Abstract:

In recent years, with the rapid development of information technology, a great number of American TV series are introduced into China via the Internet, which sets off a craze of watching American television programs. However, due to differences in language and culture, most of the audience have to catch the real meaning with the help of subtitles. As an adjunct to understand the story, subtitle translation may have a direct impact on the audience’s viewing. Thus flexible translation strategies are very essential so as to shorten the distance between the viewer and the works and let the audience appreciate the authentic story. This paper firstly introduces the American linguist Eugene Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory and extracts the views on translation through the analyses; Next, the definition and characteristics of subtitling are given. Thirdly, the paper uses the classic American TV Series Prison Break as an example and selects some particular fragments, based on the Functional Equivalence  Theory, to discuss the use of specific strategies, such as free translation, amplification, omission and other translation strategies. Finally, the paper gives the conclusion that under the guidance of the flexible use of subtitling strategies, excellent subtitling is no longer intangible.

Keywords: functional equivalence; subtitling; Prison Break; translation strategy

摘要：

近年来，随着信息技术的迅猛发展，大量的美国电视剧作品通过互联网传入国内，掀起了一股美剧热。但是由于语言和文化的差异，要想真正看懂这些美剧，大多数观众还得借助于字幕。作为理解剧情的辅助手段，影视字幕的翻译直接影响着观众的观影效果。因而灵活的翻译策略是十分必要的，这样才能缩小观众与作品之间的距离，让观众体味到原汁原味的剧情。本文首先介绍美国语言学家奈达的功能对等理论，通过分析，得出该思想指导下的翻译观；其次介绍字幕翻译的定义和特点；第三，以经典美剧《越狱》为例，选取剧中会话片段，基于功能对等论的思想探讨具体策略的使用，例如意译、增译、减译等翻译策略；最后，作者总结全文给出结论：在功能对等论指导下灵活使用字幕翻译策略，优秀的字幕翻译不再遥不可及。

关键词：功能对等；字幕翻译；越狱；翻译策略

1  Introduction
With the acceleration of the globalization, foreign films and TV series swarm into the Chinese market. The American TV series such as Friends, The Big Bang Theory, Desperate Housewives and 24 Hours are quite popular among Chinese audience. In addition to the charm of their own, the success of these works is also greatly due to its good subtitle translation. The subtitle translation in the TV series has played a quite significant role for its guidance and explanation of the story. Now, however, the quality of subtitle translation is uneven for there is always misreading or misinterpretation which may make the audience confused.