The English Subtitle Translation of Quanzhou’s World Heritage Application Documentary: A Frame Theory Perspective

Based on Fillmore’s frame theory, this paper examines the translator’s cognitive frame operation in the English subtitle translation of Quanzhou’s World Heritage application documentary. It analyzes and discusses how the translator maximizes translation effect between the source language and the target language, so as to enhance the readability of documentary subtitles and promote the spread of traditional Chinese culture. The findings are as follows: Firstly, in the translation process, the frame operations used by the translator include frame correspondence, intra-frame operations, frame replacement, frame perspective shift and frame transplantation. Secondly, cultural documentaries are full of culture-loaded words, for which the translator usually uses frame transplantation. Thirdly, due to the instantaneous nature of subtitles, intra-frame operations and frame replacement are applied in terms of cultural background of the target language audience. Besides, in order to enhance the audience’s reading experience, there may be some changes of narrative perspective in the English translation of cultural documentaries.