As a classic television program, The Vampire Diary has been widely spread and loved by Chinese audience. The original work contains a large number of culture-specific items, which poses a great challenge to its subtitle translation. The Skopostheorie of translation proposed by Hans J. Vermeer defines the principles of translation activities as Skopos Rule, the Coherence Rule and the Fidelity Rule. By Skopostheorie, the translator should process the information of film and television works according to the specific purpose of the target text, and use translation strategies flexibly according to the characteristics of subtitle translation to transmit the information as comprehensively as possible to the target audience. This thesis takes the subtitle translation of culture-specific items in the American drama The Vampire Diaries as the research subject, starting from the related concepts and principles of skopostheorie, and combining the eleven translation strategies for culture-specific items proposed by Aixela, analyzes the subtitle translation strategies of proper nouns in the play, such as person names, place names, etc., as well as idioms and allusions, in order to better explore the principles and approaches that should be followed in the subtitle translation of culture-specific items in film and television works.

Yudan Wang. A Study on Culture-Specific Items in light of Skopostheorie: A Case Study of the Vampire Diaries. Academic Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences (2024) Vol. 7, Issue 3: 179-187. https://doi.org/10.25236/AJHSS.2024.070328.

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