1、I （ 20_ _届） 本科毕业 设计 电影片名英汉翻译 The Translation of English Film Title 英语 II 摘 要 影片名往往带给观众对该影片的大致印象，因此，片名被认为是对票房影响最深的因素之一。这就是为什么片名的翻译总是被看得很重。如今，由于全球一体化的影响，更多的电影在各个国家间发布，电影译名的质量越发显得重要。因为电影行业作为一个带有商业性质的产业，片名的翻译与其他文本翻译不同，并且他也测试了一个译者的翻译素质。本文在开头提出了几个现今存在的 片名翻译问题。第一，由于在中国不同地区(主要是中国大陆和港台 )文化的不同，产生了两种明显的不同翻译趋势。
2、在港台，译者更趋向于过度追求归化，从而导致了不能完成文化交流的任务。第二，一部影片的爆红使得其片名常常被过度跟风模仿，结果失去了创新。最后，作为盈利产业，为了吸引更多的观众和盈利，一些译名开始过于注重商业价值，结果导致片名的原则的失衡并丧失了一些译者应具备的翻译品质。本文为解决这些问题，先从最基本的电影片名的语言特征出发，提出几大特征。为保持这些特征，片名翻译要遵循的五大原则：信息价值、文化价值、美学价值 、商业价值和观众取向原则。最后在电影片名翻译原则基础上，本文将分析并解决这些问题。 关键字： 片名翻译；特征；原则；问题；解决办法 III Abstract Film title alway
3、s gives audience a general impression about a movie, and so, is believed to be one of the most influential factors affecting the box office. That is why film titling is always seriously taken. Nowadays, the quality of film title translation is considered more significant as more movies are released
4、internationally under the effect of globalization. As film is a commercial industry, its title translation is different from other script translations and it as well tests a translators quality. In the beginning, this article comes up with three current title translating problems: First, because of
5、different cultures in different parts of China (Chinas mainland and Chinas Hong Kong and Taiwan), two tendency of translation develops notably. And in Hong Kong, Taiwan region, they tend to be pursuing overly on adaptation, which fails to accomplish the task of cultural exchange. Second, due to the
6、popularity of a film, the translation of other film title begins to follow suit the popular films title, which turns out to be more frequent and lose innovation. Last, as a money making product, to attract more audience and make the most profit, some film titles begin pursuing too much on commercial
7、 value, leading to the destruction of the balance of the principles of film title translation and the losing of the qualities a translator should be equipped with. To solve these problems, the article starts from the basic features of the film title and points out several features. To keep these fea
8、tures, the article puts forward five principles: informative value, cultural value, aesthetic value, commercial value and audience orientation. At last the passage will analyze and solve these problemsl. Key words: film title translation; features; principles; problems; solutions IV Contents Abstrac
9、t.II 1. Introduction .1 2. Problems existing in current film title translation.1 3. The features of film title .1 3.1 Briefness . 2 3.2 Accuracy . . .2 3.3 Understandability . .2 3.4 Attractiveness .3 3.5 Responsibility . .3 4. Five principles of film title translation .3 4.1 Informative value .4 4.
10、2 Cultural value . 5 4.3 Aesthetic value 6 4.4 Commercial value 7 4.5 Audience orientation 8 5. Solutions to the problems 9 5.1 Solution to Over pursuing on domestication in Hong Kong, Taiwan region compared with that in mainland . .9 5.2 Solution to the tendency of over imitating the popular films
11、name .10 5.3 Solution to over pursuing on commercial value . .12 6. Conclusion .13 Bibliography . .14 Acknowledgement .1 5 1 1. Introduction In a time of globalization, film industry is not only a mean to make profit, it also has the responsibility to promote the exchange of two different cultures.
12、Film title, the abbreviation of the whole movie, is the key to convey information and attract audience at first sight. The success of translation of the film title is a crucial factor for the film to be introduced into a different-cultured country. Film title translation is an important and challeng
13、ing job for translators. For it is a translation similar to advertising translation, it has its own principles somewhat different from those literature translation. As Hans Vermeers skopos theory says every deed of translation has its own skopos. “Every translator, whether out of willingness or requ
14、ested by others, must be accomplishing it under commission.” (谢天振 , 2006:167). The skopos theory is obviously reflected in the film title translation as well as other commercial activity translation. 2. Problems existing in current film title translation Nowadays, more and more foreign films are int
15、roduced into China, there are many excellent title translation springing up together with many bad titling. Here, I concluded three common problems in the film name translation on basis of these principles, namely, problem A: Over pursuing on domestication in Hong Kong, Taiwan region compared with t
16、hat in mainland. Problem B: The tendency of following suit the popular film. Problem C: Over pursuing on commercial value. To solve these problems, we need to start from the basic points of the title itself, that is, the features of the title. 3. The features of film title Film title, the core of th
17、e film, possesses its own features. LiuBai yu (刘白玉 , 2007:63) has divided the features of film title into three aspects, that is, briefness, understandability and attractiveness. Besides that, the film title has one more feature: responsibility. 3.1 Briefness It is true that because of the limitatio
18、n by the screens size, there is an urgent need that the title must be a simple one in order not to take much space on screen and the (. The) short film title 2 can show a clear image for the audience and it is easy to remember. Despite the title is brief, it must be the extraction of the film so tha
19、t the audience is able to learn the general idea of the film from the title and then decide whether this kind of film is to his or her taste. In another word, the title is the core of film, which has only few words but contains the most information. 3.2 Accuracy The translator has the duty to ensure
20、 the title of its accuracy. Though the title is brief, it contains the most information, and the information of course needs to be accurate. People need to get the right information from the short title and guess a general idea before seeing the film. If the information is wrongly conveyed seeing th
21、e title, it is the translators problem of qualification. He can be a person who is not capable of being a qualified translator for he lacks enough translating knowledge, and he can also be a person that pursues too much on commercial profit, thus making the film title a deceit to the audience. 3.3 U
22、nderstandability The film aims at the masses, the audiences have different levels of education, and therefore, the film title can not be a vague and obscure. The translation of film title is an exchange between two languages. Once it is translated, with the shift of target audience, some obstacles w
23、ill more or less appear, among which, the different culture is an inevitable one. If the original culture is totally kept when the translation is done, sometimes it will be difficult for the target audience to understand. On the contrary, if the title is translated with absolutely no original cultur
24、e conveyed, it fails to accomplish the mission of cultural exchange in translation. As a result, to make the translated title be more understandable and acceptable, the culture needs to be taken into serious consideration. 3.4 Attractiveness Film is a business industry. The film producer needs to se
25、e profits from the film, which can be the support of producing and bringing in more excellent films, stimulating the development of film industry at a progressing pace, so the translated title should provoke peoples interest to watch the film. As the first impression of the film, the title needs to
26、have the charm to attract audience at first sight. And then (As a consequence,) the attractive film title plays a great part. To achieve this goal (making the title attractive), the translator needs to find a way out; it (which) can be as well called the creation of the beauty of the film title. As
27、Hans Vermeers 3 skopos theory says every deed of translation has its own skopos, making the film title attractive and creating commercial value is also one of its purposes. As a result, the aesthetic and commercial factors become two significant aspects for film title translation. 3.5 Responsibility
28、 The receiver of the translated title (the audience) plays an important role in the process of translation. It is not the audience that translates but the translator, under some commission, needs to take the audience into account during his or her translating. How to attract the receiver in a good a
29、nd responsible way becomes a worth thinking question. The audience includes children and adult, and the children are usually easily influenced by the surroundings around. As the future of our country, the children should be put in a healthy circumstance and the translator has the responsibility to c
30、reate a healthy image of the title for the children. The bloody, lusty, negative words for the title of the film available for children should be forbidden. Thus, the translated film title has its unique responsibility, which is an urgent and necessary thing for the translator to take into considera
31、tion. When translating, the translator has the responsibility to consider the receiving target audience. 4. Five principles of film title translation In order to solve the problems, we have analyzed the features of the title itself. And to maintain these features of film title and find a set of stan
32、dards on title translation when we come across translating problems, we come up with five principles: informative value-from the part of “briefness” and “accuracy”, cultural value-from the part of “understandability”, aesthetic value-from the part of “attractiveness”, commercial value-from the part
33、of “attractiveness” and audience orientation-from the part of “responsibility”. In fact, there are also many scholars pointing out some principles on film title translating, like Zhen Yuqi(郑玉琪 , 2006:66) emphasizes on the function of titles advertisement and comes up with three basic principles: inf
34、ormative value, aesthetic value and cultural value. Qian Yingxia(钱英霞 , 2007:16) thinks the film title translating needs to obey four principles: informative value, aesthetic value, cultural value and commercial value. And I did agree to their points. We can also find something related to title trans
35、lating principles from the book Approached to Translation (Newmark, 1981:12-13), in which Newmark divided language functions into 3 types: expressive function, informative function, vocative function., and later in the book Textbook of Translation (Newmark, 1988:39-44), 3 other functions are added,
36、that is, aesthetic 4 function, phatic function and metalingual function. As has been told in the section of features that film title translation is different from text translation. The title contains the most information of the film, it can provoke peoples interest to watch and it needs to have the
37、charm to attract audience. As a result, the title has the informative function, vocative function (commercial function) and aesthetic function. 4.1 Informative Value From the feature（ features） of title, we can see title is the core of film, which has only few words but contains the most information
38、 and it is accurate. Information needs to be mostly contained, and to maintain the “briefness”, the information value plays a critical role. Once the information value or message is missing, however the translated title is brief and easy to remember, it becomes a useless one. At that time, the trans
39、lated title is no longer an outcome of translating for “translating must aim primarily at reproducing the message.” (Eugene A.Nida， Charles R.Taber, 2004:12). It needs to convey information at most and draw audiences attention. We can also consider it to be the closest natural informative equivalent
40、 Here is an example of obvious information mistranslation or it can be as well called the missing of information value. It is said that the film Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is rendered as “谁又怕又贞又淫的女人 ” by a Hong Kong newspaper and as “谁怕维吉尼亚州的狼 ” in Taiwan(which applies the children ballads “Who
41、is afraid of the big, bad wolf?”). However, Virginia Woolf is a name of an English female writer. The information included in the translated title should conform to the films plot, style, like when we see the translated title, we can not only have a general idea of what the film is talking about but
42、 also what the kind of film is, whether it is a comedy, romance or so on. To keep the informative value of the translated title, translators are not supposed to copy the original words faithfully to a great extent. As Newmark (Newmark, 1988a:22) has pointed out that “communicative translation is one
43、 of translation modes and it attempts to produce on its readers an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original.” Among the communicative translation, the film title translating is right included. Zhang Meifang (张美芳 , 2005:75) later also has added that the important po
44、int of communicative translation is to convey information according to the culture, target language but not copy the original words faithfully to a great extent. The translator has more freedom to translate. As a result, to maintain the informative value, translators need to find lots of skill (skil
45、ls) from continuous exploration and accumulation of experience. 4.2 Cultural value 5 As has been mentioned, cultural factor is one of the important aspects that are the barriers of “understandability”. To realize the feature of “understandability”, translators need to measure the cultural value in a
46、 serious way. Cultural value has a close relationship with information value, for when we refer to the “understandability”, both the information and culture should be understandable in the translated title. Besides, Eugene A.Nida (Eugene A.Nida, 2004:226) has said that “as a mediation of two differe
47、nt cultures; the translation will inevitably come to the two different cultural systems and their difference. Because of the complicated difference, sometimes the translator will cause the addition, reduction and distortion of information. In order to express the information in a good condition, translator has to make some change. But it should be controlled strictly and the extent to which adjustments should be made depends very largely upon the audience for which the translation is des
