7.7 Suggestions on Collecting and Keeping Up to Da...
As demonstrated by the above sections,popular language from the Internet and other communication media becomes an inevitable part of the average person’s daily life.Subtitlers and practitioners in other language study and related professional fields should keep abreast of what is topical.In daily study and work,they need be aware of,and collect,new language expressions in order to ensure that their work is up-to-date and is representative of the present era’s “products”.Fortunately,many of these words have been collected by certain study websites and have also been published in books or appear in free articles,which have been shared via online platforms such as WeChat.To illustrate this,I inputted keywords about finding the top 10 popular words in 2016 using a Chinese search engine; the results are shown in the following screenshot.
(https://www.daowen.com)
Screenshot 20
In the first result，I not only obtained the top 10 most popular words but also a guide to identifying popular words for any other specific year that might be required.With easily accessible information such as this at their disposal，practitioners such as subtitlers need only transfer these words and definitions into a self-built word bank on a personal computer in order to benefit from a low-cost resource with limitless possibilities for expansion.However，for more specific explanations and example sentences regarding the collected popular words and expressions，the following published books will be more authoritative： Cang （2012），《流行语折射的网络文化》 （The Internet Cultural Reflected by Popular Language）； Veronique and Muller （2015），China Online： Netspeak and Wordplay Used by over 700 Million Chinese Internet Users.Moreover，in the previous mentioned interview with Bunny Martin，the interviewee pointed out that the use of popular expressions in animation film subtitles is an effective strategy to attract more viewers because the audiences for this kind of film are mostly young people.She also said that different countries have different cultures，so that，when writing scripts for a film，the use of traditional expressions as well as popular expressions can make the scripts vivid and interesting.Therefore，when subtitlers make subtitles，they should also notice the importance of keeping or using these particular kinds of expressions.For English-language films，there are English expressions such as slang，and expressions from the Bible.When the film becomes an exported film product，the subtitlers have to be aware of these expressions； if they can keep the original meaning of these expressions or find out the equivalent from the target language，there will be more chance for the target audience to see and engage with the original cultures behind the film.This will be a successful intercultural communication activity for a film product in a foreign market.