2.1　lntroduction

Against the backdrop of globalization,cultural exchanges between different countries are becoming more frequent.As film is a type of popular entertainment that reflects human experience,religions and customs,it ought to be regarded as both a commercial and a cultural medium,and a key intercultural communication tool in people’s daily life.Translation in the form of film captions is the most common way to assist an audience in fully understanding cultural differences between the source and target nations.In response,the study of film caption translation has emerged as a new branch of translation studies.The following literature review examines research that has taken place into film caption translation (also called film subtitle translation or subtitling) in Western countries,where the topic has already developed significantly at both the theoretical and the practical levels.The study of film caption translation in China,however,remains at the level of discussing specific translation strategies rather than developing research from different viewpoints.Compared with the increasingly important role that film translation plays in people’s everyday intercultural communication,the study in film translation from the perspective of intercultural communication is surprisingly insufficient.

In the 1950s,Western scholars began research into film translation from the perspective of translation studies.In the half-century that followed,the scope of film translation study diversified and became interdisciplinary.Analytically reviewing the studies on this subject and the main achievements of key practitioners in both Western countries and China should help identify invaluable ideas for this current study of film subtitle translation from the perspective of intercultural communication.(https://www.daowen.com)

In this chapter,I will firstly explain the concepts of AVT and film translation,then review the main research into subtitling that has been undertaken in both China and the West.And finally,I will discuss the limits of the research in China,and explain the importance and value of this current study to the development of E-C subtitling.