Cinematic Multilingualism in China and its Subtitling
After several decades of promoting a homogenous language in the People’s Republic of China (China), the inclusion of local languages other than Putonghua (standard modern Chinese) in films in recent years has led to a heated debate on language policy in the country. It is against this background that the paper seeks to discuss the current situation in China as well as explore factors behind the current development of multilingual films in the country, indicating that there is a grassroots appeal for the protection of language and cultural diversity. By conducting a case study on The Flowers of War (Yimou Zhang, 2011), a China-made polyglot film, this paper investigates the role of subtitling in multilingual films and its potential for promoting a multilingual multicultural society.
After several decades of promoting a homogenous language in the People’s Republic of China (China), the inclusion of local languages other than Putonghua (standard modern Chinese) in films in recent years has led to a heated debate on language policy in the country. It is against this background that the paper seeks to discuss the current situation in China as well as explore factors behind the current development of multilingual films in the country, indicating that there is a grassroots appeal for the protection of language and cultural diversity. By conducting a case study on The Flowers of War (Yimou Zhang, 2011), a China-made polyglot film, this paper investigates the role of subtitling in multilingual films and its potential for promoting a multilingual multicultural society.
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Submitted by
Valeria Cervetti
17/11/2016
in the project Audiovisual Translation for the Web
last updated 17/11/2016
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