Compared with other translation types, film subtitle translation is special, which is largely restricted by technology and context, and has the characteristics of cross-discipline, popularization, immediacy, spatiality and cross-culture.
1, interdisciplinary
Other types of translation only focus on one professional field, for example, news translation, newspaper news translation, business translation, focusing on business trade, and legal translation focusing on criminal law. However, film subtitle translation will involve many fields. Take the American drama White Collar as an example. The Chinese translation of this play is also called Smart Detective. Because it is a gangster film, it involves the fields of law, criminal specialty and so on, and the man is a master of fraud, which involves famous paintings, antiques, financial securities and so on. This is that the whole script involves many professional fields, and the matching subtitle translation also spans many majors.
Step 2 be popular
Television and movies are the main forms of mass communication, which spread all over the society. Therefore, another feature of film subtitle translation is popularity. The so-called popularity means that subtitle translation must be popular and easy to understand, so that the general public can understand and understand. It is relatively easy to make a life-like film and television work like The Big Bang Theory, because the original text is a story of daily life; But what about historical dramas like Downton Abbey and Louis XIV? In fact, the reason is the same. Translation should be closer to the original style and use elegant words, but we should still choose words that are easy to understand. Subtitle translation should be true, accurate and easy to understand.
3. Instantaneity
Because film and television works express the central idea through sound and images, with the changes of light, shadow and sound, screen switching is basically fleeting. If the audience can't see clearly and can't understand, they must give up the previous content and continue the following content. Therefore, it requires smooth, concise and colloquial subtitle translation to reduce the audience's understanding time and improve the audience's viewing effect. Due to this feature of the film, it is objectively required that the subtitle language of the film should not be obscure, and good subtitle translation should be concise, vivid, easy to understand and easy to remember.
4. Space constraints
Subtitle translation is limited by space. Space refers to the size of the screen, the size of the subtitle font and the number of lines. The size of the screen is limited, and film and television works are a way of integrating sound, images and subtitles. If there are too many subtitles, it will affect the effect of the screen image, which requires the number of subtitles. Some scholars pointed out that the number of subtitles should not exceed two. Subtitles should also be directed at the actor's mouth. When the actor has finished reading the lines, the subtitles should also be played. This requires subtitle translation to have strict requirements on the number of words and lines in the translation.
5. Cross-culture
Translation is a special cross-cultural communication, especially film subtitle translation. A language carries a culture, and film and television works use a large number of communicative languages to spread the culture carried by this language to the audience. This requires us to see not only the implication, but also the implication in film subtitle translation. For example, in Avatar, there is a hotline called "Oneofthecriminalsusegunov HerisJourney". Among them, "hisjourney" is a cultural term, which literally means "a criminal ended his journey with a gun", but its cultural connotation is "ended his life". If the translation means "ending the journey", many China audiences can't understand it, so it is better to translate it into "ending life".
Second, the process of subtitle translation.
The process of subtitle translation is generally: task division → video source download → listening to and recording the original subtitles or downloading the subtitles in the source language → subtitle translation → proofreading. In most cases, post-production is needed. If there is no reason subtitle (or dubbing script) in the video, it is necessary to write subtitles in the source language according to the listening situation of the video, which is convenient for later translation into the target language. If the provided source language video has subtitles, you can confirm the subtitle content according to the subtitle file and prepare it into a format that is easy to translate (usually stored in Word file or other file format). After you get the translated and proofread subtitles, you should choose the supported software to add the corresponding subtitles in the target language according to the font, effect, color and type of the subtitles in the source language video. For example, when playing a video in the source language, subtitles are turned on by default, and localized subtitles should also be turned on by default.
3. What are the methods of subtitle translation?
Translation is a cross-language and cross-cultural communicative behavior. From the perspective of speech act theory, the translator is required to correctly understand the subjective motivation or intention of the original author and the objective effect on the original readers, and strive to convey this subjective motivation and objective effect equally in translation, so that the effect of the original information on the original recipients is basically the same as that of the translated information on the target recipients. Accordingly, in the process of translation, the translator should not only understand the literal meaning of the original text, but also find out the real intention of the original author and its influence on the readers: the translator must consider factors other than the receiver's reaction, translation effect and function, and the translation process will be completed only if the readers accept the translation. The following briefly introduces several methods of equivalent translation of video subtitles.
1, free translation
In actual translation, the translator should consider the expected effect of the translation on the group recipients of the target language and culture, and understand the historical background, cultural characteristics and language habits of this group. Translators should be able to predict their reaction to the translation, while goal-oriented translation achieves equivalence in effect.
Due to the differences in cognitive environment and language culture, it is difficult for translators to completely change the cultural context of the source language and appear in the target language. However, by understanding that the original text is a pragmatic language behavior, that is, the intention of the source language author, the translator should be able to make his own translation have similar influence and effect on the target language readers, or similar to the influence and feeling brought by the original text, so as to fully reproduce the cultural context of the source language in the target language culture.
When the translator expects that the target readers can't understand the author's intention through the literal meaning of foreignization, they should abandon the literal meaning and replace it with the author's intention. From the perspective of pragmatics, no matter how the translation is handled, it is a successful translation as long as it can convey the intention of the original, that is, the speech act of the original and achieve the communicative purpose.
When the differences between the two languages are so great that some English idioms and idioms can't be translated into Chinese, we should adopt free translation to translate the true meaning of the original text, so as to achieve equivalence in meaning. In the movie Kung Fu Panda 2, Master Roshi once said, "Your mind is like a kettle, my friend. When it is stirred, it becomes a pot of fish, but you can make a pot of fish." Your heart is like water, my friend. When the water waves are swaying, it is hard to see, but when it calms down, the answer will be crystal clear. However, considering that the speaker is a grandmaster, literal translation is too common to reflect the aura of the immortal and the image of the grandmaster. My heart is like this water, and chaos is unknown. If you are quiet inside, the solution will be self-evident. " It is more in line with the identity and tone of the immortal, and better achieves the effect of meaning equivalence.
2. Interpretation and translation
Theoretically, anything expressed in one language can be expressed in another. Language is a part of culture, and the meaning of any text directly or indirectly reflects the corresponding culture.
The meaning of words can only be found in their corresponding cultures. Although there are great differences between Chinese and foreign audiences in cultural background, translators should pay attention to language phenomena such as history, culture and customs when translating subtitles. From the artistic point of view of domestic audience's appreciation of translated films, we should choose the expressions of cultural images in the target language that are most similar to the functions of the source language and familiar to domestic audiences, so that the audience can see at a glance and enjoy the feelings similar to those of the source language audience. There is a saying in the American drama "Don't Lie to Me", "Yoga is lying on the sofa with Mattel in your hand." The audience doesn't know what "beautiful Taiwan" is. Actually, Mai-tai is a cocktail, which means "Yoga is lying on the sofa drinking juice and liqueur." Will completely eliminate the audience's understanding obstacles.
3. Cultural substitution
Translation is not only the conversion between two languages, but also the adaptation to the target culture. Overcoming cultural barriers, natural expression, smooth translation and effective and successful cross-cultural communication are the keys to subtitle translation. The translation strategies of cultural words depend on many factors, such as translation purpose, text genre and information recipients. Therefore, video subtitle translation should adopt a transparent and fluent style to minimize strangeness to the original culture.
There is a saying in the movie Forrest Gump that "it makes me feel like a duck to water". If it is literally translated into "It makes me feel like a duck to water", the audience in China may think of the tragic scene of "getting soaked", and the meaning cannot be effectively conveyed. Therefore, translation should adopt expressions that conform to the expression habits of the target language, and according to the needs of the context, it should be translated into words with China cultural characteristics, such as "like a duck to water", so as to make the target audience feel natural. It can be seen that how to deal with cultural words in subtitle translation is a problem that translators must seriously consider.
Translators should respect the cultural characteristics of the target language and try their best to use speech forms that are popular with the target audience and conform to the target language expression norms. For example, the domestic movie "Beijing meets Seattle", "He can run a few streets for me every morning to buy my favorite soybean milk fritters." In a word, China audiences are familiar with the breakfast of "deep-fried dough sticks", but translating it into "deep-fried dough sticks" will confuse foreign audiences, so translating it into "friedtwistbread" is because foreigners are very familiar with bread and make it more vivid and intuitive for foreign audiences to understand.