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proposed by Aixelá (1996) into 3 sub-categories: conservation, neutralisation and
substitution. While conservation is source-text-oriented, substitution is
target-text-oriented. Neutralisation lies in between these two, striking a balance between
the source culture and the target culture.
The current study focused on strategies followed by Chinese translators providing
subtitle translations for the American sitcom series Friends, in particular focusing on
subtitles in relation to scenes dealing with politeness and cultural differences. This study
can be placed within the framework of screen translation between American English and
Mainland Chinese Mandarin, where these languages may be said to represent quite
different cultural perspectives. The study therefore combined various aspects of the
relevant literature, by transcribing spoken discourse, giving the subtitle translation and
analysing the same in terms of important aspects of subtitle translation (cf. Ivarsson,
1998) as well as the different taxonomies proposed by Aixelá (1996) and Davies (2003).
Added to this the researcher initially added the Hofstede (1973) approach to comparing
the different cultures involved, i.e. American culture and Mainland Chinese culture, by
also looking at subtitle translations in terms of Hofstede‟s four benchmarks of
masculinity, power distance, uncertainty avoidance and individualism (Hofstede, 1973).
The latter approach was discontinued when the pilot study showed that most CSIs did
not allow themselves to be easily aligned in accordance to Hofstede‟s benchmarks,
suggesting that there was not much merit in continuing this approach in the context of
the current study.
3.3 Data
The data was selected from a number of episodes of the American television series
Friends, which had been subtitled in Mandarin Chinese, aimed at a mainly Mainland
Chinese audience and available for viewing on the internet. Friends is a popular
American television series, of the sitcom variety. A more or less random selection was
made from those scenes were selected that contained CSIs or involved politeness in
some shape of form. Its protagonists are half a dozen of young people living in New
York and congregating regularly a café called Central Perk. The series follows these
young people through a series of ups and downs in terms of their jobs and personal
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