隨著中西文化交流漸盛,西方文化以各種不同的形式流入台灣,而逐漸受到國人喜愛的歐美影集便是其一。此外,由於科技日新月異,除了常見的電視和DVD字幕翻譯,網路字幕翻譯也越來越普遍,因此本研究以美國影集〈醜女貝蒂〉作為研究資料,進行不同版本的字幕翻譯簡化策略研究。〈醜女貝蒂〉於2006年在美國首播即大獲好評,劇中的角色鮮明,涵蓋多元的議題和豐富的文化特色,其台詞牽涉廣泛的語域,非常適合作為本研究的資料。本研究根據Blum-Kulka和Levenston (1978)提出的六項簡化策略(上義詞語、近似詞語、同義詞語、轉借、迂迴表達與釋義重述、詞義反轉)進行字幕翻譯,然後與DVD版本和網路版本字幕進行比較。本研究發現,起初假設語彙簡化與內容簡化為兩個截然不同的簡化過程,然而實際運用上述策略進行翻譯後,發現語彙簡化與內容簡化之間的關係並非對立,反而比較接近相輔相成的關係。此外,就簡化策略的優缺點而論,經過簡化的字幕不但易讀性提高,使觀眾更容易理解,而且也較能夠符合時間和空間限制的要求。儘管此策略有失於忠實的缺陷,但是影集中的畫面與聲音兩大因素可以彌補此一缺點。由於簡化策略在字幕翻譯中扮演重要的角色,因此希望本研究能對字幕翻譯實務和研究提供參考和助益。
With rapidly growing exchanges of the cultures between the East and the West, the western culture has managed to slip into Taiwan in various forms, and one of them is the TV dramas . In addition to TV and DVD subtitle translations, the “Fansub” version is becoming more prevalent with technological advance. Therefore, the author carried out the study of simplification with various versions of subtitles based on Ugly Betty, an American TV drama . Ugly Betty was a sensation when it first hit the TV in 2006. It casts a bunch of distinctive characters, and contains diversified social issues and abundant cultural features. With such wide range of language register, it becomes a wonderful case study material. Six simplification strategies, namely superordinate terms, approximation, synonymy, transfer, circumlocution and paraphrase and converseness, introduced by Blum-Kulka and Levenston (1978), were applied to translate Ugly Betty and then the results were compared with the DVD and the Fansub versions. The study finds that although linguistic simplification and the content simplification were considered as two completely different types of simplification in the beginning, they may be complimentary to each other. In terms of pros and cons of simplification, it may facilitate the audience’s comprehension of the subtitles, but may not be considered as faithful translation. Nonetheless, what is lost in simplification may be compensated by image and sound. Since simplification strategies play an important role in subtitling, it is hoped that the findings of this study may contribute to the practice and study of subtitle translation in the future.