Analyzing and Comparing the Translation Strategies Used in the Spanish and Chinese Versions of the Film Call Me by Your Name (Llámame por tu nombre)

Abstract

Subtitling is an essential branch of audiovisual translation involving the transition from spoken language to written language. This paper is an attempt to prove that Henrik Gottlieb’s subtitling strategies (1992) can be well applied in Spanish translation and Chinese translation to guide further translation practice, with the aim of improving the quality of interlingual subtitling. The research objects of this study are Chinese subtitles and Spanish subtitles of the film Call Me by Your Name, which are both available on Netflix. The study provides several examples to shed light on how each translation strategy is adopted by Spanish subtitler and Chinese subtitler, and tries to explore possible reasons behind their translations. In this movie, the Spanish translator tends to use transfer, transcription, condensation, decimation and deletion, while the Chinese translator prefers to use expansion and paraphrase. The main hypothesis is that language and cultural differences between English and Chinese are more significant than between English and Spanish.