A Research on the Documentary Subtitle Translation from the Perspective of Reception Aesthetics Theory——A Case Study of the Subtitle Translation of The Story of China

摘要

Documentary is an important form of audiovisual works with the characteristics of both authenticity and artistry, which plays a significant role in the spread of culture and knowledge. Reception aesthetics is a theory of literary criticism raised by the German literature theoretician and aesthetician Hans Robert Jauss in the 1960 s, in which the focus of literary studies is shifted from the author and text to the reader. It emphasizes reader’s participation and acceptance during the text understanding, by shifting the central position of studies from the author and work to the reader. It claims that only the works that have been comprehended and delivered by readers possess artistic value and meaning. With the characteristic of audience-centered, documentary happens to coincide with reception aesthetics theory which takes readers’ horizon of expectation into consideration. Applying the theory of reception aesthetics as its interpretive framework, this paper makes an effort to study subtitle translation of documentary films.