Trans Type EN 15

A Case Study of Ne Zha on Subtitle Translation Strategies from the Perspective of Skopos Theory

浅析目的论视角下《哪吒之魔童降世》字幕翻译策略

刘胜楠 Liu Shengnan, Hunan Normal University,China

Abstract

In recent years, domestic animated films have witnessed a rise, exemplified by hits like Monkey King: Hero is Back, Big Fish & Begonia and White Snake. As Chinese film and TV industry is booming, increasing excellent animation films have been spread abroad and Ne Zha is one of the representatives.With films gradually becoming a notable channel of cultural intercommunication, the function of subtitles is particularly of great importance, not only to help the audience understand the content of the story, but also to convey the cultural output.

However, literary translation has occupied center stage in the translation field for long, and yet the history of film and television translation is less than one hundred years. As a result, films and television translation has not received due attention from professional translation talents and not been researched thoroughly.Taking Ne Zha as an example, this paper is designed to explore the subtitle translation of domestic animated films from the perspective of Skopos theory. Through the study of subtitle translation of domestic animated films, this paper advocates that the purpose of subtitle translation should be fully taken into consideration, and calls for the attention of scholars on the quality of domestic animated film translation for the best viewing effect and cultural communication.

摘 要

近些年来，从《西游记：大圣归来》到《大鱼海棠》再到《白蛇：缘起》，国产动画电影渐受欢迎。由于中国影视行业日益繁荣，越来越多的优质动画电影传播海外，《哪吒之魔童降世》就是其中的典型代表之一。由于电影逐渐地成为文化传播的重要渠道，字幕的功能就显得尤为重要，不仅要帮助观众理解所讲的故事内容，还要将其中的文化输出传达出来。但是影视作品翻译的历史不足百年，且文学翻译长期处于翻译界的主导地位，使得影视翻译没有得到专业翻译人士足够的关注和研究。本文以翻译目的论为指导，以电影《哪吒之魔童降世》为例，旨在探讨目的论视角下国产动画电影的字幕翻译。通过对国漫电影字幕的翻译研究，倡导在字幕翻译过程中充分考虑翻译目的，以期让更多翻译人士关注和研究影视字幕翻译，同时提高国产动画电影的翻译质量，最终达到最佳的观影效果和文化传播交流的目的。

Introduction

Over the past decade, China’s film industry has made unprecedented progress, leaping to the second largest film market in the world with the largest number of screens and an annual output of about 1000.

Research Background and Significance

In 2019, there was a great breakthrough in the production and box office of domestic animated films winning a good reputation around the world. The film, Ne Zha, especially, broke the dominance of American, Japanese and other countries’ animated films on the domestic screen and gave great confidence to domestic ones.Since its release, the box office of Ne Zha has exceeded 5 billion yuan in China, ranking third in the total box office of Chinese film history. Subsequently, the film was released in North America, Australia, New Zealand and other countries.The highest-grossing animated film ever in China hit cinemas in North America on August 29, 2019. However, according to the box office statistics website, as of September 15, 2019, the North American box office of Ne Zha was less than 3 million dollars, about 1/250 of the box office in China.

Although there is no doubt that Ne Zha has earned rave reviews in China, there is still much room for its popularity overseas. The main causation is that most of the laughing points in the film spring from Chinese traditional culture. That is to say, clashes of cultures make them impalpable for foreign audiences. In respect of film content transmission, subtitle translation paves the way for the understanding of alien cultures, realizes cultural exchange between China and foreign countries and gives full play to the film’s greatest commercial value. It is hoped that this paper is able to provide some reflections and implications for further exploration of subtitle translation.(Development Research Center of State Administration of Radio and Television,2021:95-99)

The Director and the Film

Jokalate Yang Yu, was a medical student when he made up his mind to engage in animation production.At first, it was hard for him to convince people around him that he could make a living by producing animation. However, thanks to his mother’s support, he overcame many difficulties and obstacles, and his career got bright when his short-animated film, See Through, gained considerable fame at home and abroad. Whereafter, Yu, spent two years in perfecting the script of Ne Zha and three years in putting it into practice. He created a story touching on issues such as loneliness, prejudice, and family love. In the past animations, Ne Zha resisted patriarchy and feudal autocracy, but what he fought against in this film was prejudice, which subverted his original image setting.

This film tells the story of Ne Zha as the reincarnation of a devil who believes that his fate is in his own hands.Ne Zha is full of personality on the surface, but he is quite lonely inside and eager to be accepted by villagers in Chentang. The reason why this film can arouse the resonance of audience is that the majority have experienced prejudice.(Development Research Center of State Administration of Radio and Television,2021:100-105)

Literature Review

Since the film was released in the last two years, little research on its content itself appeared at home and abroad, but domestic and foreign scholars have a more in-depth study on subtitle translation.

Studies Overseas

Dictionary of Translation Studies depicts that subtitle translation is a kind of language transformation including “intralingual subtitle translation” and “interlingual subtitle translation”, which provides explanations for the dialogues between the characters in films and TV works. (Mark Shuttleworth＆Moria, Cowie, 1997:56)

Oversea investigations into subtitle translation roughly began in 1960s. The article “Translation et Cinema” and “Cinema et Translation” can be regarded as the earliest film translation theory research in Europe. In 1974, Dollerup analyzed the problems and errors in translating English into Danish and also pointed out the importance of subtitle translation in foreign language learning. In 1982, Christophoer Titford entered the concept of “Constrained Translation” for the first time. Later, the term was applied to translation practice of subtitles by researchers and exerted a profound influence on the later development of film subtitle translation.Since 1990, the study of audio-visual translation in the West moved into high gear. Considerable theories were put forward by western scholars including Yves Gambier, Henrik Gottlieb, Jan Ivarsson and so on, and the theories of subtitle translation made great strides.In 1991, Luken with four collaborators from different European countries, analyzed the dissimilar translation modes in film and television works from a professional point of view. In 1992, Ivarsson introduced the technical level and the development of subtitle translation in detail. In 2001, Gambier and Gottlieb, the leading figures in the film translation field, published a book named Media Translation: Concepts, Practices and Research where a lot of research papers on film and television translation were collected. In 2003, Gambier was invited to translate the journal Translator by the publishing house of Saint Jerome of Manchester of England, in which he edited and published a special issue of film and television translation studies.(Fang Han,2019:14)

Broadly speaking, in the past few decades, western scholars have made a comprehensive study related to subtitle translation in film and television works. In terms of theory, foreign studies in this realm range over almost all aspects, such as subtitle strategy, subtitle quality control, subtitle translation standardization and so on,but foreign studies lack the analysis of specific cases to point out what can be improved in subtitle translation.(Ge Nan,2013:23)

Studies in China

Domestic researches on subtitle translation of film and television works started later than that of western countries, and its development was not fully mature. After 1921, a mass of sound films entered the Chinese market, and subtitle translation came into being by degrees. Cheng Shuren, a returnee from America, was the first to bring the formal professional knowledge of foreign films and practical experience in film production process back to China, which played an irreplaceable role in the development of early Chinese films. In the spring of 1923, Cheng learned from the experience of the United States and set a precedent for putting Chinese subtitles on foreign films.After the reform and opening up, subtitle translation was gradually showing a booming trend with a large number of foreign film and television works flooding into China. However, there were also lots of problems in subtitle translation, such as inaccurate translation, incorrect spelling etc. In the meantime, a growing number of experts and scholars paid attention to the subtitle translation studies, such as Zhao Huayong, Ma Zhengqi, Gu Tiejun, Qian Shaochang, Li Yunxing and so on. (Li Jie,2008,232-233)

Domestic scholars amassed rich experience in translation practice, encapsulated the characteristics, tenets and techniques of film and television translation, and published quite a few works. The Approach & Research of Foreign Film Dudding written by Zhao Huayong came out in 2000, showing the theoretical results of translated films. Ma Zhengqi comprehensively and deeply discussed the essential attributes and basic theories of translated films in his work, Scenario Translation & Dubbing. Gu Tiejun’s New Scenarios Translation and Review published in 2006, elaborated the necessity of film translation and the evaluation of translated films. In addition, many papers gradually appeared. Qian Shaochang published an essay in 2000, known as “Audiovisual Translation-An Increasingly Important Fields in Translation”, summarizing the five characteristics of language in film and television works. In 2001, Li Yunxing wrote “Strategies of Subtitle Translation”, putting forward the corresponding translation strategies according to the characteristics of subtitle translation. Subtitle translation is a field that hasn’t been thoroughly studied in China and its quality is unsatisfactory. There are two main points accounting for it: the first one is that not enough systematic theories and rules can guide the practice of subtitle translation; second, there are some obstacles in subtitle translation such as language problems, technique difficulties, cultural vacancy, etc. Comparatively speaking, the domestic studies on subtitle translation, unaccompanied by sufficient and systematic theoretical support, are mainly based on practical experience of subtitle translation, and the summary of the problems encountered in translation.(Fang Han,2019:15-17)

With the continuous introduction and improvement of various translation theories, adopting translation theories to analyze subtitle translation becomes an upsurge in the recent years. By marshaling the thesis and articles that bear on subtitle translation, it can be found that a large number of previous studies at home have analyzed the E-C subtitle translation of film and television works under Skopos theory, but few scholars research excellent domestic animated films in C-E subtitle translation, which hinders the domestic animations from going global. In view of this phenomenon, the main objective of this paper is to fill the gap of lacking analysis of C-E subtitle translation about Chinese animations, come up with some helpful suggestions and explore some novel thoughts for guiding subtitle translation of Chinese animation.

Theoretical Review

Skopos theory of functionalism was born in Germany in the 1970s. For half a century, its theoretical leverage has been stretching out all over the world. The advent of functionalist Skopos theory destabilized the idea that source text is all-important, attached importance to the function of translation, emphasized the purpose of translation, and expanded the scope of translation studies, which aroused strong repercussions in translation circles.

The Development of Skopos Theory

The formation of functionalist Skopos theory went through four stages: Katharina Reiss’s Text Typology, Hans J. Vermeer’ s Skopostheorie, Justa Holz-Mänttäri’ s Theory of Translation Action and Christiane Nord’s Function plus Loyalty. (Li Jie,2008:232-233)

Translation Criticism: The Potential and Limitations published by Katharina Reiss in 1971 was regarded as the opening work of German functional translation theory. The book put forward the inchoate ideas of the translation theory school. In her early theoretical studies, Reiss believed that the equivalence pursued by translation should be at the discourse level, not in words and sentences. Inspired by her translation practice, Reiss realized that it was impossible to achieve real equivalence in translation communication and even in some cases, equivalence was not the desired effect, so she pointed out that it was necessary to give priority to the functional characteristics rather than the principle of equivalence. In addition, she also divided the text into four types, namely, informative, expressive, operative and audio-medial texts, and put forward the view of Text Typology which means the translator analyzes the text from the perspective of pragmatics and enables to interpret the translation. Reiss’s view disentangled translation patterns from the traditional mode of static language analysis, representing a great ascent to translation theories and laying the foundation for Skopos theory.

In 1984, Hans J. Vermeer, the student of Katharina Reiss, put forward Skopostheorie in Groundwork for a General Theory of Translation. And then in 1989, his paper Skopos and Commission in Translational Action gave a general description of Skopostheorie that any form of translation action, including translation itself, has its aim(Vermeer, 1989:221-232).According to Vermeer’s Skopostheorie, a text can have many different texts according to different purposes, and translation was defined as intercultural communication in a certain cultural context.Then, Justa Holz-Mänttäri advanced the Theory of Translational Action from the perspective of communication and behavior. On the basis of Vermeer’s Skopostheorie, Holz-Mänttäri embraced the idea that the social and cultural factors such as clients’ identities influenced the translation process. What’s more, he emphasized the choice of translators and the situation of target readers, which rid the study of translation theory of the limitations of the text itself.On the basis of the previous theoretical achievements, Christiane Nord enlisted a model for analyzing source language texts, which can be applied to all text types and translation processes. In his masterpiece,Text Analysis in Translation: Theory，Methodology, and Didactic Application of a Model for Translation－Oriented Text Analysis , Nord expounded the theoretical basis of translation text analysis mode, explained the role and function of source text analysis in translation, then focused on the analysis of the basic elements of source text analysis, and finally discussed the application of text analysis mode with examples. In addition, the idea of “function plus loyalty” was proposed for the first time in this book, which Nord’s version of the functionalist approach stood. (Bian Jianhua,2006,44-46)

The combination of these two principles is the most important, even if in some cases they seem to contradict each other. Function refers to the factors that make target text work in the intended way in the target situation. Loyalty refers to the interpersonal relationship among the translator, the source-text sender, the target-text addressees and the initiator. Loyalty limits the range of justifiable target-text functions for one particular source text and raises the need for a negotiation of the translation assignment between translators and their clients. (Nord,2006:75-76)

Nord absorbed the essence of previous functionalists and established his own translation text analysis mode. At this point, Skopos theory has been mature, which has broken through the long-standing popularity of translation equivalence.

Three Rules of Skopos Theory

As the pivot of functional school, Skopos theory is a groundbreaking mode of translation, which embodies three rules with Skopos rule at its core. “Skopos” is a word of Greek derivation meaning “aim” or “purpose”. Nord claimed that “Inter-textural coherence is subordinate to intra-textual coherence, and both of them are subordinate to the Skopos rule. If the Skopos requires a change of function, the standard will no longer be inter-textual coherence with the source text but adequacy or appropriateness with regard to the Skopos, and if the Skopos demands intra-textual incoherence (as in the theatre of the absurd), the standard of intra-textual coherence in no longer valid”. (Nord,2001:16-21)

Skopos Rule

Skopos rule means that a translation action is determined by its purpose. Vermeer points out that translation is a kind of purposeful behavior and explains the Skopos rule as following:

Each text is produced on a given purpose and should serve this purpose (Chen Jing, 2016:89-90). According to this rule, the function of the translated texts determines the translation approach and strategy. The Skopos rule thus reads as follows: translate/ interpret /speak/ write in a way that enables your text/ translation to function in the situation in which it is used and with the people who want to use it and precisely in the way they want it to function. (Nord,2001:29-30)

This rule is helpful for solving the eternal dilemmas of free vs. faithful translation, dynamic vs. formal equivalence, good interpreters vs. slavish translators. Under the direction of Skopos rule, translators can adopt corresponding translation strategies and techniques to flexibly address the differences between the target text and the original text, so as to facilitate the understanding of the target readers. In other words, adopting any method or strategy depends on the purpose of translation so that the status of translators has been greatly improved.

Coherence Rule

The coherence rule, also called intra-textual coherence, means the translator should make the translation semantically coherent in the process of information transform. In other words, the translation must be logical, clear, fluent, readable and acceptable, so as to facilitate the understanding of the recipients.

Coherence rule specifies that a translation can be acceptable under the circumstance where it has a sense of oneness with the receivers’ situation and being coherent with is synonymous with being part of the receiver’s situation. Before translation practice, the translator should make allowances for cultural differences and try to eliminate these barriers, so as to correctly output the original author’s central ideas to the target language receivers, which adjures the translator to observe the coherence rule.(Bian Jianhua,2006:44-46)

Fidelity Rule

Fidelity rule, also known as “Inter-textual Coherence”, is another principle to represent the relation between the source text and the target text, which emphasizes a faithful rendering of the original text. More specifically, fidelity rule states the following elements of the coherence:(1) the source text information received by the translator;(2) the interpretation the translator makes of this information;(3) the information that is encoded for the target text receivers. (Xue Fei,2018:37)

The fidelity rule is a follow-up to the Skopos rule. In this rule, the extent and form of constancy is subject to the translator’s understanding of the original text. Therefore, in the subtitle translation guided by fidelity rule, the original intention, emotion and tone of the speaker should be conveyed to the target audience as much as possible, so as to maintain the consistency of language features.

Evaluation on Subtitle Translation of Ne Zha under Skopos Theory

Ne Zha has received a lot of praise in China, but underperformed in the overseas market, which is closely related to its subtitle translation. Due to the limitation of traditional cultural themes, there are a large number of culturally-loaded terms in Chinese films and television works, which brings challenges to subtitle translators. Therefore, it’s of great necessity to analyze the subtitle translation under the Skopos theory in order to find its inadequacies. There are several versions of subtitle translation of Ne Zha while the following analysis of subtitle translation is based on the American version.

The Title Translation of Ne Zha

The title of a film is an important criterion for audience to know the content, judge the theme and then choose whether to watch it or not. Of course, flexible and simple title translation is also necessary for the reason that it can make the audience easily remember the plot of the film and to tell others about the film. Therefore, a good film title translation attaches great importance to making the audience believe that the film is worthy of watching.This Chinese animation related that Ne Zha was born with a cursed fate, got a raw deal, fought against bias and finally got approval of Chentang villagers. The full title of the film is“哪吒之魔童降世”，but it is straightly translated into “Ne Zha”. Although “Ne Zha” is terse, the subheading is ignored, which doesn’t convey the main content and doesn’t have enough appeal for the audience. In fact, the name “哪吒”has profound meaning: “哪” is a compound noun in ancient Chinese. According to the Ci Hai, “哪”refers to “傩”, which originally means to drive away evil and disease; what “吒”drives at is justice, symbolizing indignation; “哪”and“吒”together means to expel evil spirits, demons and monsters invincibly. In the title translation of this film,“哪吒”is transliterated into “Ne Zha” . However, from the viewpoint of the western audience,“哪吒”is just the name of a character as they cannot understand the cultural connotation contained in it.(Xia Zhengnong & Chen Zhili,2009,2106)

In conclusion, the translation of the title cannot achieve complete conveyance of the meaning of source language. Grounded on the fidelity rule of Skopos theory, if “哪吒之魔童降世”is rendered as “Ne Zha: I am the Destiny”, it’s more faithful to the original language and more attractive for audience from other countries.

Subtitle Translation Methods and Techniques of Ne Zha

In the sight of Xiong Bin, Translation strategies can be divided into two categories: domestication and foreignization, and each strategy contains some translation methods. Skopos theory, with its three rules, is such a general guideline that a variety of translation strategies, translation methods and translation techniques need to be involved in translation practice. Examples are listed in the following section to illustrate the employment of these methods and techniques in different context.(Xiong Bing,2014:82-88)

Translation Methods under Foreignization

Foreignization means that the form of the original text should not be altered as much as possible in the process of translation. It requires that the differences between languages and cultures be preserved in translation, so as to give readers a sense of exoticism, which enables to promote cultural exchanges and strengthen readers’ understanding of foreign culture.Translation methods under foreignization include zero translation, transliteration, word-for-word translation and literal translation. In this film, some translation methods under foreignization are used in the following examples.(Xiong Bing,2014:82-88)

Literal Translation

Literal translation, is the most frequently used translation method in translating. Lian Shuneng, a famous scholar in China, defines literal translation as “ideally the segmentation of the source language text into individual words and target language rendering of those word segments one at a time” in his masterpiece A Coursebook on English-Chinese Translation. During translation, literal translation is a good choice if the peculiarities of source language don’t affect the target readers’ understanding of the original text.

Example 1:

我施了天劫咒。

译：I have cast a heaven-made curse.

In Chinese culture,“天劫”is a punishment or disaster given by God.“天劫咒”is verbatim translated into “a heaven-made curse”. In language conversion, there is a cultural inequality for the reason that “heaven” in western culture is quite different from“天”in Chinese religion.“天”is the embodiment of morality and the noumenon of Tao, which can dominate the whole world. As a western audience who doesn’t understand Chinese religion, it is difficult to understand its cultural connotation. “天劫”in the film refers to“天雷”which is a kind of severe punishment from God. Based on the Skopos rule, it’s better to use the strategy of free translation so as to make the translation more comprehensible. Translating“天劫咒”into “a curse of lightning stroke” make the western audience jump out of the literal bondage and better understand the characters’ fear.

Transliteration

Transliteration is usually served as a panacea for translating proper nouns such as people, places, institutions etc., to keep the source language’s cultural heterogeneity from being assimilated. Thereby the target language readers can appreciate its culture. It is not advisable to use transliteration excessively in translation because transliteration reduces the readability of the translation and affects the spread of the translation in the target culture, so this kind of translation method should be used reasonably for better cultural exchange. A representative example is Qiankun Hoop in the film of Ne Zha.(Xiong Bing,2014:82-88)

Example 2:

我用乾坤圈才压制住他的魔性。

译：I have to use the Qiankun Hoop to suppress his demonic nature.

The prototype of “乾坤圈” is a Chinese Taoist tool.“乾坤”, so-call “heaven and earth”, is a famous Taoist cultural term. In the Eight Trigrams, “乾坤” are all inclusive, representing the power of Yin and Yang and the source of all things.“乾坤”is rich in oriental characteristics, and there is no equivalent word in Western culture. “乾坤” is directly transliterated into “Qiankun” in the lines. The translation process is simplified so that unnecessary ambiguity and semantic confusion are avoided. Nonetheless, there is still a lack of cultural connotation in the process of translation: the western audience is still confused about the meaning of “Qiankun”, and the information that the audience can receive is that “乾坤圈” is only a circle, which does not fully achieve the expected effect of translation.“乾坤圈”can translate as “Heaven and Earth Hoop”. “Heaven and Earth” interprets what “乾坤”means, which is easier to understand for overseas audience and accords with the coherence rule.(Xia Zhengnong & Chen Zhili,2009,1013)

Translation Methods under Domestication

Domestication refers to localizing the source language and adopting the way of expression used by the target language readers to convey the content of the original text.Translation methods under domestication are comprised of literal translation, imitation, variation translation and recreation. In this film, examples are listed to illustrate the employment of some translation methods under domestication.(Xiong Bing,2014:82-88)

Free Translation

Free translation means various grammatical constructions can be utilized with a view to expressing the same meaning on the basis of understanding the original text. As is known to all, in many translation practices, only using the coherence rule cannot express the meaning of the original text inasmuch as each language embraces its own exclusive vocabulary, syntactic structures and collocations. So, the translator can make appropriate adjustments to the original text. The following sentences are good examples of using free translation techniques. (Lian Shuneng,2006:12)

Example 3:

我是小妖怪

逍遥又自在

杀人不眨眼

吃人不放盐

一口七八个

肚皮要撑破

译：

I am a scary demon

Better run and hide

Legend says I’ll eat and eat

Until everyone has died

And they’re right

You should steer clear

Best take their suggestion

The genre of the poem is doggerel, usually used for self-modesty or self-mockery due to its vulgarity and humor. By reason of being rejected and reviled by the people of Chentang and caged at home, Ne Zha makes some doggerel of self-mockery from time to time. Adopting free translation, the translation has a flavor of nursery rhyme but lacks a sense of humor. From the viewpoint of Skopos rule, using literal translation is a better choice. Thus, the doggerel can be translated into “Little devil as I am/living freely without giving a damn/I kill without blinking/And eat people without salting /After a mouthful of eight/My stomach is stuffed to the throat.” The revised translation is rhyming and basically achieves the expressive effect of the source language.

Example 4:

若命运不公，就和它斗到底。

译：If the destiny is unfair, then I am the destiny.

Example 5:

人心中的成见像一座大山

译：They could construct an entire mountain with their prejudice.

Under the direction of Skopos theory, it is fairer to take literal translation as for the two sentences above. In example 4,“就和它斗到底”is uttered by Ne Zha with a vehement feeling, but the tone of the translation is relatively placid. Accordingly, an imperative sentence can be used to voice the passion and the better version is “fight it till the end”, which ensures the fidelity of the translation to the original text. In example 5, a subject is added in the target text, which doesn’t cohere with the context. If“人心中的成见像一座大山”is translated into “Humans’ prejudice is a mountain” with the use of metaphor, the line can be perfectly comprehended.

Translation Techniques

Addition, omission, division, combination and shift constitute translation techniques which need to be involved in the process of translation. In the film, each following example used a specific technique is as follows.

Omission

Omission, a translation technique corresponding to addition, appertains to expurgating the words that don’t conform to idiomatic English, so as to avoid the redundant translation. This translation technique is used to achieve simplification without deleting the important ideas of the original text.(Xiong Bing,2014,82-88)

Example 6:

去你个鸟命！

译文：Forget your fate!

In the Chinese context,“去……鸟”is an obscenity while the dirty meaning is gone in the translated version. Ne Zha originally expresses “I am the master of my own destiny” and he wants to change his own destiny, showing his spirit of disobedience. But the translation, "forget your fate”, is far less imposing than the source language and isn’t express the character’s anger and reluctance. Moreover, from the perspective of Skopos theory, the translation of the target language isn’t faithful to the emotions of the source language, and the western audience may feel that Ne Zha’s emotional outburst is illogical. “Fucking” is a swear word that is used by western people to express anger. If “去你个鸟命”is translated into “Forget your fucking fate”, it’s much easier for foreign audience to experience the emotions in the film and resonate with Ne Zha. According to the fidelity rule, the revised version is more in line with the language expression habits of the audience, making for a better viewing effect.

Addition

As syntactical and structural discrepancies between Chinese and English exist, translators are normally supposed to add some necessary words, phrases or sentences during translating in order that readers can accurately receive the meaning contained in the original text. There are two examples in the film.(Xiong Bing,2014,82-88)

Example 7:

都尽力了。

译：They did all their best.

Example 7 is a Chinese sentence without subject. It is a kind of common and prime sentence pattern and a unique language phenomenon in Chinese language. When“都尽力了”are translated，the translator adds the logical subject to the translation, so as to accord with English expressive habits. Nevertheless, “they”, the added subject, is out of context for the reason that the speaker of“都尽力了”is Ne Zha’s mother. On the basis of the fidelity rule, translating“都尽力了”into “we all tried our best” is closer to the original.

Example 8:

他都是个死。

译：He’s going to die when the lightning bolt strikes him.

In the example above, even though the adverbial clause of time is added to convey more information, the translation of “他都是个死”is not exactly accurate. First of all,“个”in the original text indicates that the sentence is informal and colloquial, but the translation is the written word. Secondly, the tone of the original text is not apparent. Under the guidance of fidelity rule, “going” can be modified to “gonna” which is used in informal speech and “whatever” should be added at the end of the sentence to strengthen the speaker’s mood. In this way, the translation will be more faithful to the original text, and the audience will experience the emotions in the film vividly.

All in all, Ne Zha adopts various translation strategies in order to make the target audience understand the cultural elements，but some parts of subtitle translation in this film are a little disappointing from the perspective of Skopos theory. As translation is by no means a straightforward job, the successful subtitle translation must take lots of painstaking efforts. Only the proper subtitle translation can show the target audience a good watching experience and helps the film to succeed.

Conclusion

As a special modality of language conversion, subtitle translation is affected by time, space, and the limitation of media. Because of the strong cultural characteristics of domestic animated films, the requirement of accuracy in subtitle translation is relatively high.

Since functionalist Skopos theory was introduced to China in 1987, it has been popularly studied and applied in Chinese translation field. Based on the analysis of the subtitles of Ne Zha, this paper systematically studies the application of Skopos theory in subtitle translation. Firstly, the research background and significance are introduced so as to make readers have a basic understanding of the objectives of the paper. Secondly, subtitle translation development at home and abroad is written for analyzing subtitle translation in a later section. After that, the theoretical basis of the study is introduced to show readers the details of Skopos theory. In accordance with Skopos theory, any process pertaining to translation is determined by its specific purpose. Finally, some examples are analyzed in the viewpoint of Skopos theory in order to identify the gap between the original and the translation and try to give a better version.It is an undeniable fact that some limitations are present in this paper. First of all, the analysis of Skopos theory is partly based on personal understanding, and scholars may hold other perspectives. Of course, there might be other more typical examples and the strategies and techniques applied in the cases are in need of further polish. It’s hoped that this paper can give a little enlightenment for translators.

High quality subtitle translation is the finishing touch of a film. It can not only effectively convey the content of the animation, but also reflect the flavor of the language, so as to feel exotic cultures. As commented earlier, the application of Skopos theory and subtitle translation knowledge to analyze the classic lines with Chinese traditional cultural charm in movies is of guiding significance for strengthening the communication between Chinese and English cultures and improving the level of subtitle translation of translator.

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Written by—--Liu Shengnan (talk) 02:20, 14 December 2021 (UTC)