A Study on Film Subtitle Translation from the Perspective of Translation Schema Theory —Taking the Film Green Book as an Example

Audiovisual works are important vehicles for cultural dissemination, and the quality of subtitle translation directly affects the effectiveness of cross-cultural communication. Framed within translation schema theory, this paper analyzes the cognitive transformation process in the subtitle translation of the film Green Book from four dimensions: language schema, context schema, cultural schema, and stylistic schema. The study finds that the Italian-American protagonist Tony Vallelonga’s colloquial expressions with strong regional color, the African-American pianist Don Shirley’s elegant and formal linguistic style, and the culture-loaded words in their dialogues constitute complex translation schema scenarios. Translators need to flexibly adopt strategies such as literal translation, free translation, established-equivalent translation, and functional substitution according to different situations of schema overlap, schema conflict, and schema default, so as to balance information transmission and audiovisual appeal within limited time and space.