美国电影片名翻译初探

论文总字数：22872字

摘 要

跨文化电影标题翻译的过程中，应该注重合适贴切。因此,译者必须在遵循目的语文化规范的同时满足目标读者的期望。这才能保证电影标题的翻译版本的适当性。一方面,译者必须了解跨文化冲突所带来的挑战。另一方面,一个好的翻译家应该知道如何选择正确的翻译策略。基于各种翻译案例,本文旨在探究在电影片名的英翻中的过程中那些使用的原则与方法。

关键词：电影片名，片名翻译，翻译原则，翻译方法

Table of contents

Acknowledgements 4

Abstract 5

摘要 6

Chapter One Introduction 8

1.1 Research Questions 8

1.2 Research Purpose 8

1.3 Literature Review 8

Chapter Two Overview of E-C translation of American movie titles 10

2.1 Why translating American movie 10

2.2 Popular translation strategies 10

2.2.1 Domestication 10

2.2.2 Rewriting 11

2.3 Good and Bad examples of E-C translation of American movie titles 12

Chapter Three Principles for translating American movie titles 15

3.1 Principle of Information Value 15

3.2 Principle of Cultural Value 15

3.3 Principle of Commercial Value 16

Chapter Four Methods for E-C Translation of American movie titles 17

4.1Transliteration 17

4.2 Sense-for-Sense Translation 17

4.3 The combination of both literal and sense-for-sense translation 18

Chapter Five Conclusion 19

References 20

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Research Questions

Three questions need to be solved. First, why should we learn to translate American movie titles? Second, what difficulties exist in the translating process? And last, how could we solve those problems and questions?

1.2 Research Purpose

Movie plays a lot of roles in social life. For movie itself, it is one of the most influential media in the world which potentially can introduce beliefs and culture of . Title is the appellation given to the movies, which may behold the theme or plot of the movie; therefore, they are the indivisible part of the movies. Movie titles are the catchy phrases that are the first thing to spread about the upcoming movies, and an accepted translation may play a role in the successful release of a movie. This adds to the importance of the fact that translation of movie titles is a serious job which needs much effort.

While from other sides, film as a kind of popular art form, is necessary to create aesthetic feeling. And movie title, as an important part of the process, has a pivotal role in highlighting this kind of aesthetic feeling. At the same time, film as a kind of commodity, it need to widening its market and increasing its sales. And that is exactly what an attractive title could bring, because title is a bridge between customer and movie, the better the bridge is, the more the customer would come. So the study of the translation gets its considerable artistic and commercial value. In the long run, this research could enrich the cultural life of the domestic audience, promote domestic films to go outside, and its active effect on international cultural communication could not be ignored, too

1.3 Literature Review

There is a great number of researches about “Translating movie titles” in domestic

field. Setting “Movie title translation” as the key word, we may find over 1000

relevant literature by searching China National Knowledge, Wan fang Database and other domestic authoritative database. The amount is huge while the research method is diverse, too. Which including“生态翻译学视角”(Yu Fang2012), “顺应论角度”(Zhou Xinwu2008) and “目的论角度”(Yu Tao2009),etc. These researches spread their study from a certain field, and achieve many results. Some people start their research from a macro point of view, such as "浅谈英文电影片名的翻译原则及翻译方法" (Xie Lijuan Li Lin 2009), "探索英文电影片名的特征及翻译方法" (Ma Wenjia 2007) and "也谈电影片名的翻译原则" (FAN Li 2010) and so on. We can hardly find this kind of researches because from this point of view it is too difficult to finish the research. Most of the studies focus on one certain method to expand research. However, the author found that research on Movie Title Translation there a lot of overlap about this kind of topic because the method and view of research is becoming more and more limited. Researchers often start their research from the same angle, so they could not find something new, and the research method is also a lack of innovation.

Foreign research results on the same film title translation are outstanding, too. By searching EBSCO and SCIENCEDIRECT,I found that although the study of film title translation is not limited (preliminary around 5000), most of the translation activities are between Western languages, and few researchers take a English to Chinese research, such as “Translating puns in Spanish film titles into English” (Francisco Javier Díaz-Pérez 2014).

In conclusion, the research about movie titles translation is mature, but there are still many blank areas to search.

Chapter Two Overview of E-C translation of American movie titles

2.1 Why translating American movie

American movie has its own advantaged movie industry as its background. So it is much more mature and successful than any other country’s movie in business region. We can find that most of movies we come to cinema to see is American movies. And Hollywood is the best representative among these movies. So our domestic market has a great need for good translation version.

2.2 Popular translation strategies

Different movie titles show the different characteristics of E-C translation of American film. But there are still some same points that could help us to classify them.

2.2.1 Domestication

Domestication is a strategy in translation process, which refers to the degree to which the translator makes the translation product closer to the target culture, so the loss or supplement from the source text of information during this process may not be avoided. The roots of the terms can be traced back to a lecture in 1813: “On the Different Methods of Translating”, by Friedrich Schleiermacher, a famous German theologian, philosopher and translator. And in his speech he argued that “there are only two methods. “Either the translator leaves the author in peace as much as possible, and moves the reader towards him; or he leaves the reader in peace as much as possible, and moves the author towards him.” His theory was regarded as the first detailed description of domestication. And the following title was translated in this way:

The bridges of Madison County------廊桥遗梦

A Walk in the clouds------云中漫步

Home Alone------小鬼当家

My Fair Lady------窈窕淑女

For us Chinese audience, most of those titles is famous, not only because their stories are good, but also out of the good title. Four-character idiom makes the title easy to be remembered. But what is more important is that those beautiful Chinese four-character idioms express exactly what the movie really wants to express. It is the great coincidence that makes such an awesome translation masterpiece.

2.2.2 Rewriting

Rewriting is mainly adopted when translator is dealing with some cultural conventions and stylistic factors. Compared with domestication, rewriting is much more free and flexible, so it is more difficult to use, too. If a translator could not understand the theme of the movie clearly, the usage of writing will lead him to a failed result. And we will list some failed examples in the next part. The good 9examples are as follows:

The wizard of Oz------绿野仙踪

Top Gun------壮志凌云

Awakenings------无语问苍天

Howards------此情可问天

Scent of a woman------闻香识女人

Lolita------一树梨花压海棠(also translated into “洛丽塔”)

Sommersby------似是故人来

These translation versions can create a kind of atmosphere which is very “Chinese”. And for many times, even Chinese audience does not understand the meaning of the rewriting phrase, but out of many reasons, they could understand or pretend to understand the meaning. That shows the amazing side of Chinese character.

2.3 Good and Bad examples of E-C translation of American movie titles

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