ABSTRACT:This paper aims to explore the usage of foreignization and domestication from the perspective of Skopostheorie in the case of Disney film Mulan. With the translation of Chinese literature works attracting more attention from scholars around the world, how to transmit China-specific culture to western viewers becomes an important issue in the process of translation. Culture-loaded words are encoded with the specific culture of a country or a nation, and the translation of them is one of the difficulties to transmit Chinese culture. In the process of translation, many researchers face the difficulties and challenges in translating culture-loaded words. 

In the 1970s, Skopostheorie was put forward by the scholar Vermeer, who has proposed his new theory and broken the tradition. On the other hand, it was added to the theory in Translation Studies and provided a new approach for translators on the subtitling translation. The application and value of Skopostheorie have received more and more attention. From the perspective of Skopos theory, translation is not only a purposeful activity based on source text, but a kind of  cross-culture communication activity which should be restricted by translation purpose. Therefore, translation purpose decides and influences the whole translation process, and is the highest standard of the translation process. 

Translating a text usually requires to make an appropriate choice among those many translation strategies, especially between domestication and foreignization. In a film translation project, the initial decision between domesticating and foreignizing strategies affects the whole translation process. This paper just tries to explore the possibility of combining the two translation strategies in translating Chinese culture-loaded words into English from the Disney film Mulan, and to give some suggestions on subtitle translations.

Keywords: Skopostheorie; subtitling translation; Translation strategy; Mulan

Table of Contents

ABSTRACT

中文摘要

1 Introduction-5

2 Literature Review-7

2.1 Subtitle Translation-7

2.2 Skopostheorie-9

3 An Analysis of the Subtitle Translation of the Disney Film Mulan-10

3.1 An Introduction to the Disney Film Mulan-10

3.2 An Analysis of the Subtitle Translation Strategies in Light of Skopostheorie-12

3.2.1 Foreignization-12

3.2.2 Domestication-14

4  Conclusion-18

References-20