Investigating the Iranian Translator’s Strategies for Subtitling the Cultural-bound References in “Harry Potter” Movies

Subtitling, like all other types of audiovisual translation, has always been influenced by cultural factors, and in turn, subtitles have influenced their target readers. The relation between culture and language in interlingual subtitling might cause some problems in translating Culture References (CRs). The aim of the present study was to classify the samples of CRs in the “Harry Potter” movie series based on Klingberg’s (1986) model. It was also intended to investigate the strategies applied by Iranian translators in subtitling the (CRs) in “Harry Potter” movies from English into Persian based on Diaz Cintas's (2007) proposed strategies. To do so, instances of CRs were drawn from the two series of Harry Potter entitled Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire (2005). The data analysis was carried out by descriptive statistics to indicate the frequency and percentages. The findings revealed that “Personal Names” and “Magical Objects”, were the most frequently used CRs in the two selected series of Harry Potter movies based on Klingberg’s (1986) model. Additionally, the results showed that “Loan” and “Calque” were the most frequently used strategies in subtitling the CRs. The findings of the present study may be useful for English translation students, subtitlers, and fansubbers who do subtitle English movies in the Iranian context