The Aesthetics of subtitling practice. A case study of <i>The Secret Life of Walter Mitty</i> for Chinese audiences

Meanwhile, Chinese audiences are extensively exposed to subtitles and graphic on-screen text across commercial cinema, television and digital media, creating a distinctive viewing environment that complicates dominant Western assumptions concerning subtitle invisibility.<br><br>This practice-based thesis examines the application of creative subtitling to commercial cinema for Chinese audiences through a case study of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Stiller, 2013).

Drawing upon film studies and translation studies, this research investigates how the Chinese context of spectatorship and exhibition may support creative subtitling practice, how creative subtitles may interact with film language, composition and Chinese typography, and how Chinese audiences respond to creative subtitles. The study combines theoretical analysis, practice-based subtitle production and a small-scale reception study involving questionnaires and follow-up interviews.<br><br>The findings suggest that Chinese audiences’ long-term exposure to subtitles and graphic on-screen text produces different expectations regarding subtitle visibility and aesthetic intervention from those assumed in dominant Western subtitling models.