Against the background of pan-entertainment and younger film industry, since 2006 translators have began to use more and more so-called indigenous translation like network buzzwords, Chinese classic poetry and so on, to cater for the expected audience in China (Li, 2010; Hu, 2012; Lv & Li, 2014; Wang, 2015)。 There has been an increasing interest in studying this translation phenomenon (Liang, 2006; Zhao, 2010; Li, 2011; Liu, 2013; Xu, 2013)。 However, in 2012, that kind of translation in Man in Black III and Madagascar 3, aroused different responses from the Press and the audience。 What’s worse, there are essays that hold different opinions toward this kind of phenomenon (indigenization) (Yu, 2013; Liu, 2014; Lv & Li, 2014), which suggests that there exist some limitations。
1。2Significance of the Research
This paper endeavors to make comparative analysis of the audience’s attitude toward entertainment-oriented translation of English movies and TV Series in recent years from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics。 According to Reception Aesthetics Theory, “the artistic pole is the author’s text, and the aesthetic is the realization accomplished by the reader” (Iser, 1978, p。 21)。 So when translating films and television programs, translators must take the audience’s tolerance into consideration so that they can enter the text with their horizon of expectations (Bai, 2011; Zhang, 2012; Zhang, 2014)。 Thus, this paper uses questionnaire survey to explore the audience’s tolerances toward entertainment-oriented translation by comparing and analyzing their responses, so as to find out what the translators need to focus on when translating by that method。
1。3Structure of the Research
The thesis consists of five parts。 Part one gives a brief introduction to the research background, significance of the research and general structure of the research。 Part two is the literature review of related studies on Reception Aesthetics, subtitle translation at home and abroad, and entertainment-oriented subtitle translation on Reception Aesthetics。 Part three concerns the research methods, participants, data collection and data analysis of this research。 In Part four, the author analyzes the participants’ reception level and preference toward different types of entertainment-oriented translation from the perspective of Reception Aesthetics。 In the last part, the author sums up the findings and limitations of the present study and suggests some issues for the further research。
2 Literature Review
2。1 Reception Aesthetics
Reception Aesthetics Theory, also called Reception Theory, to be precise, is a literary criticism theory, advocating "reader-centered paradigm",of which the philosophical bases are phenomenology and hermeneutics。 It was proposed by Hans Robert Jauss (Literary History as a Challenge to Literary Theory, 1967) and Wolfgang Iser (The Communicatory Structure of the Literary Text, 1970) in the University of Constance in Germany during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and soon spread across European and American literary circle。 Reception Aesthetics shifts the focus from the author or the text to the reader who is viewed as an indispensable factor in the process of aesthetic value in literary works and a decisive part in realizing the meaning of the text (Chen, 2011, p。 122)。 文献综述
Jauss advocated that the literary theory was "a process of aesthetics reception and production of literary texts" (Jauss, 1967, p。 20), instead of being an organization of numerous literary facts, showing the reader’s essential and active role in realizing of the meaning of the literary works。 Absorbing Heidegger’s "pre-understanding" and Gadamer’s "legitimate prejudice", he put forward the idea of "horizon of expectations" and argued the "historical life of a literary work is unthinkable without the active participation of its addressees。 For it is only through the process of its mediation that the work enters into the changing horizon-of-expectation of a continuity" (Jauss, 1982, p。 53)。 Iser contended that a literary work did not exist with an established meaning, but a "text-appealing structure", containing numerous gaps and blanks。 He indicated, "the reader, by filling in blanks or indeterminacy in a given structure, completes the literary work and participates in the production of the literary meaning" (Iser, 1978, p。 120)。