View - Scholarly Commons Home

6.1 Introduction
Chapter Six: Main analysis and discussion
In this chapter, I will discuss the subtitle translations chosen by the Chinese subtitle
writers for Friends. I will provide a back translation for each of the Chinese subtitle
translations followed by comments analysing the translation strategy, followed by an
assessment of the subtitle‟s effectiveness in terms of several parameters. Added to this
will be a suggested translation in terms of the High probability Translation Equivalent
(HPTE). I feel this will be a useful addition, as it may give the readers more insight into
the original translation and where it may have been insufficient in clarifying the
associations viewers in the US would have had when listening to the original discourse.
6.2 Discussion of subtitle translations by type of culture specific reference
All scenes chosen for analysis contained Culture Specific Items (CSIs). Many CSIs
referred to American „institutions‟, food choices or to people or characters well-known
in American culture, either because they appeared in television shows or movies or in
politics. Some of the CSIs referred to shops or places which are well-known in the USA
such as the Sunglass Hut. American television audiences will have associations with all
these, however it is likely that the Chinese subtitle translators were not always aware of
these associations, as may for instance be seen from the translation of the „barn raising
scene in Witness‟, which is one of the examples discussed in this chapter.
An attempt was made to present this discussion in a logical order by grouping CSIs
together according to the type of CSI involved. Subtitle translations of CSIs will be
discussed according to whether they concerned general references to American culture,
references to American movies or television series, and references to American
„institutions‟). This classification into three different groups of references did not
always prove successful in that some scenes included more than one type of cultural
reference. In such cases, the reference was classed under one or the other group,
according to what the researcher felt was the more dominant reference.
53