The feature of English movie title and it's translation methods 英語電影片名的翻譯

1、the feature of english movie title and its translation methods摘 要電影是一種集藝術(shù)性和商業(yè)性于一體的藝術(shù)形式，是最具有影響力的媒體之一。隨著中國改革開放的成功，中國與英語國家的經(jīng)濟文化交流日益頻繁。近年來，越來越多的英語電影涌入中國電影市場。為滿足中國觀眾日益增長的觀影需求，英語電影在不斷地被譯為漢語。電影的翻譯既是介紹異域文化的一種簡潔直觀的手段，又是傳播本國本民族文化的一個重要途徑，而電影片名的翻譯又是影片翻譯中的重中之重，所以我們通過實例，針對不同的片名采用不同的譯法，進而深入研究電影片名的翻譯方法。由于英文電影片名獨特的文

2、化內(nèi)涵，在漢譯時必須要從多方面考慮，采用適當(dāng)?shù)姆g方法。文章從分析英語電影片名總體情況入手，分析了英文電影片名的特點和功能，研究了英語電影片名英譯漢時應(yīng)遵循的理論原則和翻譯方法，然后提出了音譯、直譯、意譯、編譯四種方法。關(guān)鍵詞：英文電影片名；特點；翻譯方法abstractthe movie, a popular art with both artistic and commercial values, is one of the most influential mass media nowadays. with the success of chinas reform and opening

3、 up policy and the strengthened economic and cultural communication between china and english-speaking countries, recent years we have seen a large flow of english movies into chinese movie market. english movies are being continuously translated to meet chinese audiences growing needs. the translat

4、ion of movies is not only a simple and direct way to introduce the exotic culture, but also an important channel to transfer our own culture. while the translation of the title of a movie is the top priority in translation movies, therefore, we study the way that the translation of movies deeply, us

5、ing different ways to translate movies. as the titles of the english movies always carry the special cultural senses, when they translated into the chinese, many factors should be considered and different methods of translation should be taken accordingly. the paper explores the general analysis of

6、english movie titles, discusses the features and the function of the movie titles, and puts forward the relevant theories and methods, then gives the four translation methods: transliteration, literal translation, free translation and adapted translation.key words: english movie title; feature; tran

7、slation methodscontentsabstractii1 introduction12 a general review of english movie titles22.1 categories of english movies22.1.1 adventure movies22.1.2 fantasy movies22.1.3 comedy movies32.1.4 lyric movies32.2 features of english movie titles32.2.1 linguistic features32.2.2 aesthetic features42.2.3

8、 cultural features42.2.4 commercial features42.3 functions of english movie titles52.3.1 informative function52.3.2 aesthetic function52.3.3 commercial function63 methods of english movie title translation73.1 principles of english movie title translation73.2 methods of english movie title translati

9、on83.2.1 transliteration83.2.2 literal translation93.2.3 free translation93.2.4 adapted translation11conclusion13bibliography15acknowledgments16151 introductionas an audiovisual art, a product of a particular culture, movie is one of the most influential mass media reflecting peoples life. although

10、movie was born in the west, it is gaining prosperous popularity and has now become a global art. during the past decades since 1978 when china began to conduct its reform and opening-up policy to the outside world, communication between china and the rest of the world, has been becoming increasingly

11、 frequent, resulting in the plunging of many foreign movies into chinas movie market. since very few people can understand original english movies, all the original works have to be translated to reach the vast chinese audience. translating foreign audiovisual art works has become a significant acti

12、vity in promoting cultural exchanges. however, movie translation is far from being explored. it is true to movie title translation in particular. the movie title, being short in form but rich in meaning, has its own linguistic, aesthetic and cultural features, which deserve careful investigation and

13、 consideration from the translator. movies titles translation is the translation across cultural boundaries. a good translation of the movie title would unquestionably contribute a lot to the charm and success of the movie. on the contrary, a poor translation may not only fail to attract audience or

14、 even mislead the audience, but degrades the value and beauty of the original movie on the whole. thus the translation of movie titles is an interesting, meaningful and demanding activity. a properly translated movie title should be concise, condensed and compact, which can grip the attention of the

15、 audience at their first sight and stimulate their association with the plot, reveal the theme or offer some clue. in this paper, we will introduce the categories of english movies, the general features, and functions of english movie titles, then set out four methods of translation, and a set of pr

16、inciples followed by the translation, then sum up movie titles translation should be combined with the translation practice, and continually improve in the practice. 2 a general review of english movie titlesit is not difficult to see that movie, as a special art form, is different from other forms

17、such as books or magazines, which could be laid on bookshelves for readers to appreciate first and decide whether to buy or not later. movie differentiates itself from books, magazine and tv series in that it is able to achieve the effect of aesthetic, artistic and sensual pleasures at a very fast s

18、peed. particularly in this hustle and bustle world, movie title is destined to be very attractive in the first place, so as to arouse peoples desire to watch before they walk into the cinema, and achieve its commercial goal, that is more box office as well. whether the movie is attracting or not, th

19、e name is one important deciding factor, for it is often the first that comes into the potential viewers attention. if the title is eye-catching and curiosity-stimulating, the movie is half successful. as has been stated above, a good translation of movie titles may add charm to the movie and contri

20、bute a lot to the box-office value. before we come to the core of the thesis, it is quite necessary to make a general analysis of english movie titles in order that it will provide a better understanding of the research subject.2.1 categories of english moviesaccording to he ying, movies usually fal

21、l into three categories based on different contents: documentary movies, science and educational movies, and feature movies. feature movies are most popular in chinese movie market, they not only cater for people of all walks of life, but also convey the most cultural information, hence the present

22、paper focuses specially on the chinese translation of english feature films, which are further divided into four sub-categories, namely, adventure movies, fantasy movies, comedy movies and lyric movies.2.1.1 adventure moviesadventure movies include action movies, horror movies, western movies，disast

23、er movies, spy movies and crime movies. titles of this kind of movies normally feature emotion-stirring effect. examples are the godfather教父,once upon a time in the west西部往事, rebecca蝴蝶夢.2.1.2 fantasy moviesfantasy movies are usually scientific, visionary and imaginative, with science fiction movie a

24、s the main component. titles of this kind aim to reveal new and strange things to the audience. a host of movies belong to this group, such as, star war星球大戰(zhàn), alien異形, jurassic park侏羅紀公園.2.1.3 comedy moviescomedy movies are designed to arouse laughter from the audience. comedies are light-hearted dra

25、mas, crafted to amuse, entertain, and provoke enjoyment. being rich in humorous flavor is the feature of titles of this type of movies. movies such as hot shots! 反斗神鷹, its a mad, mad, mad, mad world瘋狂世界belong to this category.2.1.4 lyric moviesa large number of movies can be categorized into this ty

26、pe, including love story movies, family movies, drama movies and musical/dance movies. movie titles of this kind are plain in wording but rich in romantic lyric and emotional flavor. examples are gone with the wind亂世佳人, golden pond金色池塘, love story愛情故事, etc.2.2 features of english movie titlesalthoug

27、h movies, as a kind of literary form, have something in common with other literary forms, they also possess some unique features, which make them different from others. the same is true of the case of movies titles. in the following part the overall features of english movies titles will be expounde

28、d from the linguistic, aesthetic, cultural and commercial perspectives.2.2.1 linguistic featuresgenerally speaking, although english movie titles are very short, concise and compact with regard to the structure, yet rich in meaning. lots of movie titles only contain one word, which may be the name o

29、f the hero or heroine, the place, or the time where or when the story happens or the theme of the whole story. for instance, ali拳王阿里, jaw大白鯊, crash沖撞and munich慕尼黑. sometimes, they adopt various kinds of phrases as titles, namely, noun phrases, verb phrases and prepositional phrases, which are exempl

30、ified in the following titles: the silence of the lamb沉默的羔羊，consisting of a modifier and the word it modifies; dance with wolves與狼共舞，using the structure of a verb-object phrase; on golden pond金色池塘，employing the prepositional phrase. in addition, some movies employ highly concise sentences as the tit

31、les. for instance, its a wonderful life美好生活，the superman returns超人歸來.2.2.2 aesthetic featuresas mentioned before, movie is a typical form of the modern art, which has its own aesthetic values and features. being the part which first greets the audiences eyes, the title of a movie can well reflect su

32、ch aesthetic features. generally speaking, the aesthetic characteristics of movie titles are closely related to the application of rhetorical devices, such as simile, metaphor, irony, personification, alliteration, and so on. for example: the elephant man象人(metaphor), crystal heart心如水晶(simile), true

33、 lies真實的謊言(oxymoron), what price glory光榮何價 (rhetoric question), the science of the lambs沉默的羔羊(allusion). 2.2.3 cultural featuresmovie titles are closely related to various aspects of societies, such as religion, history, philosophy and so on. more often than not, cultural features are closely relate

34、d to the quotation of idioms and allusions, which convey rich cultural meanings.for example, movies such as seven七宗罪, original sin原罪are enveloped in strong western color, and clearly show the great influence upon english movie titles exerted by western religious culture. a movie is a mirror and conv

35、eyer of a specific culture as the social context, cultural phenomena and ideology are shown and implied in it. this feature of movies can be reflected at the level of movie titles, which are inevitably branded by the typical national characteristics and cultural values. chinese people can gradually

36、get familiar with western cultures by getting in touch with english movies and fully understanding the titles with cultural-loaded words. 2.2.4 commercial featuresas a popular artistic form, movies are products of commercialization. to some extent, it is justified in saying that a movie will be mean

37、ingless if it cannot attract the public attention and bring large profit. therefore, film titles should always be eye-catching and be tinged with commercial color. in a sense, such characteristic can help to boom the movie industry. however, this does not mean that one can merely pursue large commer

38、cial profit by providing some queer titles with no regard to the connotation of the original.2.3 functions of english movie titles what on earth is the function of a movie title? simply speaking, its primary function is to identify the film. in other words, a film title is a guide and interpreter of

39、 a film, which is firstly able to promote sales of the film and cause peoples interest, viewers discussion, researchers analysis etc. therefore, a good title can be regarded as a kind of catalyst for the audience so that they have already had an emotional resonance with the film before the actual ap

40、preciation of it. generally, movie titles have three basic functions: the informative function, the aesthetic function and the commercial function.2.3.1 informative functionthe informative function is the basic function that any movie titles should possess. as the word “informative” reveals, this fu

41、nction provides basic or relevant information to the target reader. the core of informative function is the facts of the topic, the reality outside the language and the idea. as for a film title, it is supposed to give hint to the audience about what is going on in the story, thus help the audience

42、decide whether they are interested in the movie or not.2.3.2 aesthetic functionthis is the language designed to please the senses, firstly through its actual or imagined sound and secondly through its figures of speech. the rhythm, balance and contrasts of sentences, clauses and words also play thei

43、r part. an excellent movie title can also perform aesthetic function in terms of providing the audience aesthetic enjoyment through colorful words with sound effects and the application of rhetorical devices. movie titles with aesthetic function please the feelings of audiences through their unevenn

44、ess in intonation, smoothness in sound and vividness in image presentation. 2.3.3 commercial functionnowadays, it is very common that a movie costs hundreds of millions of dollars, especially the hot hit made by hollywood. the commercial function proposed in this thesis is, to some extent, similar t

45、o the vocative function, the core of which is the readership, the addressee. taking this explanation as reference, it can be concluded that a good movie title can also “call upon” the audience to see the movie, or to react in the way intended by the producer-buying tickets so that great box office w

46、ill be generated.3 methods of english movie title translationthe title is the head of the movie, and it serves at least three functions, as afore-stated, that is the informative function, the aesthetic function and the commercial function. a movie title usually embodies more than one function; nonet

47、heless it inevitably will put emphasis on one of them. it is also the case with translation methods. various translation methods or techniques exist and can be employed by the translator. yet, none of them can solve all of the problems, so in movie titles translation, there must be one or more metho

48、ds that are favored and are relied on by a translator. this chapter is devoted to the demonstration of the main techniques and methods enjoying the most popularity in this field, and when necessary, examples are cited to further elaborate the demonstration. 3.1 principles of english movie title tran

49、slationthe so-called principles and criteria of translation are actually the two aspects of the same thing. the former lays emphasis on the translator, who should follow these principles while translating; while the latter on the reader or critic, who may use the criteria to evaluate translation wor

50、ks. whenever principles or criteria of translation are under discussion in china, yan fus “three-character guide”, which was first proposed in 1898, would be mentioned, namely, the principle of “信，達，雅” (faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance). in the past decades, mr. yans principle of translatio

51、n has been generally regarded as a yardstick to measure the professional level of translation and a goal for translators to strive after. however, some scholars maintain the original three characters, and in the meantime add some new concepts to the character “elegance”. despite the variety of opini

52、ons, two criteria are unanimously accepted, namely, the criterion of faithfulness/accuracy and that of smoothness, we may also take these two criteria as the principles of translation in general. a movie title is the foremost window through which the audience may get a rough idea of the content of t

53、he movie at first sight. therefore, how to translate english movie titles successfully into chinese has become an exceedingly important issue for the introduction of english movies to china. however, adopting what translation methods for translating english movie titles first needs a set of scientif

54、ic principles, under the guide of which the translated film titles would be attractive, easy to be accepted and can fulfill the functions the original ones have. at the same time, english movie title translation is a cross-cultural communication process. in order to achieve the expected effect, in t

55、he translation of english movie titles, the translators need to pay attention to the above principles. 3.2 methods of english movie title translationas we all know, there exist many translation methods and no one single method can solve all problems of translation. this is especially true with engli

56、sh movie title translation. techniques and methods are applied in english movie title translation. there are four types of translation strategies altogether in the present thesis, namely, transliteration, literal translation, free translation and adapted translation.3.2.1 transliterationtransliterat

57、ion means to write words or letters in or as the letters of a different alphabet and to preserve the sounds of the original to the largest extent, is an indispensable translation method when there is no semantic equivalence between two texts. in movie titles translation, it is characterized by phone

58、tic correspondence, that is, to describe the english syllables through the corresponding chinese characters carrying similar sounds. transliteration is usually used in the translation of proper names, names of persons and places in movie titles. the translator needs to find the corresponding chinese characters carrying similar pronunciation and acceptable to chinese audience. although this approach is not widely used in english movie title translation, it is indispensa