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Chandler: “Well, she looks the exact opposite of that. ”
The translator has used repetition as the translation strategy, by giving a sound
translation of both Cathy Bates and Misery. However, this is not effective, since few
Chinese viewers will have watched the movie Misery and therefore cannot picture what
Cathy Bates is like.
My suggested HPTE woule be:
“你还记得电影《颤栗游戏》里的那个胖胖的中年妇女吗?” which would translate
back as: “Well, you remember the overweight mid-aged woman in the movie
Misery?”The strategy used to achieve this HPTE involves a combination of deletion and
repetition. Repetition is used when the movie is translated, however the word “movie”
has been added to “Misery” so the audience will understand that “Misery” is a movie, in
spite of not being familiar with it. Since most of the Chinese audience do not know what
Cathy Bates is like, deletion is used as the strategy, however the essence has been
retained by adding the description of Cathy Bates, as an overweight mid-aged woman,
and this enables Chinese viewers to understand Chandler‟s statement.
A similar reference is found in Season 2, Episode 13, Scene 4. In this scene, the
friends are at the movie set and talking to actors and actresses. Susie, a makeup assistant,
is commenting on problems with doing the makeup of the main actress.
Susie: “We‟ve got a problem”.
Director‟s assistant: “Tell me.”
Susie: “I cannot do Chris‟s makeup. She refuses to acknowledge that she has a
moustache.”
Director‟s assistant: “Is it bad? ”
Susie: “It looks like one of her eyebrows fell down. Now unless someone convinces her
to let me bleach it, Jean-Claude Vandamme is gonna be making out with Gabe
Kaplan.”
Here the translator is using repetition as the strategy by using a direct sound
translation for the names of Jean-Claude Vandamme (the main actor in the movie) and
Gabe Kaplan. The subtitle is reliable, but confusing, since Jean-Claude Vandamme and
Gabe Kaplan are not familiar to a Chinese audience. This translation is not effective,
since Chinese viewers would not even know whether Gabe Kaplan and Jean-Claude
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