Siwen Lu

Existing literature on adaptation studies focuses primarily on analysing film adaptations from an intralingual and monomodal rather than an interlingual and multimodal perspective. To fill this gap, this study addresses the relatively under-researched issue of applying existing literary translation to the subtitles of film adaptations by the film subtitle producers. Concentrating on the Chinese subtitling of neologisms in the Harry Potter films (2001–2011) and by drawing on the Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)-informed multimodal framework, the aim is to investigate how subtitles and other multimodal resources interact to make meanings and their potential effects on the subtitled films when the film subtitle producers apply literary translation to subtitles of film adaptations. The results show that the application of literary translation to subtitled films by the film subtitlers may run the risk of downplaying some crucial elements of the original, such as the relationship bet...

Under the dynamic and diversified online mediascape in China, the traditional roles of intralingual subtitles have gradually shifted as they have become an integral part of entertainment and one of the main content types for consumption. This study addresses a relatively underresearched but growing practice of intralingual subtitles used on Webonly shows in China. Using examples from Mars Intelligence Agency, this study attempts to describe the nature and characteristics of intralingual subtitles and to explore their sociocultural significance in today’s digital environment from a postmodern perspective. The results show that the changing role of intralingual subtitles, from traditional referentiality to a more emancipatory form of spectatorial consumption, challenges the power structures in traditional TV and exhibits a postmodern way of consumption. This shift lies at the heart of the dynamism of online mediascape in China and is inseparable from the formation of a Chinese postmod...

Under the dynamic and diversified online mediascape in China, the traditional roles of intralingual subtitles have gradually shifted as they have become an integral part of entertainment and one of the main content types for consumption. This study addresses a relatively underresearched but growing practice of intralingual subtitles used on Webonly shows in China. Using examples from Mars Intelligence Agency, this study attempts to describe the nature and characteristics of intralingual subtitles and to explore their sociocultural significance in today's digital environment from a postmodern perspective. The results show that the changing role of intralingual subtitles, from traditional referentiality to a more emancipatory form of spectatorial consumption, challenges the power structures in traditional TV and exhibits a postmodern way of consumption. This shift lies at the heart of the dynamism of online mediascape in China and is inseparable from the formation of a Chinese postmodern consciousness.

The development of digital technology over the past two decades has made audiovisual products an indispensable way of entertainment and witnessed the emergence of new sociocultural phenomena, including the rise of participatory culture and civic engagement. Drawing on the Systemic Functional Linguistics-informed multimodality, this article compares some of the most distinct practices in official subtitles and fansubs in the complex sociocultural context of China. The aim is to examine how fansubbers manipulate semiotic resources to design highly innovative strategies and investigate how these interventionist practices maximize their visibility and increase the film’s participation. The results show that Chinese fansubbers tend to produce subtitles in a highly aesthetic, functional, and semiotically coherent way by breaking the conventions established by the professionals. This tendency is not only a reflection of their resistance and dissatisfaction with the official subtitles under...

As a perennially controversial topic, swearing has been much discussed in the area of audiovisual translation. However, less attention has been paid to the multimodal analysis of swearing since previous research only focuses on the linguistic transfer or monomodal analysis of swearing. The main aim of this study is to investigate the subtitling of swearing by drawing upon the Systemic Functional Linguistics-informed multimodality. The main focus is to examine the multimodal construal of swearing at the three metafunctional levels, to investigate the semiotic interplay between verbal and non-verbal elements, and to consider whether this has different effects on the subtitled film. Criminal (2016), an American action film, is chosen for this study due to the prominence of swearing and physical violence in the film. The results show that the Chinese translation follows a target-oriented strategy and there is a strong toning-down tendency in terms of the subtitling of swearing. However, this does not mean that the original effects of swearing (e.g. expressing emotions, characterisation and signalling the aggressive nature of the atmosphere) are completely lost in the subtitled version. The loss of swearing in the subtitled film can be mitigated by many contextual factors in the film such as non-verbal elements, co-text, register established on the character’s first appearance, and genre. Therefore, this study highlights the importance of considering subtitles as only one element in the whole multimodal ensemble and treating the whole film as an entire system.