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problematic.
7.3 Findings in the framework of previous studies
The literature review included studies which suggest that there are a number of
cross-cultural differences between American culture and Mainland Chinese culture, e.g.
in terms of “face” (Zhu, et al, 2007; Edward, 2005), power distance, uncertainty
avoidance and individualism (Hofstede, 1973). Obviously Friends is a sitcom, in which
the rules of politeness are intentionally broken in order to shock the audience and make
them laugh out of disbelief that anyone could behave so impolitely. In view of the fact
that most Chinese viewers are likely to take the scenes in Friends at face value and will
not understand some behaviours shown in the TV opera, subtitle producers should still
be aware of this possibility and make subtitles more comprehensible to Chinese
viewers.
The main aim of the study, obviously, was to analyse the strategies used to arrive at
the subtitle translations and whether these were effective in terms of dynamic
equivalence. My analyses did include some assumptions as to how the Chinese audience
might have responded to perceived cross-cultural differences in terms of politeness
issues. Obviously, my comments were subjective to some extent, and the study did not
include a mock audience to confirm whether my assumptions were shared by a wider
audience. The fact that Friends is a sitcom, where exaggerated social behaviour was
used to elicit a laugh from the American audience also means that the data could not
totally be relied upon to present a true picture of such cross-cultural differences.
The analysis of subtitle translations drew both on subtitle criteria outlined by
Ivarssson (1998) and on translation strategies classified by Aixelá (1996). Both proved
very beneficial to the analysis and assisted the researcher in identifying a number of
weaknesses in relation to commonly used subtitle translation strategies and presented an
account of why these strategies failed to meet some performance criteria. The researcher
complemented the analysis by recommending some strategies that could be used as
alternatives to achieve better understanding by members of the target audience.
The analysis of the 30 scenes selected from Friends appeared to indicate that
repetition was the strategy that is most likely to achieve less than satisfactory outcomes
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