On the Translation of Movie Subtitle from the Perspective of Functional Equivalence Theory Abstract With the development of society and deeper communication between various cultures, countries communicate and cooperate with each other in more aspects. A movie, which undertakes the responsibility to disseminate culture, is a bridge to facilitate the interflow of different cultures. However, language barriers may cause target language audience to have wrong understandings towards the connotation of movies, and impede the development of cross-cultural communication.58541

The core of Functional Equivalence Theory put forward by the famous translation expert E. A. Nida is equivalence. He values equivalence of content more than equivalence of form. When these two kinds of equivalences have conflicts, content equivalence is prior to form equivalence. In the theory, Nida highlights functional equivalence. He proposes that translation activities as a means of cultural communication have three functions: first, translation should make people have no difficulty to comprehend message; second, translation should let people have emotional resonance; third, translation should cause people proper reaction. The above functions can be known as informative, expressive and imperative function, which is closely related to the three objects which movie art pursues.

Movie, as a kind of cultural communication activity, has three goals: first, to let target audience comprehend and appreciate foreign culture; second, to let target audience feel the thoughts and emotion spread in the movie; third, to let the movie have rallying point. In short, the first goal is “informativeness”, the second “expressiveness”, the third “public appeal”. According to functional equivalence theory, in movie subtitle translation, translators should achieve the equivalence of three functions and three goals. 

In this paper, many movie subtitle translation versions from the movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire are studied from different levels of functional equivalence such as lexical level equivalence, grammatical equivalence, equivalence of idioms and expressions, contextual equivalence. Problems and barriers are found during the translation according to functional equivalence theory, when principles and strategies like corresponding, recasting and decolouring can be applied to overcome difficulties.

Keywords: Movie subtitle translation; Functional Equivalence Theory; cross-cultural communication

从功能对等理论谈电影字幕的翻译

摘  要随着社会的发展，跨文化交流不断地深入，各国之间的交流与合作也逐步多元化。其中，电影承载着传播文化的任务，是不同文化交流的纽带。但是语言障碍很可能会让目的语观众对影片的内涵的理解产生一定偏差，阻碍跨文化交流的发展。

著名的翻译理论家尤金·奈达所提出的功能对等理论的核心问题是对等。他重视内容对等；在内容对等与,形式对等发生冲突时,内容对等先于形式对等。在对等翻译理论中,奈达强调功能对等,他认为作为文化交流的翻译活动有三种功能,翻译“首先要提供人们可以理解的信息,其次要使人们产生情感共鸣,第三要引起人们适当的反应。”翻译的上述功能可以理解为“信息功能”,“情感功能”和“祈使功能”。这三种功能恰恰与电影艺术所追求的三个目标存在内在联系。

电影作为跨文化的交流活动有三个传播目标：第一,让观众理解和欣赏外国文化；第二,让观众感受电影中传递的思想感情；第三,使电影具有号召力、引起观众思考和情感共鸣。简言之,电影的三个目标是“信息性”、“情感性”和“号召性”。根据奈达功能对等理论,在电影字幕翻译中,译者应实现三个功能与三项目标的对等。