A descriptive study on Chinese-English subtitling of extralinguistic culture-bound references in Empresses in the Palace

The American version of Empresses in the Palace (《甄嬛传》) can be seen as a representative example of Chinese-to-English subtitled ancient costume drama, and an effective source of study as to how Extralinguistic Culture-bound References (ECRs) (Pedersen, 2005Pedersen, J. 2005, May 2–6. How is culture rendered in subtitles? In H. Gerzymisch-Arbogast & S. Nauert (Eds.), Proceedings of the Marie Curie Euroconferences MuTra: Challenges of multidimensional translation. Saarbrücken, 2–6 May 2005. [URL], 2011Pedersen, J. 2011. Subtitling norms for television: An exploration focusing on extralinguistic cultural references. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ) in the source-language subtitles can emphasize and embody the essence of ancient Chinese culture. Based on Pedersen’s (2005Pedersen, J. 2005, May 2–6. How is culture rendered in subtitles? In H. Gerzymisch-Arbogast & S. Nauert (Eds.), Proceedings of the Marie Curie Euroconferences MuTra: Challenges of multidimensional translation. Saarbrücken, 2–6 May 2005. [URL], 2011Pedersen, J. 2011. Subtitling norms for television: An exploration focusing on extralinguistic cultural references. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ) theory of the Transculturality level of ECRs and through statistical as well as textual analysis, this paper aims to conduct a descriptive study of extralinguistic culture-bound references (ECRs) in Empresses in the Palace and the Chinese-English subtitling strategies of the ECRs. It found that Monocultural ECRs account for a substantial proportion of the ECRs, with eight ECR domains covered, and that the Source Language (SL)-oriented Strategies as well as Substitution are the foremost translation strategies adopted for rendering Monocultural ECRs. Eventually, based on textual analysis of the Monocultural ECRs rendered by the SL-oriented Strategies and Substitution, from the perspective of the target audience’s plot interpretation of the drama, this paper concludes that an obvious disadvantage as a result of the Monocultural ECR’s interlingual subtitling in Empresses in the Palace is that the plot revealed in the target-language subtitles becomes logically incoherent.

La version américaine d’Impératrices au Palais (甄嬛传) peut être considérée comme un exemple représentatif de séries historiques sous-titrées en anglais, et une source d’étude sur le sous-titrage des référents culturels extralinguistiques (RCE) (Pedersen, 2005Pedersen, J. 2005, May 2–6. How is culture rendered in subtitles? In H. Gerzymisch-Arbogast & S. Nauert (Eds.), Proceedings of the Marie Curie Euroconferences MuTra: Challenges of multidimensional translation. Saarbrücken, 2–6 May 2005. [URL], 2011Pedersen, J. 2011. Subtitling norms for television: An exploration focusing on extralinguistic cultural references. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ) de manière à incarner l’essence de la culture chinoise ancienne. En se basant sur la théorie de Pedersen (2005Pedersen, J. 2005, May 2–6. How is culture rendered in subtitles? In H. Gerzymisch-Arbogast & S. Nauert (Eds.), Proceedings of the Marie Curie Euroconferences MuTra: Challenges of multidimensional translation. Saarbrücken, 2–6 May 2005. [URL], 2011Pedersen, J. 2011. Subtitling norms for television: An exploration focusing on extralinguistic cultural references. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. ) qui se rapporte sur le niveau de transculturalité des RCE et à travers une analyse statistique et textuelle, cet article vise à étudier de manière descriptive les référents culturels extralinguistiques (RCE) dans Impératrices au Palais et leurs stratégies de sous-titrage du chinois vers l’anglais. Nous avons constaté que les référents monoculturels représentaient une proportion substantielle, et que les stratégies orientées vers la langue source (LS) et la substitution étaient les principales stratégies adoptées. En outre, l’article conclue qu’une telle traduction présente des incohérences sur le plan logique, bien qu’elle facilite parfois la compréhension de l’intrigue par le public cible.