3.2.3 Easiness of reading and understanding 5

    3.3 Translation of Slang in Modern Family 5

        3.3.1 Equivalence of Meaning 6

        3.3.2 Equivalence of Emotion 7

        3.3.3 Equivalence of TV Plot 8

        3.3.4 Equivalence of Culture 9

4. Conclusion 11

References 12

1. Introduction

1.1 Background

In today’s world, different cultures meet together and be exchanged in various ways. Among these, watching foreign TV series is one of the most popular ways for its convenience. 

Since 1980s, American TV series have appeared on the screen of China successively and have feasted audience’s eyes. After 2000, popularization of the internet accelerated the development of American TV series. Because of compact plot, novelty culture and other outstanding features, it is loved by Chinese, especially young people. At present, American TV series becomes a kind of cultural phenomenon and also a way of learning English and English culture.

But with more foreign movies and TV series are welcomed and flooding into China, subtitle translation become a big problem. To a great extent, Chinese audience rely on Chinese subtitles when they watching American TV series. The reason is that the different pronunciations, speed and other factors make audiences have difficulty in understanding the content. Therefore, the quality of subtitle influences audience's understanding of American TV series.

However, the difficulties of subtitle translation lie in lifestyle language, including American slang, which is frequently used in American TV series. We seldom come into contact with American slang in our non-English environment and even when we communicate with foreigners, they seldom use slang in communication. Hence, we do not understand slang and hard to realize the significance of slang in our English learning. 

Concluding from the above-mentioned reasons, translating quality plays an important role in content understanding and cultural communication. It is need for translators to figure a relatively proper way to convey the complete and true meaning. However, it is not an easy project, especially for translating American slang, which is created rapidly and probably can not be looked up in dictionaries. But in American TV series, it is widely used. Nevertheless, slang is the witness of socio-cultural progress and has the history of hundreds of years. In consequence, learning American slang is an efficient way to learn English and American culture and slang translation in subtitle is a important way to learn American slang. 

1.2 The Significance of Topic 

Since there is no official translation group for American TV series and those Chinese audience who know little English will have no idea if the subtitle translation is relevant, translators shall assume a high sense of responsibility by provide close or accurate translation as much as possible. In addition to that, different translation groups adopt different translating methods, which may mislead audience and learners if they put their own ways of speaking and emotion into the translation wishfully. Furthermore, slang words, which are frequently employed in family sitcoms, turn out a great challenge in subtitle translation. Therefore, it is justifiable to give due attention, or even more than due attention, to translation of slang-loaded subtitles. 

Modern Family is a family situation comedy which has won Emmys for outstanding series from 2010 to 2014. This TV series is a success in entertaining and giving audience an opportunity to learn American daily life. This thesis takes examples of slang translation in this famous series and tries to propose a few reasonable and practical slang translation methods in subtitles from the perspective of Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory.