Translation of Subtitles and the Principle of Differences between Chinese and English

Subtitle translation is an important component of film and television language, which requires converting the source language text into the target language version and attaching it to the original product image. The language of film and television has the characteristics of multiple symbols, spatial and temporal limitations, which are different from ordinary text translation. Multimodal research methods have received attention in film and television translation, but they cannot fully explain all issues, such as the exaggerated influence of nonverbal factors. Wang Jiamin and Wu Biyu found through case analysis that some translations are actually not affected by nonverbal factors. The principle of difference between Chinese and English points out that Chinese emphasizes process and English emphasizes result, which has important applications in translation practice. Chinese English translation usually adopts "result oriented transformation", while English Chinese translation adopts "process oriented transformation". This article combines multimodal factors and research results on differences in Chinese and English language usage, taking the English Chinese translation of subtitles for "The Great Wall" as an example, to further explore subtitle translation research.

English Chinese Translation of Subtitles for "The Great Wall"

As a commercial film co produced by China and the West, the research on subtitle translation of 'The Great Wall' is still blank in China. The film adopts a mixture of Chinese and English original sound, and the subtitle processing is highly similar between the Mandarin and bilingual versions. During the script creation process, the English script is first translated into Chinese, then modified by director Zhang Yimou, and repeatedly translated and modified until both parties are satisfied. The subtitle team consists of 63 staff members from 39 positions, but the person in charge of subtitle translation is not explicitly listed. The film subtitles are in English as the original text and Chinese as the translation, with a total of 834 sentence pairs. Among them, English to Chinese sentence pairs account for 75%, and Chinese to English sentence pairs account for 25%. The characteristics of subtitle translation include: the story scene is in China, the director is Chinese, but the chief screenwriter is foreign; English subtitles are mainly written by native English speakers. Among the 578 pairs of subtitles in the bilingual English to Chinese translation, 42 pairs (7.27%) showed N-1 orientation conversion, 8 pairs (1.38%) showed N+1 orientation conversion, and most of the rest showed no significant conversion. The following text will explore the impact of language differences between Chinese and English and the characteristics of film and television translation on the English Chinese translation of subtitles for "The Great Wall".

Analysis of N-1 Cases in the English Chinese Translation of "The Great Wall"

In the English Chinese translation of the movie 'The Great Wall', the N-1 rule is reflected in various semantic transformations. For example, converting definite meaning into interrogative meaning, such as expressing surprise and disapproval of William carrying a magnet through interrogative sentences in Chinese. The practical meaning is transformed into a conditional meaning, as the prerequisite for William's proposal to escape is explicitly stated in Chinese. The result meaning is transformed into process meaning or cause meaning, such as the process of monsters crossing the Great Wall and the reason for William's shooting, which are emphasized in Chinese. The abstract meaning is transformed into concrete meaning, such as the description of General Lin Mei's power in English being concretized through colloquial expressions in Chinese. The passive meaning is transformed into active meaning, such as the passive expression of a monster being captured in English becoming active expression in Chinese, emphasizing the process rather than the result. These transformations help the audience understand and conform to the N-1 meaning expression.

Case Study on N+1 English Chinese Translation of "The Great Wall"

Through the case study of the English Chinese translation of the movie 'The Great Wall', this paper explores the impact of differences in Chinese and English language usage on subtitle translation. The article points out that N+1 and N-1 are common pragmatic principles in Chinese English translation, but these principles are subject to violation. There are few cases of N+1 in 'The Great Wall', and the translations often lack feasibility. For example, William's answer was simplified to "he is a merchant", ignoring the ambiguous expressions and emphasis on the past tense in the original text. Another example is that the English word "turning it green" has not been translated, but is directly expressed as "releasing a gluttony in green light", ignoring the reason for the generation of green light. These translation issues indicate that subtitle translation needs to convey the pragmatic meaning and information of the original text more accurately.

5 Conclusion

The paper analyzes the characteristics of English Chinese conversion in the subtitles of the movie "The Great Wall" and points out that the Chinese translation tends to use N-1 meaning expressions, while the English original text tends to use N+1. The study also found that the usage ratio of N-1 in English Chinese translation is much lower than that of N+1 in Chinese English translation, indicating a reverse trend between the two translation methods. Translators may tend to choose more logical expressions in English Chinese translation. These findings need to be further validated in future research.