字幕翻译过程中主语“我”的省略:基于视听翻译语料库的研究

Omission of Subject “I” in Subtitling: A Corpus Review of Audiovisual Works

本文探讨了英语字幕汉译过程中主语"我"的省略模式。因为时间和空间的限制,在视听翻译中常常会采用省略的翻译策略,但是现有的研究却很少探讨省略产生的方式和原因。本文首次详细探讨和分析了字幕翻译中省略产生的原因。文章采用双语平行语料库的方法,语料来自字幕组翻译的视听作品,总计4743条字幕和138个有效标记。通过对这些标记进行检查、讨论并按照语义进行分类,揭示了字幕翻译过程中的省略模式。研究发现,在中文译文中搭配词对主语"我"的省略有着重要影响。主语"我"的省略通常发生在以下几种情况:1)目标语习惯将一些惯用表达翻译成无主句,比如"抱歉"、"恐怕"等;2)源语中使用了话语标记和模糊限制语,例如"I mean"、"I think"等。本文的发现是对现有相关研究的有效补充,为视听翻译人员在决策过程中使用省略策略提供了有力依据,对于解决主语"我"是否能够省略、是否应该省略以及怎样省略等问题具有重要意义,同时启示我们将来可以从语用学等其他视角对字幕翻译中的省略现象做进一步研究。

This paper explores the pattern of omission in English to Chinese subtitling of the subject"I".In translation,omission is used as a technique to manage the temporal and spatial constraints that exist with audiovisual formats.To date,little research has been done into how or why the omission takes place.The research reported on in this article is the first to explore and analyze the reasons behind omission in detail.It does so by utilizing a parallel and bilingual corpus,built up from fansub translations of audiovisual works,amounting to 4,743 subtitles and 138 valid tokens.The tokens are examined and discussed,and then categorized according to semantic usage in order to uncover the patterns of the omissions in the translations.The analysis shows that collocates have significant influence on whether"I"is omitted in the Chinese translation.Omission of"I"takes place more frequently when:a)it is a common practice to translate idiomatic expressions without a subject in the target language,such as"I am sorry"and"I’m afraid";and/or b)discourse markers and hedging words are used in the source language,such as"I mean","I think"and so on.The findings of this paper are a contribution to the existing studies on the phenomenon of omission in audiovisual translation.They are significant for giving solid evidence for audiovisual translators to use in their decision-making process,for how and whether the subject"I"could be and/or should be omitted.They also indicate that the further investigation of the phenomenon through alternative points of view,such as pragmatics,is desirable.