Functionalist Translation Theory and Film Translation.docVIP

Functionalist Translation Theory and Film Translation 　　【Abstract】 　　The last few decades witnessed the rapid development of literary translation， but the branch of movie translation has not gained deserved attention in translation circles. On the other hand， dubbed movies have gained increasing popularity among Chinese audience and the art of dubbing has developed into a special art in China. It seems paradoxical that there are still no relatively mature theories on movie translation. 　　According to the functionalist theory， translation is a purposeful activity. In the functionalist theory， translation is regarded as interpersonal interaction， rather than an action solely decided by the translator himself/herself .Therefore， a translation is the result of choices after analysis. Movie translation is a purposeful activity. The purpose of Movie translation is， with the constraints of time and space and in line with the intention of the directors and screenwriters， to convey to the audience in a specific culture the most relevant information. 　　【Key words】 　　Movie Translation； Source Language； Functional Equivalence Theory； Target Language 　　1Introduction 　　Movies are also called motion pictures， film or cinema， but all of the names refer to the same visual medium that is really a marvelous combination of traditional culture and technology combined to project a world on a screen. 　　Recently， since the movie market has prospered and flourished， there are an increasing number of translators engaged in this field and the quality of translators and language translation hasnt kept up with the art. Sadly， there are more second class translation efforts than superior ones. Movies that follow the proper channels into Chinese cinema are sure to be well translated， while subtitled pirated videos， which always appear first in the Chinese market， are poorly translated， most of the time. Often， subtitles are so out of sync with what is taking place on the screen， that its