This paper takes the popular American TV series This Is Us as an example, and analyses subtitle translation from the prospective of Skopostheorie, in line with its three principles—Skopos rule, coherence rule and fidelity rule。 Unlike the fantastic Hollywood films, the American TV series have less amazing stunt and less thrilling scenes。 But, many audience choose to watch American TV series because its’ attractive plots and dialogues。 So, it’s no doubt that subtitle translation is vital for non-English audiences, Chinese included。 In subtitle translation, the source language itself will be influenced by associated political, economic and social factors so that it becomes difficult。 What’s more, due to traditional customs and cultural background differences between China and western countries, subtitle translation is vital and significant。 

2。 Literature Review文献综述

As more and more English films and television series reach the Chinese audience, subtitle translation is becoming prosperous and flourishing。 Subtitle translation distinguishes itself from other types of literary translation in that it maximally conveys the message of the original text to the target viewers under the spatial and temporal constraints。 Some basic knowledge and fundamental definitions of Skopostheorie are clarified in this part, including the origin and development of Skopostheorie and its three key rules。 Then, this part presents reviews of previous studies on Skopostheorie and reviews on subtitle translation。 Many scholars have made research on Skopostheorie。 They hold the view that translation is a kind of purposeful cross-culture communication。 The author plans to conduct a research on subtitle translation based on the Skopostheorie for the sake of providing some efforts to improve the quality of subtitle translation。 

2。1 Previous studies on Skopostheorie

Skopostheorie offers a new perspective and angle for translation theory because it shifts its attention from the source text to the target text, which sets many scholars free from the constraints by traditional norms like faithfulness and equivalence。 Before studying the case--the subtitle translation in This Is Us, the author would like to briefly introduce the origin and evolution of Skopostheorie。 The Skopostheorie is a concept from the field of translation studies。 In Greek, Skopos means “aim” or “purpose”。 It was construed by the German linguist Hans Vermeer。  Before 1970s, most scholars pay attention to the study of equivalence theory。 However, as time goes on, they find out the disadvantages of equivalence-based translation, so they try to find a better translation theory in order to make up weakness。 The development of modern functionalism in translation studies experienced four stages。 In 1970s,