4.1 Equivalence in Meaning 6

4.1.1 Addition and Reduction 6

4.1.2 Grammatical Adjustment 7

4.1.3 Assimilation and alienation 8

4.2 Equivalence in style 10

4.2.1 Colloquial Style 10

5. Conclusion 13

6. Limitations and Suggestions 14

References 15

1. Introduction

1.1 Practical and Theoretical Settings of the Study

Along with the rapid social, cultural and technological development, China is conducting increasingly frequent communication with other countries. Films, as a carrier of culture, become an indispensable part of mass communication. Recent years has witnessed the drastically boom of Chinese contemporary cinema, according to the market research analysis report of the film industry, by the first quarter of 2015, the number of screen has exceed 30000 nationwide, the national box-office tally has reached 9.66 billion yuan, with 6.3 billion for domestic films and 3.36 billion for foreign blockbusters(34.79%)；and among those imported incoming-share movies, most of them are all from English-speaking countries, especially Hollywood. The rapid development in the film industry requires higher skilled translation to meet the intimate film exchanges.

China has launched its film translation works since the reform and opening-up in 1978. Though the studies up to now increasingly focus on the dubbing translation of films and take the functional equivalence theory as its theoretical basis, most of the studies focus on experiencing and specific techniques on film translation; and few researches on the theory and mechanism of film translation have been done. Due to the lack of practical experience in this field and relatively limited professional knowledge concerning film dubbing, the researches still lack depth and width, especially no comprehensive and systematic methodology can be built and corresponding strategies are brought about to help the advancement of dubbed films in China.

The Harry Potter series is fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling, The main plots is about the adventures of a young wizards, Harry Potter and his friends, all of whom were from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. They overcame all the setbacks and difficulties in the way and finally beat the Dark Villain Lord Voldemort, and saved non-magical people. The whole series is composed of 7 novels: 1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, 3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, 4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 5. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, 7. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, all have their adaptations in film. Those seven films all yield great results at the box office in China. Let along its riveting plots and soaring imagination, its qualified dubbing translation all contributes to its huge success, given that most of the audiences are children who are incapable of understanding English. 

1.2 Objective and Methodology of the Study

This essay takes the Harry Potter Series dubbed by Shanghai Dubbing Studio as an example, based on functional equivalence theory of Nida, so as to further explore the practical application in subtitling translation, analyzes the characteristics and various influencing factors of subtitling translation, and tentatively bring about strategies and approaches to reach qualified translated dubbing.

1.3 Contents and Structure of the Study 

This essay is composed of five parts.

Chapter one introduces research findings hitherto concerning film translation, especially dubbing translation.