The power of film translation 英语论文.doc

The power of film translation Whether domesticating or foreignising in its approach, any form of audiovisual translation ultimately plays a unique role in developing both national identities and national stereotypes. The transmission of cultural values in screen translation has received very little attention in the literature and remains one of the most pressing areas of research in The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the great power of film translation. This aim is accomplished by presenting the major modes of film translation, their world distribution and history, which are then followed by an analysis of dubbing and subtitling from the perspective of domestication and foreignisation. translation studies Introduction ach country cultivates a different tradition of translating films and subscribes to one of the two major modes: dubbing and subtitling as far as cinema translation is concerned, or sometimes to a third, minor, mode—voiceover—in the case of television translation. The decision as to which film translation mode to choose is by no means arbitrary and stems from several factors, such as historical circumstances, traditions, the technique to which the audience is accustomed, the cost, as well as on the position of both the target and the source cultures in an international context (see Dries 1995). This paper will focus on cinema translation only, which is of course not to say that television translation is less worthy of academic investigation. On the contrary, analysis of television translation constitutes an excellent material for further research, and it is only disregarded here for reasons of clarity and lucidity of argumentation. The first part of this paper sets out to present the above-mentioned translation modes and their world distribution, next trying to account for them from the perspective of history and culture. Subsequently, an attempt is made to show the enormous power that these modes exert on audiences and entire cultures. Th