英文电影片名的翻译策略范文

第一篇：英文电影片名的翻译策略范文

On strategies for Translating English Movie Titles

英文电影片名的翻译策略

CONTENTS Abstract………………………………………….……………………………….i 摘要….………..........................................................................................iii Introduction……………………………………………………………………..1 Chapter 1 Characteristics and Functions of English Movie Titles 1.1 The Movie Titles’ Classification 1.2 Characteristics of English Movie Titles 1.2.1 Concise and Memorize 1.2.2 Straightaway Languages 1.2.3 Attractive Box Office 1.3 Functions of English Movie Titles 1.3.1 Information Function 1.3.2 Aesthetic Function 1.3.3 Vocative Function Chapter 2 Principle and Methods of English Movie Titles’ Translation 2.1 Principle of English Movie Titles’ Translation 2.1.1 Information Value Principle 2.1.2 Aesthetic Principles 2.1.3 Target-oriented Principle 2.1.4 Economic Benefit Principle

2.2 Methods of English Movie Titles’ Translation 2.2.1 Literal Translation

2.2.2 Liberal Translation Transliteration 2.2.3 Transliteration 2.2.4 Complementary Translation 2.2.5 Creative Interpretation Chapter 3 Influence Factors on Translating Movie Titles 3.1 The Factor of Cultural Difference

3.2 Lacking a Comprehensive Understanding of the Story 3.3 Influence of Commercial Profits Conclusion...........................................................................................................50 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………53 Appendix…………………………………………………………………………………...54 Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………..55

Abstract

With development of culture exchange in the world, more and more English films have been introduced into our country, which have gained preference of the Chinese people.Well translated movie titles tend to attract audiences in one culture to appreciate movies produced in another culture.The translation of movie titles plays an important role in introducing and popularizing western movie culture.After the analysis of the characteristics, functions and translation principles of movie titles, the author of the present study discussed the methods of the English movie titles translation and summarized the influence factors on translation.Key words：Movie titles, translation, principles, characteristic, methods

摘 要

随着文化交流的不断扩大，越来越多的国外影片引进中国，受到观众的喜爱。翻译的精彩的电影片名往往能吸引观众观赏进口的国外影片。电影片名的翻译在引进并传播西方电影文化中起着重要的作用。在分析了电影名称的特征、功能和翻译的原则后，笔者探讨了翻译英文电影片名的技巧，并总结了影响电影翻译的因素。

关键词：英语电影片名;翻译;原则;特点;

Introduction

―Movie is so important that it has become the first arts of the human world,‖ pointed out by French artist and novelist Mona(Baker, 2004, p.40).Movies are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures, which reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them.With the lapse of time, the process of filmmaking has developed into an art form and industry.Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles that translate the dialogue into the language of the viewer.What is more, movie titles which contain profound moral play a very important role.The title is the brand trademark of the movie and condenses the pith of the story.The titles are always in the eye-catching position of the playbill.In recent years, our cultural exchanges with the outside world have never been livelier, more and more western movies have come into Chinese market.The translation of English movie titles plays an important role in promoting cultural exchanges, and enriching people’s leisure time.But currently, the film title translation remains a problematic issue.As to the same title, it often has several different translations for one English film title.The Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan versions can hardly achieve unity in most cases, which makes confusion and inconvenience for the audience.Like many other forms of non-literary translation, the translation of English movie titles has not yet received due attention despite their importance.Peter Newmark has called on the translators to bring their attention to ―two underplayed aspects of translation‖, one of which is ―the approach to non-literary translation.‖ Nida also called for ―more attention to exploring new fields in translation‖.As a branch of non-literary translation, the translation of English movie titles, like many other forms of non-literary translation, has not yet received due attention despite their importance.The translation of English movie titles is the important part in the translation of English movie.This paper is based on the analysis of the characteristics and functions, proposes four principles and summarizes five translation methods in the translation of English movie titles.6

Chapter 1 Characteristics and Functions of English Movie Titles

1.1The Movies Titles’ Classification

The first step of translating movie titles is in depth knows the source of titles and the characteristic.The titles mostly come from the clue of story line, background, theme and characters.The movies can be divided into the following: action films;romance films;horror films;disaster films;cartoon films;comedy;adventure films.Actually, most of movies belong to comprehensive kind;such as the Titanic belongs not only to romance films but also to films disaster.1.2 Characteristics of English Movie Titles

1.2.1 Concise and Memorize Movie titles generally highly epitomize movie content, which requires succinct and conciseness, meanwhile contains a wealth of the information of content itself.Generally speaking, the titles are made up of nouns and noun phrases, such as Titanic, Speed, Gladiator and Tarzan.This movie titles obvious to everybody it belongs to what kind of movie.1.2.2 Straightaway languages The film is the art of the common people.The movie titles should suit the original content of the film and reflect the theme of the film, and we straightaway languages, which is convenient for people to know the movie.Such as Pearl Harbor, the Princess Diaries, Twin Sisters, Beauty and the Beast and Kindergarten Cop.Through the titles, you can easily distend what is probably spoken of the story.The straightaway languages make audience readily receptive.7

1.2.3 Attractive Box Office

Movie is a commodity.The investors must pay attention to the box office, or the film industry cannot survive, develop and grow sturdily.Successful box office often depends on an attractive title.So the titles should give the audience suspension, reverie and aesthetic feeling in order to arouse the audience desire of going to movies.When the audience see the title The Silence of the Lamb, they are curious to know why they use lamb or are it a silent lamb.Thus movie got overwhelming success and the title made great contribution.Some movie titles pay attention to the spelling in order to be special and attractive, to some extent, they’re queer.Lost in Translation, Cast Away and It Happened One Night impress the audiences deeply.1.3 Functions of English Movie Titles

Forrest Gump said ―Life was like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get‖.So does a movie, you will never know whether a movie attracts you until you watch it.When watching a movie, what attracts you first is the title of the movie.The movie titles need to attract people to have a desire for rushes to the film and feel good after seeing it, so as to reach the purpose of improving box office.Chen hongwei divided the functions of movie titles into three categories: information function, aesthetic function and vocative function.1.3.1 Information Function

The titles give a neat summary of the movie in Straightaway languages.It conveys the information about the idea of the movie to the audience and makes them understand the idea and the story better.This is the titles’ the title The Shawshank Redemption will tell the audience that the story is about a person named Shawshank on the path to redemption.Pearl Harbor 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 movie titles and the most important function.8

1.3.2 Aesthetic Function The translation of movie titles which always apply many rhetoric techniques in Chinese structure is flexible, in order to create a catchy name and to give people a good sense of rhythm.That is the aesthetic function.The aesthetic feeling is a main factor that causes audience to make the decision whether they will go to a movie or not.The aesthetic function is most obviously felt on the romantic movies.Some titles of the classical movies have become the synonym of romance, such as Casablanca, Sleepless in Seattle and the Great Waltz.As W.Somerset Mangham says, words have their weight, sound and appearance.The translators try to select the words that have beauty in sound, form and meaning.These movie titles attract and touch the heart of the audience with nice language and satisfy the audience by the conciseness and vividness.1.3.3 Vocative Function

The movie titles’ vocative function is to impress thousands upon thousands of audiences and evoke their curiosity, attracting the audiences into the cinema.Everyone has curiosity;we will feel curious when we see something fresh and strange and we take delight in learning and are easily influenced.The vocative function is just to influence the audience’s sentiments and arouse their interests.Such as Jumanji left us with one of the biggest cliffhangers, thus arouse our interest in the movie.Another example, Blood Diamond strongly criticized the dirty trade of diamond and described sufferings of the people who during the Sierra Leone Civil War.The director chose blood diamond as the title in his movie to attract audience and also convey the main idea of the movie.Chapter 2 Principle and Methods of English Movie Titles’

Translation

2.1 Principle of English Movie Titles’ Translation

2.1.1 Information Value Principle The information value principle is the most basic principle in English movie titles’ translation.Title translation should convey true information, relate to the movie, and achieve the unity of title and plot, which is the so-called achieving equivalence in information value.Catch at shadows, as wide as poles apart and departure from the information value are the most taboo in titles translation.As the title, it should keep concise, but it should also contain rich information which makes audience guess what the movie is about at a glance.Such as PulpFiction;Meet the Parents;A Rather English Marriage.Another example,，the Third Man once translated into ―第三者‖，may at first seem a story about love triangles ,but in the movie, the third man actually is a person who is the witness of the horrible murder.Primary translation has a long way from the actual content.2.1.2 Aesthetic Principle Since movies possess both the commercial and artistic qualities, an excellent movie should develop its commercial value and have its artistic value as well.Translation is a kind of art.When we translate the movie titles, we should take into account the artistic quality.At the same time, the request to this profession has been becoming more and more strict along with unceasing enhancement of our living standard and the esthetic appreciation.The translation of movie titles demands for escaping away from the strains of original words and penetratingly grasping the artistic quality, thus make an activity of artistic creation.The Bridge of Madison County 廊桥遗梦is believed to be one of the best translated titles.Firstly, it is a four-character expression which appeals to Chinese audience.Secondly, the characters in the title contain great meanings.―廊‖embodies the art of landscaping and aesthetics of structure.― 遗 ‖infers time and space, yearning between lovers and introspection.―梦‖indicates the sincerely desire of the love and the romantic emotional appeal which is imbued with Platonic intention and affords for thought.There are some other good versions with high artistic quality: Ghost人鬼情未了, Sleepless in Seattle 西雅图夜未眠, Gone With the Wind 乱世佳人.10

2.1.3 Target-oriented Principle Movie is a specific form of literature, so it should create value and be accepted by the audiences.The specificity of movie determines that translation should keep the target-oriented principle.That is to say, translators should be on this foundation of faithful to the original, meanwhile, stressed the effect of audience.The translation of titles should be more carefully considered.The translation’ aim is not only to faithfully transmit original words and cultural value, but also attract and be accepted by the audience.2.1.4 Economic Benefit principle The first two installments of the Godfather movie series alone earned more than $800 million at the international box-office, which allows us to realize that movies are big factories.The development of films depends on economic benefit, thus the titles’ translation should stick to the principle.We also understand that the movie’ economic benefit depends on the level of attracting audience.Whether titles are good or bad immediate impact the box office level.For example, Sound of Music was once translated into ―仙乐飘飘何处闻‖, which make the audience feel confused;Later, ―音乐之声‖was widely accepted.Ghost was translated into ―人鬼情未了‖，which become a classic.2.2 Methods of Movie Titles’ Translation Film translation is an important and simple way to introduce foreign culture to audiences.Seemingly short though, the title translation is rather difficult and requires much translation knowledge.Excellent English film translation can bring to the audience great satisfaction both in eyes and ears.There are many techniques of translating the title of a movie and there are also many factors which affect its translation.But, I will introduce the techniques of movie titles’ translation mainly from five categories: literal translation, complementary translation, transliteration, free translation, the combination of literal and free translation.No matter what technique is employed, one fundamental and vital principle that should never be forgotten is that the translation must be related to the story in one way or another.11

2.2.1Literal Translation

Literal translation is the most common method used in film title translation.By converting the source language’s grammatical constructions to their nearest target language equivalents, literal translation can preserve both the content and originality in most cases.In occasions when a title matches the story of a movie perfectly, such as Beauty and the Beast(美女与野兽), Saving Private Ryan（拯救大兵瑞恩），only if the target language sounds not too awkward or unnatural and is capable of describing the story, literal translation can be adopted.Generally speaking, the translated Chinese titles should be capable of describing the story as well as the original English titles do.These titles are easily accepted and memorized by Chinese audience.For example, True Lies(真实的谎言)，Rain Man（雨人），Brave Heart(勇敢的心)，The Shawshank Redemption（肖申克的救赎），and so on.2.2.2 Liberal Translation

Besides literal translation, liberal translation is also commonly adopted by us.Liberal translation is also called free translation, which does not adhere strictly to the form or word order of the original.As English movie 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 titles.Though most translators treat literal translation as their first choice, in the field of English movie title translation, liberal translation is used more.Liberal translation can bring the connotation into play and elaborate the pith of the title.Gone with the Wind was translated into乱世佳人, is a good example.2.2.3 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.Some foreign movies generally take the name of the heroine or where and when a story takes place as the title.For

instance, Harry Porter(哈利波特)，Tarzan(泰山)，Aladdin(阿拉丁)，Casablanca(卡萨布兰卡), Notting Hill(诺丁山).But only use transliteration is probably fairly rare, because the domestic audience generally do not know the titles which take the name of the heroine or geographic name as titles.So we should take into account combining the transliteration with liberal translation.For instance, Patton(巴顿将军), Forrest Gump(阿甘正传)and All Quiet on the Western Front(西线无战事).2.2.4 Complementary Translation

The translation of the English movies have to take into account the inner foreign culture of the movie itself;需要考虑电影自身所包含的外国文化

in such circumstances, the complementary translation is necessary.The complementary translation is on the basic of literal translation and liberal translation, thus making the translation adapts to the audiences’ psychological reception and cultural expectation.For example: Philadelphia(费城故事)，Seven(七宗罪)，Shrek(怪物史莱克)，Titanic(泰坦尼克号).2.2.5 Creative Interpretation Language in English movie titles is creatively used and there are some titles that are not suitable to be translated with the skills mentioned above.As a result, with the purpose of strengthen artistic quality and influence, the translator sometimes has to create a new title or choose a best title which can describe the story and convey the most information to the audience.Cross-cultural factors have semantic and pragmatic impacts on translation, which requires translators to adopt flexible translating tactics, this is the create interpretation.The translator should be aware of these differences and try to creative a new title according to the story and his or her understanding of the western culture and history.In some English titles, the heroes’ or the heroines’ names are very unfamiliar to Chinese audience because sometimes the heroes or the heroines are ordinary people.Transliteration cannot tell the audience more than a name.However, if we create a new title mainly connected with the story, the audience will get it through.For example Dorothy Dandridge(红颜血泪), transliteration gives audience the version多萝西・丹德里奇, but who is多萝西・丹德里奇? How old is she? What does she do? The audience gets nothing from this kind of translation.As a matter of fact, Dorothy Jean Dandridge(November 9, 1922 – September 8, 1965)was an American actress and popular singer, and was the first African-American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.She performed as a vocalist in venues such as the Cotton Club and the Apollo Theater.On her way to her success, she made so much effort and endured all the unequal treatment.红颜血泪 exactly described her lifetime—A black beauty who fought against the discrimination and paid her tears and even blood to get her success and gained people’s recognition.Another simple, The Professional(这个杀手不太冷).The title refers to the hero of the movie, Leon, a killer, very skillful and cool.One of its versions is 杀手莱昂.Appropriate to the identity of our hero as it is, it does not reveal another important side of Leon, which the version 这个杀手不太冷 vividly carries.Chapter 3 Influence Factors of Translation

This section attempts to make a deep study from the perspectives of cultural differences, comprehensive understanding towards to story and Influence of commercial profits, which affect the English movie titles’ translation.4.1 The Factor of Cultural Difference The different historical, cultural and religious factors build up different customs and courtesy.Therefore, culture is assignable factor in translation.During the course of translating, incorrect translation may result from such factors as grammar, structure, inter-cultural differences, and so on.Some translations of titles are totally unrelated to the film.The main cause lies in the lack of consideration of different characteristics of the original language and the cultural elements in those different types.For example American Beauty(美国丽人),The mainland and the HK versions both have made a mistake in taking the literal meaning of Beauty.According to the American Heritage Dictionary, ―American Beauty‖ is a type of rose bearing large, long-stemmed purplish-red flowers.And the rose is a profound image in the Oscar winner of the Best Picture in 2001, so the Taiwan version 美国

心，玫瑰情 seems more to the point.4.2 Lacking a Comprehensive Understanding of the Story

The precondition for translating the title is the depth knowledge of the story;this is the first step to make a right and the best choice among many possible versions.But in many cases, the translator, probably without going to the movie before translating the title, has to come up with a version simply from the original English and a synopsis of the movie.The Day After Tomorrow is an American science-fiction disaster film in 2004 depicting catastrophic effects of global warming in a series of extreme weather events that usher in global cooling and lead to a new ice age.The film did well at the box office.The title also quickly leapt red.It was translated by literal translation as ―后天‖，but after seeing the movie , the audience will consider the title ―后天‖improper, ―明天过后‖ was more properly.4.3 Influence of Commercial Profits

As we mentioned above, movie itself is a sort of commodity and the movie titles are attractive to draw the audience’s attention and then film producers are able to access to economic interests.As a result, we always see a lot of exciting, passionate, mysterious or thrilling words in the titles though some of these titles actually reflect nothing of the original story.Here are some examples: Backtrack

-------------赤面杀手

Platoon

-------------杀戮战场 Charlie’s Angels-------------霹雳娇娃

Conclusion

The translation of the title of a movie is an interesting topic.Movies play an important role in the culture exchanges between different countries.The translation of movie’s title plays an important role in introducing and popularizing western movie culture.However, the translation of film titles, as a special and significant part of film translation, is a far less explored field.The translation of the film titles is a special process of re-creation.It isn't easy to obey the content and the forms of the original titles, but a hard research to the film themes, social problems, the ethnic association and national condition.Owing to the diversities of the west and the east, the westerners' opinions towards the translation are naturally different from the easterners.We wouldn't only see a part of the film and rush into translating it into literal translation or free translation.Translation is also a process of cultural communication because of the differences of the principles of the translation, the linguistic customs of the foreign countries and the characteristics of the film titles.That is not only to the audience, but also to the translators themselves.After all, the purpose of the film is to satisfy the audience.Different film titles require different translation methods.People should take all factors into consideration.In all, there are many challenges for us to translate the film titles, thus we should combine the practice of using translation methods, finding the balance between literal translation and free translation is rational to the translation of film titles.If we master the trick of the translation of film titles, everything becomes easy.To sum up, the ultimate goal of translation is to promote cross-cultural exchange —a long, evolutionary process

References

[1]Andrew, Lynn.Happreciating Cinema.Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2006.[2]Patrick , Cattrysse.Talking About the Movie Name Translation.New York: Random House Inc., 2008.[3]Newmark, Peter.A Textbook of Translation.Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2001.[4]张丽.从东西方文化差异看电影片名翻译[J].琼州学院学报,2007,(4).[5]袁源.英汉文化异同在影视片名翻译中的体现和影响[J].湖南科技学院学报,2006,(8).[6]李群.片名翻译对―忠实‖的颠覆——电影片名翻译的现状及理论根据[J].北京第二外国语学院学报,2002,(5).[7]李琴.电影片名翻译中的文化因素——归化与异化策略在片名翻译中的应用[J].河南商业高等专科学校学报,2008,(3).[8]朱娥.电影片名的美学特征与翻译[J].昭通师范高等专科学校学报,2004,(3).[9]阮红梅.娜,.电影片名翻译的文化适应[J].中国青年政治学院学报,2006,(4).[10]郑思.影片名翻译的功能和原则[J].安徽文学(下半月),2008,(8).17

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the teachers for their patient help and warm encouragement.I would like, first of all, to show my sincere gratitude to Mrs.Zhang, my supervisor, for her valuable guidance and generous support.Through the work, she gave me great encouragement, which gave me the confidence and strength to complete this dissertation successfully.Also, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my teachers who have taught me in the past four years.It is because of their help and guidance that I can finish my university and my paper successfully.山东建筑大学毕业论文

第二篇：浅谈英文电影片名的翻译

【标题】浅谈英文电影片名的翻译

【作者】石小梅

【关键词】特点；?原则；?方法 【指导老师】何远秀 丁健

【专业】英语

【正文】 I.Introduction? With the increase in cultural exchanges between China and the rest of the world, especially with the Western countries, the movie has gradually stood out as an important media of communication in its own right.Movie titles are always the first thing that the audience comes to know about new movies.Thus a right choice of movie title translation is of great importance to the successful release of a movie.A properly-translated English movie title into the TL can fulfill the following functions：

1.Providing information about the story for the audience by summarizing the main plot, revealing the theme, or offering some clue.2.Adding attraction to the movie and stimulating the audience’s interest and desire for viewing.3.Saving trouble for the cinema, the audience, film reviewers and other research workers in their publicity, choice of viewing, comments and studies.As a branch of non-literary translation, the translation of English movie titles, like many other forms of non-literary translation, has not yet received due attention despite their importance.Peter Newmark has called on the translators to bring their attention to?“two underplayed aspects of translation”, one of which is?“the approach to non-literary translation.” Nida also called for more attention to exploring new fields in translation.This paper, based on an analysis of the present situation of English movie title translation and the characteristics of English movie titles, will introduce principles and techniques of English movie title translation.II.Present Situation of English Movie Title Translation Despite the importance of movie titles, translators have not paid enough attention to their translation.The present situation of English movie title translation allows of no optimism.A.Only a few good renderings There have been very few good renderings since English movies first landed in China.Whenever we refer to good renderings, it is always the few titles that jump into our mind immediately---Waterloo Bridge（魂断蓝桥）, The Bathing Beauty（出水芙蓉）, Sound of Music（音乐之声）, Legend of the Fall（燃情岁月）, Madison County Bridge（廊桥遗梦）,A Walk in the Clouds(云中漫步)，etc.? Among these renderings, many were translated decades ago, such as the first three.In recent years, there are relatively fewer good renderings while there are more crude ones misleading the public.B.Mistranslation Mistranslation of movie titles is mainly caused by the following factors 1.Lacking a comprehensive view of the story “A title is best left untranslated until the rest of the assignment is completed.”1 As for a movie title, it is best left untranslated until the translator watches the movie and fully understands the story.Only with a comprehensive view of the story, can he make a right and the best choice among many possible renderings Sample 1-1 The Silence of the Lambs（沉默的羔羊）

Anyone with a modest knowledge of English will translate it into“羔羊的沉默”rather than?“沉默的羔羊”.And the movie does tell something about the Silence, not the Lambs.But it is ironical that the?“wrong” version sounds more appealing than the?“right” one, and has enjoyed high popularity since its coming into being.Sample 1-2 The Cable Guy（王牌特派员）

On seeing this title, the audience may mistake it as an espionage film.It also has two other renderings“线鬼衰人”and“有线电视狂”, both of which may leave an impression of horror films.But actually it is a very touching story about seeking for friendship despite Jim Carrey’s exaggerated act in it.Maybe another rendering, replacing the misleading“特派员”with“安装员,---王牌安装员”is better.Sample 1-3 Bad Company（坏蛋公司）

The translation sounds not bad, but it is completely irrelevant to the story.It is about a man who has to?“play” his twin brother, an agent having died in his unfinished mission.Another rendering“最差搭档”or“临时特工”may be better for the story.2.Misunderstanding of cultural information Culture is?“the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression.”(Newmark, 2001:94)2 There is usually cultural information in movie titles.If the translator is not aware of it or misunderstands it, he is likely to mistranslate the title.Sample 1-4 American Beauty（美国美人/美国丽人）

The mainland and the HK versions both have made a mistake in taking the literal meaning of Beauty.According to the American Heritage Dictionary?(William Morris, 1980:42)3?“American Beauty” is a type of rose bearing large, long-stemmed purplish-red flowers.And the rose is a profound image in the Oscar winner of the Best Picture in 2001, so the Taiwan version“美国心，玫瑰情”seems more to the point.Sample 1-5 First Wives Club（大老婆俱乐部）

“大老婆is not the Chinese equivalent to?“first wife”;rather it may offer a wrong indication that there are“二老婆，三老婆”in America just as in old China where polygamy was popular.Actually Americans have not experienced the period of plural marriage except that some Mormons had practiced it before 1890.In English,?“first wife” refers to the first wo