Chapter two gives a brief introduction on Eugene A. Nida and his functional equivalence theory.

Chapter three discusses the difficulties on film dubbing and the application of functional equivalence theory to dubbed films so as to address the above difficulties.

Chapter four looks into the dubbed version of The Harry Potter series, analyzes strategies applied and tentatively raises suggestions on dubbing translation of imported English-speaking films in the future. 源:自/751-·论,文'网·www.751com.cn/

2. Literature Review

2.1 Development of Eugene A. Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory

20 century has witnessed the dramatic process of western industrialization along with the frequently communication in the field of economy, culture, and commercial trade. The increasing needs of international translation fueled the research on translation theories. Eugene Nida, born in Oklahoma, November 1914, is a pioneer in the fields of translation theory and linguistics. He applied the linguistic approach to translation research and came up with the “Dynamic equivalence theory” in his Science of Translation, which is late changed to “Functional equivalence theory” in 1986, recognized as one of his most notable achievements. “Functional equivalence” expresses an information-transferring pattern that “the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message”(2004). Also he believes “translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source-language message, firstly in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.” He puts more emphasis on message per se over the form applied. Thus the conclusion can be drawn: although translated text is of different forms with the original text, the same information should be obtained from receptor, so that functional equivalence can be achieved. Nida’s theory has laid solid foundation for the field of translation in China since its introduction into China in 1980s. 

2.2 Studies on Film Translation

There are mainly two ways of translation regarding the imported films, dubbing translation and subtitling translation. Dubbing translation refers to a method that dubbing actors replace the dialogue in original source language with the target language with similar meanings. Subtitling translation refers to a form of written translation of the dialog in target language to supplement the lost from the inability to understand the source language.文献综述

Several scholars working on film translation are of great experience. They draw their experience from practice, tentatively define the language features of film language, and accordingly discuss the principles and techniques applied in film translation. Qian Shaochang, Zhang Chunbo, Ma Zhengqi are most typical of that group.

Ma Zhengqi reckoned that the movie translation displays 5 characteristics: listening, comprehensiveness, popularity, etc. (Ma Zhengqi, on the Basic Principles of Film Translation, 1997) 

In Zhang Chunbo’ analysis, the audiovisual language is of 2 basic characteristics: instantaneousness and popularity; he further explains the importance of cultural factors and the free translation employed when dealing with culturally untranslatable texts.  ( Zhang Chunbo, Chat on Film Translation,1998)

Qian Shaochang, researching on the field of film translation, has summed that there are 5 differences between film language and written language: listening, instantaneousness, comprehensiveness, popularity and no-description; and given corresponding strategies to cope with those distinct characteristics. Moreover, he mentioned the less attention paid to and low position of film translation. (The International Conference on Dubbing and Subtitling, 2002)