8.2 Recommendations
Following the idea of polysystem,I focused on the language features in the translation from English into Chinese,the transfer of the two cultures,the receptors (literacy levels,daily language preference),the features of the bilingual subtitles (lengths,expressions),and the type of film in this research in order to analyse the factors that may affect the quality of subtitle translations.In the last three chapters of data analysis and discussion,based on the corpus,the questionnaire and interview,I discussed each of three study hypotheses by analysing the data and identifying the use of culturally loaded expressions (traditional expressions and popular expressions) to realize effective subtitling in order to guarantee the language quality of translated films.Although the use of traditional expressions and popular expressions from the Internet inform her conclusions,the use of specific suitable translation strategies for English-Chinese subtitling represents the most correct method.Therefore,in the final part of this book,I concluded that my research contribution relates to the efficacy of the discussed six strategies for E-C films translated,particularly in terms of how these strategies make the language understandable and the culture intelligible in a subtitled product.Furthermore,the awareness of cultural components in film translation is important when creating high-quality subtitles.In practical terms,the awareness of cultural difference in a subtitled product can make the overall translation of subtitles more like real life language.The general rule for the subtitle translation might be: faithful in meaning,simple in language,culturally accepted in expression (by the use of culturally loaded expressions).
Then,in the analysis of the use of the above two types of expressions,the researcher found several typical issues in the given data.To resolve three main problems emerging from the current data,the researcher generally discussed the following suggestions:
1） There are two ways of unifying and harmonizing the translation of names.One could be to use the standard Chinese versions to the common names of characters，like “琳达” for “Linda”，or the famous places or landmarks’ names，like “拉斯维加斯” for “Las Vegas”.But for less common names or some fictional names which usually indicate the personality of the characters，the translation rule should be that of using simple structured Chinese characters rather than using complicated ones （Luo 2014： 80）.For example，the name “Otis” in Cars，2011，can be translated as “欧提斯”，or “瓯蒂嗣”，both of these two translations are theoretically correct，but the former one is simpler in spelling and will be easier to read by audiences.
The other way could be simply “copy and transfer” the English names into the Chinese translated subtitles.This is an effective method for avoiding length problems,as well as a politer way to respect the English culture inherent in the original names.However,the mixture of English names within Chinese translated subtitles requires the audience to have a certain level of English cultural knowledge; they need to know the common names people use,and to have an idea of some famous places and landmarks.For scientific,specialized terms or loan words,in most cases,the subtitler needs to add a brief explanation in brackets in order to offer more information to the audience,otherwise,these terms will be difficult to comprehend by the audience.However,as this is a kind of “expansion” to the length of the translated subtitles,subtitlers should be very careful when adding brief and simple information by way of explanation.
For example,in Cars,2011:(https://www.daowen.com)
00:24:49,609 to 00:24:51,975
— No,no,wasabi.— Same old,same old.
—不，不，芥末酱（日语）。—一样的，一样的。
In the English original subtitle,“wasabi” is a Japanese Latin word; the subtitler gave a proper translation by adding a brief explanation in brackets.This additional information lets the audience know this is a Japanese word.Audience with certain knowledge of Japanese food will quickly realize this word means a kind of typical Japanese spicy sauce.Using this method,the intercultural communication between the film and the audience could be successful.
2) Regarding the second and third imperfections the researcher found in the data,the solution is same.“Expansion” as a kind of translation strategy is not always suitable in film subtitling because of the limitations of time and space that condition film subtitles.Subtitlers should be very careful when they use this strategy.Unnecessary expansion should generally be avoided even if the expansion could make cultural references more intelligible.Taking E-C subtitling as a specific example,I found that some subtitlers use Chinese traditional expressions like old,archaic sayings in some unnecessary places.It may be to show off their own linguistic skills or these sayings might be used without the subtitler realizing that he is complicating the reading process.However,they neglected the more important criterion of “brief and simple,and therefore,readable” in their translation.My recommendation is the subtitler should follow the precedence rule when he is subtitling.He should make the subtitling “readable” and then to make it “culturally referenced” if there is the space and time to allow this.