotranslatology in subtitle translation. It points out that translators should not only consider the commonalities between translation of subtitle and general literature, but also adapt to its specificities, and pay attention to the transformation of the two languages in terms of linguistic, cultural and communicative dimensions, so as to facilitate cross-cultural communication.

The Self-Shaping, Other-Shaping, and Influence of Traditional Chinese Culture in Nezha: Birth of the Devil and Mulan

ABSTRACT With its unique cultural contributions and rich cultural connotations, Chinese culture has become increasingly influential in the world, so how to spread Chinese culture has become the proposition of the times. With this in mind, the purpose of this study is to find the differences between self-shaping and other-shaping and find the best way to adapt and disseminate traditional Chinese culture. Based on both quantitative and qualitative research, this study uses film subtitles, audience reviews, and interview material as samples to analyze the domestic movie Nezha: Birth of the Devil and the foreign movie Mulan. The results show that filmmakers prefer a similar theme and also use many cultural symbols, but have a very different emphasis on movie adaptations. Moreover, both domestic and foreign audiences haven’t formed an inclusive attitude to appreciate foreign movies; therefore, corresponding strategies should be adopted to better suit the audience’s interest and innovate traditional culture. In this way, this study can provide a new perspective for the adaptation and dissemination of traditional Chinese culture.

从归化异化角度浅析中文电影字幕翻译——以《山海经之再见怪兽》为例

从归化异化角度浅析中文电影字幕翻译——以《山海经之再见怪兽》为例

变译理论视角下电影字幕翻译研究——以“战狼2”为例

变译理论视角下电影字幕翻译研究——以“战狼2”为例

Research on English Translation of Movie Subtitles - Based on the Analysis of the Movie “Mulan”

The English translation of movie subtitles is vital for cross-cultural communication in films. Analyzing the translation of the movie "Mulan" allows for an understanding of the challenges faced in conveying cultural elements, character traits, and plot nuances. This research explores effective translation strategies and techniques, considering factors like humor, slang, and language styles. Evaluating audience feedback further enhances subtitle quality. By focusing on "Mulan," this study aims to improve the accuracy, readability, and naturalness of English movie subtitle translations. This study is based on the film "Mulan" and explores the English translation of film subtitles. Firstly, the background and content of the film are introduced to provide the context for the research. Subsequently, the study focuses on translation strategies for film subtitles and the societal issues present within them, such as gender inequality and stereotyping of women. By analyzing examples of direct translation, adaptation, and subtitles that showcase gender inequality, the challenges and solutions in the translation process are revealed. Based on this analysis, some translation approaches are proposed with the aim of conveying the theme of gender inequality in the film more effectively and reducing the emphasis on female stereotypes. Through the analysis and discussion of this study, theoretical and practical guidance is provided for film subtitle translation and serves as a reference for translating films that address societal issues.

Translation of interjections and subtitling: a study based on the BETA corpus of TV series and film subtitles

Interjections, often considered minor and peripheral linguistic elements, have been disregarded in both linguistic and translation-studies research. The main aim of this study, in this sense, is to analyse the translation of three primary and three secondary interjections in a parallel English-Spanish corpus of subtitles. More specifically, the interjections under study were ah, wow, ugh, God, damn, and shit, and the corpus used was the BETA corpus. Four main translation solutions have been identified: literal translation, translation by an interjection with a different form, translation by a textual fragment which contains no interjection, and omission. The results of the study indicate that the most frequent translation solution in the whole corpus has been omission, followed by the translation by a different interjection. In a more fine-grained analysis, the two variables analysed, namely type of interjection and specific interjection, have been found to condition the choice of translation solution.

Multiphase and Multistakeholder English Translation Processes Behind Subtitling Chinese Auteur Films

The professional translation processes involved in subtitling Chinese auteur films are under-reported in audiovisual translation literature. The present study investigates the translation processes employed for Chinese films destined for an international audience with a focus on fifth- and sixth-generation directors’ films. These film auteurs depict China’s diverse cultural elements and contemporary social reality, for which English subtitles provide an essential bridge to connect to an international audience. Interview data collected from ten established Chinese-to-English translators/subtitlers, whose names are credited in the selected films, identify two remarkable features of subtitling these contemporary Chinese auteur films: Multiple phases of the translation processes employed across the filmmaking lifespan and multiple stakeholders involved in the wider translation processes beyond translators/subtitlers. Actor-Network Theory is used to elicit interwoven relationships among the various human and non-human actors connected to translating/subtitling activities across different stages of filmmaking. These findings confirm that translating/subtitling is not an isolated post-production task but rather permeates all filmmaking phases. This can be a key factor in contributing to overall quality, which is critical in disseminating subtitled films by some of China’s most celebrated auteurs. Lay summary The international film market has increasingly featured Chinese films, especially the works by established Chinese directors, such as Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige, Jia Zhangke and Jia Zhangke. Their films reflect China’s cultural conventions and contemporary social reality. English subtitling is the most popular mode of translation to distribute Chinese films among the English-speaking audience. However, little is known about the agents involved in translating the Chinese high-profile films and the translation processes. To fill this knowledge gap, we interviewed ten translators or subtitlers contributing to the translation of the four aforementioned directors. The collected interview data inform us that many other stakeholders (e.g. directors, producers, screenwriters, distributors and subtitle editors) play a role in the shaping of the final English subtitles shown on the screen, and translation of Chinese films takes place throughout the whole filmmaking process (i.e. film development, pre-production, post-production, distribution and exhibition). A sociological framework is adopted to demonstrate the interwoven relationships among the various human (i.e. translators/subtitlers and other stakeholders) and non-human actors (i.e. accompanying materials and translation products) connected to translating/subtitling activities across different stages of filmmaking. It is argued that such a multiphase and multistakeholder process helps to improve the overall quality of Chinese film subtitling.