Abstract .............................................................................................................................................ii 摘要 ................................................................................................................................................ iii 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 1 2. The Significance of Film Title Translation ................................................................................... 1 3. Functions of Film Titles ................................................................................................................ 1
3.1 Informative Function ........................................................................................................... 1 3.2 Vocative Function ................................................................................................................ 1 3.3 Aesthetic Function ............................................................................................................... 2 4. The Difference between Chinese Film Title and English Film Title ............................................. 2
4.1 The Characteristics of Chinese Film Title ........................................................................... 2
4.1.1 Chinese Film Title emphasizes on inductive synthesis method ............................... 2 4.1.2 Chinese Film Title pursues artistic conception ......................................................... 2 4.2 The Characteristics of English Film Title............................................................................ 2
4.2.1 Brief and Concentrated ............................................................................................ 2 4.2.2 Heroes’ or Heroines’ Titles as Titles ......................................................................... 3 4.2.3 Settings as Titles ....................................................................................................... 3
5. Methods of Chinese and English Film Title Translation ............................................................... 3
5.1 Literal Translation ............................................................................................................... 3 5.2
Transliteration ............................................................................................................... 4
5.3 Free Translation ................................................................................................................... 5 5.4 Domesticating Method and Foreignizing Method............................................................... 5 6. Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 7 References ......................................................................................................................................... 8
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Abstract
With the course of globalization, various countries have closer ties with the rest of the world in economy, education, politics, and culture. China, as the largest developing country in the world, has a lot more communications with other countries now. Moreover, film is a good way of cultural exchange, and it provides a vivid way of understanding different cultures, customs, literatures and lives. Film title is an essential part of the film. An excellent title can play the role of adding the finishing touch, attracting audience and giving audience much food for thought. Film titles not only reflect the central thought of films but also attract the audience with brief and novel forms. Concerning that, translation of film title seems to be greatly important because it may influence the masses’ impression on the film. Learning the basic methods of translating film titles is the basic acquirement of film translation.
This paper mainly talks about The Significance of Film Title Translation, the functions of film title, the different characteristics between Chinese and English film titles and the specific methods of translating film titles.
Key words: film title, functions, characteristics, methods
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摘要
伴随着全球化的进程，各国与世界其他地区在经济、教育、政治、文化各方面的联系都有所加强。如今，中国是世界上最大的发展中国家，与其他国家之间的交流更加密切广泛。而电影是文化交流的一个有效途径，可以形象生动的展现不同的文化、习俗、文学和生活。片名是电影的一个不可缺少的部分。好的片名能起到画龙点睛,吸引观众，耐人寻味的作用。片名既要反映影片的中心思想，又要简短、新奇，吸引观众。因此，片名的翻译就显得尤为重要，因为它会影响到人们对影片的印象。学习电影名翻译的基本技巧是电影名翻译的基本要求。
本文主要讨论了电影名翻译的重要性，电影名的作用，中英文电影名的特点和电影名翻译的具体技巧。
关键词：电影名，作用，特点，技巧
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1. Introduction
With China’s policy of reform and opening-up to the outside world and the strengthening process of globalization, communication among nations is becoming more and more frequent, of which cultural exchange is an important part. As an important means of cultural communication, films play a very important part. They are also one of the most important elements in the world’s cultural communication, which can be regarded as an effective way of promoting mutual understanding between different counties. Since film titles have always been put in an eye-catching place, the translation of English film titles becomes more significant.
The translation of film titles is not an easy job, but a very complicate and difficult one. Therefore, this paper is going to deal with the problem of film title translation.
2. The Significance of Film Title Translation
Film is an art and a commodity as well. With the opening of the Chinese market, we have more and more films. Audiences need to understand the film titles before they enjoy the films. Film titles convey the story to the audience to attract them. This requires the translation of film titles to be accurate and embody the commercial values.
3. Functions of Film Titles
Language has six functions:
Expressive function, informative function, vocative function, aesthetic function, phonic function, and multilingual function. As a proper noun, the film title is a result of the play writer’s painstaking conception which can highly summarize the theme of the film and intensely stimulate the audience’s desire of going to films. So film titles contain the following three functions: informative function, vocative function, and aesthetic function. 3.1 Informative Function
The informative function means film titles convey the information about the idea of the film to the audience and make them understand the idea and the story better. The title Forrest Gump 《阿甘正传》will tell the audience that the story is about a person titled Forrest Gump and Pearl Harbor《珍珠港》 will remind the people of the history and the audience will know the story takes place in Pearl Harbor and has connection with World WarⅡ. The informative function is the basic function of film titles and the most important function. 3.2 Vocative Function
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According to the philosophy ”everyone has curiosity” we will feel excited when we see something fresh and strange and we take delight in learning and easily be influenced. The vocative function is just to influence the audiences’ sentiments and arouse their interests. Fahrenheit 9/11《华氏911》, the best-selling documentary film, strongly criticized the Bush government. The director chose the 9.11 event as part of the title in his film to attract audiences and also convey the main idea of the film. 3.3 Aesthetic Function
Aesthetic function is to bring audiences’ enjoyment from the title. The aesthetic feeling is a main factor that causes audience to make the decision whether they will go to a film or not. The aesthetic function is most obviously felt on the romantic films. Some titles of the classical films have become the synonym of romantic, such as Casablanca《北非谍影》, Sleepless in Seattle《西雅图不眠夜》.
4. The Difference between Chinese Film Title and English Film Title
4.1 The Characteristics of Chinese Film Title
4.1.1 Chinese culture belongs to the humanities culture, it emphasizes on inductive synthesis
method. As for language, it emphasizes on hint and metaphor.
4.1.2 Chinese film title is just like traditional Chinese painting. It pursues artistic conception
such as silence, peace and so on. It always uses symbols and poetical features.
Examples of Chinese Film Title: 《大红灯笼高高挂》 《金粉世家》 《红玫瑰、白玫瑰》 《黑白森林》 《像雾像雨又像风》 《一帘幽梦》 《一江春水向东流》
4.2 The Characteristics of English Film Title
4.2.1 Brief and Concentrated
English film titles usually contain only one or two key words. Most of the titles are brief and concise. Generally speaking, the titles are made up of nouns and noun phrases, such as Titanic《泰
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坦尼克号》, Introducing Dorothy Dandridge《红颜血泪》, and Sound of Music《音乐之声》. Though the titles are brief and concise, they are to the point. The titles summarize the main story of the film and the audience can easily get the idea of the story. Return to Me《我心谁属》, a love story, tells about misunderstanding between a couple and finally their reunion and reconciliation.
4.2.2 Heroes’ or Heroines’ Titles as Titles
A great part of the western films choose the heroes’ or the heroines’ titles as the title though sometimes the hero or the heroine is just an ordinary person or sometimes even the hero or the heroine is a negative character. Forrest Gump《阿甘正传》, JFK《刺杀肯尼迪》, Aladdin《阿拉丁神灯》, Shreck《怪物史莱克》and the terrible bastard Hannibal are all of this kind. Using the heroes’ or the heroines’ titles as the title has two advantages. On one hand, like JFK, Aladdin, and Lolita, these titles are famous in the western history, fairy tales and literature works, so the audiences are familiar with them and easily get through the main story of the film, on the other hand, if the title of the hero or the heroine is strange to the audience, the audience will know that the film is about an ordinary person and there must be some special story about him or her. So the audience will be attracted and eager to go.
4.2.3 Settings as Titles
There are also lots of titles using the settings of the story, such as Chicago《芝加哥》, Casablanca《北非谍影》, and Gosford Park《迷雾庄园》. These settings are usually famous places and have close connection with the theme of the story. The O.C. 《橘子郡男孩》 ,short for the Orange County in south California, describing the lives of the people who live in the Orange County. The Orange County is a rich community and people lived here are all rich people. Ryan, a teenager from chino, was adopted by lawyer Sandy and began his new life in the Orange County. After Ryan’s arrival, changes took place in the community and everyone’s life. The director chose The O.C. as the title because this county witnessed the changes and really meant a lot to the people who live here.
5. Methods of Chinese and English Film Title Translation
5.1 Literal Translation
5.1.1 What is Literal Translation
Literal translation, or direct translation, is the rendering of text from one language to another \"word-for-word\" (Latin: \"verbum pro verbo\") rather than conveying the sense of the original.
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(This distinction is valid only when a literal translation does not accurately convey the sense, which is not invariably true.
Literal translation is to translate without changing the original words and sentences. Strictly speaking, that is, to translate without changing the original point of view and style and be faithful to the original. In practice, many titles in English and Chinese are surprisingly alike; almost word for word translation can be achieved.
5.1.2 Examples of Literal Translation Schindler's List 《辛德勒名单》
Four Wedding and a Funeral 《四个婚礼一个葬礼》 Jurassic park 《侏罗纪公园》 Yellow Earth 《黄土地》
Nanking Massacre 《南京大屠杀》 Rain Man 《雨人》 Pearl Harbor 《珍珠港》 The Brave Heart《勇敢的心》 5.2 Transliteration
5.2.1 What is Transliteration
Transliteration is a subset of the science of hermeneutics. It is a form of translation, and is the practice of converting a text from one script into another.
Transliteration can form an essential part of transcription which converts text from one writing system into another. Transliteration is not concerned with representing the phonemics of the original: it only strives to represent the characters accurately.
From an information-theoretical point of view, systematic transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word, or ideally letter by letter. Transliteration attempts to use a one-to-one correspondence and be exact, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words. Ideally, reverse transliteration is possible.
Transliteration is opposed to transcription, which specifically maps the sounds of one language to the best matching script of another language. Still, most systems of transliteration map the letters of the source script to letters pronounced similarly in the goal script, for some specific
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pair of source and goal language. If the relations between letters and sounds are similar in both languages, a transliteration may be (almost) the same as a transcription. In practice, there are also some mixed transliteration/transcription systems that transliterate a part of the original script and transcribe the rest.
The transliteration discussed above can be regarded as transliteration in the narrow sense. In a broader sense, the word transliteration may include both transliteration in the narrow sense and transcription.
5.2.2 Examples of Transliteration Troy 《特洛伊》 Jane Eyre《简爱》
Romeo and Juliet《罗密欧与朱丽叶》 Harry Potter《哈利波特》 Juno《朱诺》 5.3 Free Translation
5.3.1 What is Free Translation
Free translation is a flexible measure when literal translation is not available. As we mentioned, English film titles are mostly made up of one or two key words and highly concentrated, literally translated titles sometimes cannot make the Chinese audience understood. And there are some titles that contain lots of culture which is only well-known by westerners; Chinese audience will be confused if we translate these titles through literal translation. However, when we use free translation, the version won’t totally conform to the original title.
5.3.2 Examples of Free Translation My Best Friend’s Wedding《新娘不是我》 Gone with the Wind《乱世佳人》 Music of the Heart《弦动我心》
5.4 Domesticating Method and Foreignizing Method
5.4.1 What are Domesticating Method and Foreignizing Method
Domesticating translation and foreignizing translation are two different translation strategies. The former refers to the translation strategy in which a transparent, fluent style is adopted in order to minimize the strangeness of the foreign text for target language readers, while the latter
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designates the type of translation in which a target text deliberately breaks target conventions by retaining something of the foreigness of the original.
5.4.2 Examples of Domesticating Method and Foreignizing Method Ghost《人鬼情未了》 Waterloo Bridge《魂断蓝桥》 Saving Private Ryan《拯救大兵瑞恩》 The Wizard of Oz《绿野仙踪》 Top Gun《壮志凌云》 Matrix《黑客帝国》
Leon The Professional《这个杀手不太冷》 Tarzan《人猿泰山》 Chicken Run《小鸡快跑》
The Forbidden Kingdom 《功夫之王》 CJ7《长江七号》
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6. Conclusion
Film plays an important role both in people’s daily lives and international economy. As a commodity and an art, film will still enjoy a great popularity among people. With the opening of the film market, we will have more and more opportunities to see films. Film title is the first thing that audience can get the main story through and it has three main functions: informative function, vocative function and aesthetic function. However, Chinese and English film titles have different characteristics: Chinese film titles emphasizes on inductive synthesis method. As for language, it emphasizes on hint and metaphor. But English film titles have three main characteristics: brief and concentrated, heroes’ or heroines’ titles as titles, settings as titles.
Different types of film titles determine different translation skills. After analyzing the characteristics, functions of film titles, translators can employ transliteration, literal translation, free translation and Domesticating Method and Foreignizing Method to give audience the best version.
During the translation of film titles, in order to achieve an equivalent effect, the translator should always bear in mind principles of translation, using proper translation skills to make appropriate versions to give the audience most exact information and help them enjoy the films.
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References
[1]Eugene A. Nida. 1993. Language, Culture and Translating, Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press
[2]Peter Newmark. 1982. Approaches to Translation. U.K: Pergamon Press Ltd
[3]E. A. Nida. Language, Culture and Translating: Contexts in Translating, Shanghai, Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2001
[4]E. A. Nida , Charles Taber. The Theory and Practice of Translation, Shanghai, Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2004
[5]Jeremy Munday. Introducing Translation Studies-Theory and Applications, London & NewYork, Routledge, 2001
[6]赵化勇，2000，《译制片探讨与研究》[M]，北京：中国广播电视出版社 [7]范仲英，1994，《实用翻译教程》[M]，北京：外语教育与研究出版社 [8]陈怀彦.电影名翻译的现状及方法，韶关学院学报，2009，30(8): 87-90
[9]杜海燕.浅夕英文电影名称汉译策略，厦门大学外文学院，2008，18（7）: 87-90 [10]蒋宏翻. 译目的论原则与电影片名的翻译，天津市经理学院学报，2007，2(10): 63-64 [11]庄光明. 电影英语片名教学，敦煌英语教学杂志，2001，31(8)：47-50
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