2.5.1 AVT Study Prior to the Founding of the Peopl...
Before the founding of the PRC,there was no systematic AVT research in China simply because film was not commonplace in people’s lives.Cinemas were only found in big cities and,in any case,foreign films often had a limited release.Moreover,the TV set was a luxury product for the average family,and there were no imported foreign TV programs to watch either.At this point,while AVT study existed,it was very limited and focused on the study of film translation.
After 1910,a greater number of foreign silent films began to be imported into China.The common method of translation at that time was in the form of an interpreter explaining the main idea of the film “live” to the audience.As they had to carry out this work on the spot,the translation was of dubious quality because it often included plot omissions and other kinds of translating mistakes.(https://www.daowen.com)
Up until 1936,foreign films were exported to China regularly.Although some foreign film producers applied Chinese subtitles to the films,the quality of the subtitle translation was not always satisfactory.There were many problems in subtitles such as incorrect translations,wrongly spelled characters and incomprehensible explanations.However,in 1939,film translation in China experienced a step change in its development with the invention of “Earphone”.Earphone equipment was similar to today’s Simultaneous Interpretation Conference System (SICS).Earphone finally led to a shift from translating the main idea of a film to translating a film in a more detailed way,such as translating in relation to the personalities of different characters and the explanation of the plots.In addition,
Earphone was essentially the prototype of dubbing because of its function of displaying the language features of film dialogues.After 1946,dubbing formally became a translation mode in film translation.