Abstract

Red Cliff is a Chinese epic-war film based on the Battle of Red Cliffs (208-209 AD) and events during the end of the Han Dynasty and immediately prior to the period of the Three Kingdoms in ancient China. The film was directed by John Woo. And the Battle of Red Cliffs is one of the three big campaigns in China’s first chapter novel “Three Kingdoms”. This film has successfully represented the soul-stirring, up-and-down and deeply-moving feature of the Battle of Red Cliffs to the audience from the whole world with variable spectacles and manners. At the same time, the essence and soul of Chinese classical culture and wisdom of ancient Chinese people are vividly exhibited. Therefore, media worldwide has given high praise to this film. However, behind the rapturous applause, not only those splendid scenes and good plots, but also the excellent English subtitle translation has done great deeds. In reality, on the path of the Chinese films towards the world the first obstacle to overcome is language barrier. And proper subtitle translation has a decisive effect on transmitting film and television works and the cultural connotations they’re bearing. With the realization of the importance of film translation, this present thesis adopts the translation criterion of “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance” as the theoretical foundation to analyze the English subtitle translation of Red Cliff part one and part two. On the basis of fully understanding the meaning and significance of the theory, it mainly employs the way of illustration to analyze the Red Cliff’s secrets of success—successful English subtitle translation. And the process of analysis will be divided into three parts according to this translation theory, namely faithfulness part, expressiveness part and elegance part. Finally, the author will probe into the problems and advantages of the English subtitle translation of Red Cliff in the hope of exploring some positive effects on subtitle translation and translation teaching.

Key words: Red Cliff, “Faithfulness, Expressiveness and Elegance”, Subtitle translation.

摘要

吴宇森执导的史诗巨制《赤壁》，取材于中国第一部长篇章回体小说《三国演义》，以恢弘之势描绘了三国时期“三大战役”之一的“赤壁之战”，影片以宏伟细腻多变的场景把波澜起伏、荡气回肠、感人至深的“赤壁之战”形象地成功地展现在东西方观众面前，同时表现出了古代中国人的精髓、智慧与文化，因此获得了中外媒体的高度评价。在这热烈的掌声背后，除了归功于有着恢弘的场景和精彩的情节以外，出色的英文字母翻译也功不可没。事实上，在中国电影走向世界的路途中，第一个障碍便是语言关，而恰当贴切的字幕翻译对于一部影视作品和它所承载的文化内涵的传播有着举足轻重的作用。在此觉悟下，本论文采用“信达雅”的翻译标准作为此篇论文的理论基础，对电影《赤壁》（上）和（下）的英文字幕翻译进行解析，在深刻认识该理论的基础上主要采用举例评析的方法来揭秘《赤壁》成功的秘诀——成功的英文字幕翻译。分析部分将根据“信达雅”分为对应的三个部分。最后笔者希望该论文对赤壁英文字幕的分析能为字幕翻译和翻译教学方面起到积极的作用。

关键词：赤壁、“信达雅”、字幕翻译。