关键词: 中华武术术语; 文化专有词; 字幕翻译策略; 《一代宗师》; 视听翻译

Abstract:

Chinese martial art films often feature elements of both traditional Chinese culture and martial arts, which constitute the primary selling points when they are screened abroad. As such, the caption translator must ensure that these elements are properly treated so as to enable a positive overseas reception. This, however, is an under-researched topic both in and outside of China. Javier Franco Aixelá’s taxonomy of translation strategies for treating culture-specific items requires modification before it can be aptly applied to Chinese-English subtitling. Using this amended version as an analytical tool, this article seeks to examine the subtitling strategies employed by Linda Jaivin when rendering the Chinese martial art terms in Wong Kar-wai’s film The Grandmaster into English. The quantitative analysis of 54 Chinese martial art terms along with their corresponding English forms indicates that Linda Jaivin employs cultural conservation strategies more often than cultural substitution strategies. The qualitative analysis further demonstrates that she translates Chinese martial art terms in a flexible and resourceful manner, thereby ensuring that the English subtitles are both easily accessible to Western audiences and instrumental in popularizing Chinese martial art culture in the West. The case study has important implications for promoting traditional Chinese culture abroad via the medium of cinema.

Keywords: Chinese martial art term; culture-specific item; subtitling strategy; The Grandmaster; audiovisual translation