The research materials for this thesis are selected from the English documentary Wild China, which is a six-episode documentary series co-produced by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and China Central Television (CCTV). Due to the excellence of the series, Wild China wins three awards in the 30th News and Documentaries Emmy Awards.The six episodes will be introduced briefly as follows:

The first episode is Heart of the Dragon, focusing on South China in which the terrain and climate are ideal for rice cultivation.

The second episode is Shangri-La, introducing the biopersity of north-western Yunnan province.

The third episode is Tibet, highlighting the Tibetan Plateau where Tibetan Buddhists live.

The fourth episode is Beyond the Great Wall, looking at the lands north of China's Great Wall.

The fifth episode is Land of the Panda，introducing central China which is home to the Han Chinese.

The sixth episode 6 is Tides of Change, featuring China’s 14,500 km coastlines, where 700 million people live.

The six-episode documentary series show the audience not only the wild life but also the life style of Chinese people. So this documentary film is a nature documentary series on scenic and cultural landscapes in China. As a subsidiary of CCTV, China Television Media translated the documentary and released its Chinese version in January 2011. In this thesis, CCTV’s translations are viewed as standard examples for analysis and explanation.

This thesis is made up of four parts. The first part introduces the research background and the structure of this thesis.

The second part reviews subtitle translation and Relevance Theory. For subtitle translation, it mainy introduces the definition, the types and constraints. For Relevance Theory, some essential concepts are explained.文献综述

The third part presents the applicability of Relevance Theory in subtitle translation of Wild China. In this part, the paper illustrates how two principles of relevance work to analyze the subtitle translation.

The last part is a conclusion of this thesis. A summary of the whole thesis is made and some limitations of this thesis are concluded.