（英语语言文学专业论文）后殖民语境下的电影翻译研究——以中国入世后的中美电影交流为例.pdf

ii 内 容 摘 要 翻译界向来重视文学翻译， 电影翻译往往被视为难登大雅之堂而不受重视。 然而， 电影的受众面之广却是文学无法匹敌的。随着改革开放的深入，中外文化交流的不断 加强，国外的电影作品越来越多地出现在我国荧幕上，电影翻译的规模也越来越大。 就总体而言，相对于文学翻译来说，目前的电影翻译研究相对滞后，表现在研究人员 不足，成果不尽如人意。然而，由于种种历史和现实的原因，我国的电影翻译研究相 对更加滞后。虽然这种现状正逐渐引起我国翻译界人士的重视，但总体状况并没有根 本改变。 我国的电影翻译研究起步较晚。在论述翻译的众多著作中，鲜有专门涉及到电影 翻译的，有的只是在个别章节中对电影翻译稍有提及。与 20 世纪末本世纪初的状况 相比，虽然目前讨论电影翻译的文章越来越多，讨论也逐渐加深，但这些研究大多还 仅限于译者经验的讨论，理论深度不够。总结来说，目前的电影翻译研究基本上属于 内部研究，即关注如何翻译出目的语观众易于接受的电影作品，比如电影翻译的两种 方法字幕和配音等。这种研究把电影翻译当成是一种不涉及价值判断的过程，忽视了 影响电影翻译的外部因素和电影翻译背后的权利差异。 因此，本文以后殖民理论为理论依据，分析了 2002 年到 2005 年这四年之内的中 美电影交流情况。第一章是引言部分，主要介绍了我国电影翻译的现状，本文的写作 初衷，理论与现实意义。第二章首先介绍了目前电影翻译的研究现状，包括电影翻译 中的一些基本概念，电影翻译历史和电影翻译研究中的热点问题。接下来本文指出了 目前电影翻译研究中存在的问题，即电影翻译受重视不足和缺乏外部研究。在本章末 尾，作者介绍了翻译研究中的一个重要概念“文化转向” ，并介绍了翻译研究领域内 的新一个新动向，即后殖民翻译研究的异军突起。第三章是本文的理论来源，即后殖 民理论。首先对后殖理论的研究范围作了一个细致的介绍和分析，其次重点介绍了后 殖民理论研究领域内的三个重要人物，即 edward said，gayatri spivak 和 homi bhabha，并详细介绍了他们的重要观点。本章最后重点介绍了几对重点概念。第四章 是本文的核心部分也是本文的创新点。 本章首先对 2002 年到 2005 年间的中美电影交 流状况作了细致的统计。分析了三个电影市场，美国电影市场，国际电影市场和中国 电影市场。指出，在美国和国际电影市场美国电影占有绝对的主导地位，其霸权地位 一时难以撼动。在中国电影市场，由于近几年中国电影质量和产量增长迅速，国产电 影票房终于夺回了长期被好莱坞电影占据的半壁江山。以此为基础，本文指出，在电 影翻译领域抵抗来自美国的文化霸权的任务是十分艰巨的，重要的是完善自身。第二 节分析了电影翻译策略。指出，虽然归化策略是电影翻译领域里被普遍接受的翻译策 略，而且实践证明也十分成功，但我们不应该就此而忽略了异化策略。笔者从理论和 iii 实践两个方面证明了异化策略的可行性。最后指出，电影翻译是解殖民化的一个重要 手段。第五章对本文的研究成果作了一个系统的总结，并展望了今后的研究。 关键词：关键词：电影翻译 后殖民 翻译策略 解殖民化 iv abstract compared with literary translation, there is an obvious discrepancy between the importance of film translation and the limited attention it has so far received, but film translation has far more viewers than that of literary translation. sino-u.s. film communication has accelerated especially since chinas entry into wto, and this makes film translation study more and more urgent. but little scholarly attention, however, has been paid to this new area. this is probably because scholars of social sciences tend to select their study topic on the basis of cultural prestige rather than the real need of society. in fact, film translation is an important study area, whose significance is being accepted by more and more scholars and translation practitioners. current film translation study in china is still not satisfying. few books on film translation are available, and it is only referred to in some chapters. compared with the research at the end of 20th century, though the researchers dig deeper, most of the researches are still confined to researchers translation experience, theoretical studies being not enough. film translation studies started much later than literary translation, the focus of which has shifted from the internal research to external research after the “cultural turn” in translation studies. if we use the same criteria of distinguishing internal and external research to study film translation, its easy to conclude that the current film translation studies still belong to internal research. in this kind of research, little importance is attached to the social and historical factors behind film translation, and film translation is regarded as a process without the involvement of power differentials. thus this thesis takes postcolonial theories as the theoretical basis, analyzing sino-u.s. film translation after chinas entry into wto. the first chapter is the introduction to this thesis, dwelling on the reasons why the author chooses this topic, and the organization of this thesis. in the second chapter, the author talks about the studies of traditional film translation and analyze its problems, pointing out that external researches are scarcely done so far. taking into consideration the cultural turn in translation studies, the author proposes to study film translation in the postcolonial context. the third chapter touches upon the postcolonial theory and at the end of this chapter, the author introduces three giants in postcolonial studies, namely edward said，gayatri spivak and homi bhabha. the fourth chapter is the most important one of this thesis which is composed of four sections, with the first one dealing with the investigation into sino-u.s. film communication after chinas entry into wto, the second one with the choice of films to v translate in the postcolonial context, the third one with the translation strategies, and the last one with the effects of film translation as a positive force of decolonization. the last chapter is the conclusion of this thesis key words: film translation; postcolonial theories; translation strategy; decolonization i 三峡大学学位论文原创性声明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的学位论文，是本人在导师的指导下，独立进行研究工作 所取得的成果，除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本论文不含任何其他个人或集体已经 发表或撰写过的作品成果。 对本文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和集体均已在文中以明 确方式标明，本人完全意识到本声明的法律后果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名： 日 期： 1 1. introduction the 20th century witnessed the birth of audiovisual translation also referred to as film translation (karamitroglou, 2000: 1), a new study area in translation studies. film translation plays a very important role in film industry, but there is an obvious discrepancy between the importance of film translation and the limited attention it has so far received, though more and more importance has been attached to it. film translation has always been playing a very important role in promoting communication between different cultures, spurring economic growth, enriching the spiritual life of chinese people, and so on. little scholarly attention, however, has been paid to this new area. this is probably because scholars of social sciences tend to select their study topic on the basis of cultural prestige rather than the real need of society. in fact, film translation is an important study area in translation studies, whose significance is being accepted by more and more scholars and translation practitioners. the growing importance of film translation can be partly reflected by the following statistics. the film box office revenues in china in 2002 were 900 million yuan, and it stayed almost in the same level in 2003 (yi hong, 2004: 28). in 2004, it surged up to 1.6 billion yuan, increasing by 60% (zhong yuan, 2005: 21). the year 2005, the 100th anniversary of chinese film, witnessed the boom of chinese film. “the total production value of film industry is over 4.8 billion yuanincreasing by 33%, the total box office revenues are more than 2 billion yuan, 60% of which is produced by chinese films, and five chinese films top the box office revenues list. and these positions used to be occupied by imported hollywood films.”(zhao baohua, 2006: 6). moreover, experts predict that film market potential in china will increase up to 50 billion yuan in ten years time. in addition many foreign films, especially american hollywood films, are pouring into china, and this trend accelerated after chinas entry into wto. for example, film production in america only accounts for 7% of that of the world, but its trade takes up to 50% in the world film market. though film market in china has increased to a very large extent since chinas entry into wto, it still cant be comparable with its big population. for example in 2003 the overall box office revenues of china was only one fourth of that of south korea whose population however is only 47 million (yi hong, 2004: 28). thus, any bold predication of 2 film market potential of china may seem conservative. many people both at home and abroad from government officials to directors, investors, etc, are all ready for such a big market, and experts studying translation are surely part of these people who can contribute to the boom of film industry. but they seem to lag behind. film translation studies started much later than literary translation, and the focus of literary translation has shifted from the internal research to external research after the “cultural turn” in translation studies. different from the internal study, the external study method means to observe the whole translating process in a certain socio-cultural context, involving research into the externally restricted conditions during the production of translated texts, and the subversive function in the target-language cultures caused by translated texts after they have been produced. the aim of external research is to reveal the mutual diachronic relation between translating activities and socio-cultural contexts. the external research employs a method, different from the static one of the traditional internal research, dynamic problems, such as the selection of the source-language texts, the translators cultural identity, the criteria determining the translating strategies used by the translator, the influence of a translated text in the target-language system, etc. if we use the same criteria of distinguishing internal and external research to study film translation, its easy to conclude that the current film translation studies still belong to internal research, because most of the studies focus on the process such as the forms of film translation involving subtitling and dubbing, the latter of which is sometimes referred to as post-synchronization (baker mona, 2004: 244), film titles translation, cultural-loaded images, etc. in thesis, the author trying to distinguish internal and external research is by no means to say that one of them is better than the other. both of them, in fact, are both necessary and important for translation studies. the problem for film translation studies is that most of its studies still belong to internal research and external research is not enough. thus, the author tries to analyze film translation in the context of postcolonial theory by doing a case study of sino-u.s. film communication since chinas entry into wto. the reason why the author focuses on film communication in this period is self-evident. first, american films or hollywood films 1 due to its strong economic and cultural background take up a big part in the international film market, not only in the developing countries but in almost all developed countries. second, the film market in china is becoming more and 1 this thesis treats american film and hollywood film as the same concept. 3 more open to the outside world since chinas entry into wto and the quality and quantity of chinese film has improved a lot in recent years. so the competition is becoming fiercer and fiercer with the boom of chinese film. this thesis consists of five chapters. the first chapter is the introduction to this thesis, dwelling on the reasons why the author chooses this topic, and the organization of this thesis. in the second chapter, the author talks about current film translation studies and analyzes its problems, pointing out that external researches are scarcely done so far. taking into consideration the cultural turn in translation studies, the author proposes to study film translation in the postcolonial context. the third chapter touches upon the postcolonial theory and at the end of this chapter, the author introduces three giants in postcolonial studies, namely edward said，gayatri spivak and homi bhabha. the fourth chapter is the most important one of this thesis which is composed of four sections, with the first one dealing with the investigation into sino-u.s. film communication after chinas entry into wto, the second one with the choice of films to translate in the postcolonial context, the third one with the translation strategies, and the last one with the effects of film translation as a positive force of decolonization. 4 2. current film translation studies and the cultural turn in translation studies film translation, though playing a very important role in promoting the development of economy, and enriching the spiritual life, and so on, hasnt received the attention it deserves, which is probably because its a kind of public culture. this chapter mainly touches upon current film translation studies and reveals the major problems in current studies. 2.1 current film translation studies 2.1.1 the definition and history of film translation film translation as a matter of fact is also referred to as screen translation or audiovisual translation. as is stated in towards a methodology for the investigation of norms in audiovisual translation, audiovisual translation is screen translation or film translation (karamitroglou, 2000: 1). though in most cases the three terms are exchangeable, they do have some nuances. the choice of them depends on which side scholars want to lay emphasis on. karamitroglou says: audiovisual translation is the term i used to refer to what has been called screen translation or film translation. the term screen translation emphasizes the locative of the medium/carrier where the translation product appears, namely the tv, cinema, or video screen, in the same sense, the translation of website seen on computer monitors could also be considered screen translation. nevertheless, translation for computer monitors is not regarded as screen translation, unless the text-written or spoken-accompanies moving images with built-in sound, i.e. it is a small clip. (karamitroglou, 2000:1) karamitroglou prefers “audiovisual translation” because it emphasizes the audio-visual dimensions of the communicative mode. delabastita once said, “unlike communication through books, radio, telephone, or sign language, audio-visual 5 communication implies that both the acoustic channel through air vibrations and visual channel through light waves are simultaneously utilized.” (delabastita, 1989: 196). karamitroglou finally sums up his opinion: “i use the term film to refer to all kinds of recorded audiovisual material; for the restricted concept of full-length feature films i use the term films. in this sense, the term audiovisual translation and film translation are synonymous, meaning the translation of recorded audiovisual material, and could therefore be interchangeable. nevertheless, to avoid any passive confusion i will consistently use the term audiovisual translation throughout.”(karamitroglou, 2000: 2). the author in this thesis prefers “film translation” and just restricts the notion of “film” to full-length feature films, i.e. to films only, or sometimes even to cinema-films only, leaving out series, sports programs and documentaries. film used to be silent when it was first invented. the focus of early silent films was the characters action. the actors lines were put in the written form of inter-titles in the target language, so no matter which country produced the silent film, the film could be shared by audience of all countries. translation was needed with the coming of sound film, because characters began to speak their own language. and without translation, almost no audience could understand it. to make their films understandable to foreign audience so as to expand their overseas market, many western film production companies set up film dubbing bases in some foreign countries. meter-goldwyn-mayer (mgm) once established its film-dubbing base in france and rome where local translators were employed to finish the dubbing process. today, countries like italy, germany, russia, china and many other countries have built up their own film dubbing institutions. film translation was introduced into china at the end of the 1940s, later than the western countries that pioneered in this field in the early 1920s. 2.1.2 main issues studied in film translation due to some historical reasons, film translation studies in china fall behind that in the western world. the longest studied issue in china is film title translation. since 1980s in the last century, articles centering on film title translation could hardly be found in china and the studies in fact started at the beginning of 1990s. in the new century, many articles were published, and these articles can be mainly classified into three groups, which represent 6 three main tendencies of film title translation. the scholars of the first group think that film title translation belongs to literary translation and its translation practice should be guided by traditional chinese translation theories. most articles are about three basic translation skills including literal translation, liberal translation, and literal plus liberal translation. though some scholars also put forward other skills such as explanation, addition, creative translation and so on, these skills are the same as the three ones. in addition to translation skills, some scholars also pointed out the problems in this area such as “too much blood, too many horrible ghosts, advocating eroticism in translated film titles”(bao huinan, 2001: 96-97). generally speaking, almost all of the articles published in 1990s and most of the articles published after 2000 belong to the first group. the other two tendencies appeared after 2000. some scholars, chen qi(2001: 100-120), xiong qixu, wang chunyan (2003: 349), and tse chung alan(2005: 145) use the theories of manipulation school to explain the phenomenon that the translated title of one foreign film usually differs in the mainland of china, hong kong and taiwan. these scholars do not give the specific translation methods and just explained this phenomenon from another perspective, injecting into this old area new blood. other scholars (yue feng, 2000: 43; li qun, 2002: 44), however, try to redefine film title translation. they think that film title translation, as a matter of fact, is a kind of advertisement translation and the commercial factors need to be taken into consideration. because film translation in china is still in the primary stage, most researches still belong to exploratory research and interdisciplinary research is not enough. some important articles in this area are provid