Principles and Skills of Movie Title Translation
Abstract
Movie title is an integral part of the movie. An excellent title can play the role of adding the finishing touch, attracting audience and giving audience much food for thought. Movie titles are often compared to the door lintel of movies, as they not only reflect the central thought of movies but also attract the audience with brief and novel forms. The past two decades have witnessed vast development in movie translation. However, being a special and significant part of translation, movie translation is an area that is far from being explored. Few monographs at home and abroad have discussed this topic. It seems that no one has so far offered a systematic and feasible principle to pilot movie title translation. In this situation, this paper goes deep into many west movie title translations in recent years and refines some of the translations, summarizing and posing new principles, so that the movie title translation would not only be more standardized but also make a deep impression for the audience.
Usually, movie titles are brief and short. Translating such brief movie title is just regarded as a piece of cake, but it is hard to translate well. Translation of being elegant in style and rich in sentiment could not only attract the audience but also be meaningful and thought-provoking as an art. Therefore, when translating the movie title, firstly we should get the central meaning and style of the movie, and then we must learn the principles, grasp the skills and fathom the wordings. However, academic atmosphere is very desolate and arguments are always uniform in the movie title translation research. Numerous academic articles just deal with movie titles translation in specific skills, such as literal translation, free translation and transliteration. However, they neglect the effects of culture and its versatility in movie title translation. Moreover, there is also a lack in the exploration in the translation process and evaluation. Thus, this paper probes into the movie title translation, and puts forward further new skills based on the basic translation theories, with the final purpose of bringing standardization and pluralism into the translation of movie titles.
Key words: movie title translation principles skills
摘要
片名是电影的一个不可缺少的组成部分。好的片名能起到画龙点睛,吸引观众，耐人寻味的作用。
有人曾将片名比作影片的门楣，既要反映影片的中心思想，又要简短、新奇，吸引观众。过去的二
三十年中，影视翻译取得了很大的发展，但作为翻译领域一个重要组成部分，电影片名的研究工作
还做得远远不够。迄今为止似乎还没有人提出过一套比较完整的翻译原则。在此情况下，本文通过
深入分析近年来众多欧美电影片名的翻译，对其中的翻译进行仔细推敲，总结和提出新的原则，使
电影片名翻译更具规范化，使读者对电影片名的翻译有更深刻的理解。
电影片名一般都比较简短。虽说如此简短的翻译虽属雕虫小技，但是要译好却实属不易。因为文情
并茂的译名不仅能吸引观众的眼球，而且可以说是一件艺术精品，耐人寻味，所以翻译电影片名时,应深入理解影片的内容蕴涵和风格,了解翻译原则，掌握翻译技巧，揣摩措词用语。然而电影片名领域翻译理论研究中，学术气氛异常冷清、论调过于整齐划一，众多学术文章只从具体翻译方法入手，如直译、意译和音译，而忽略片名翻译的文化性及多层面性，且缺少相关翻译过程及翻译评价的探讨。为此，本论文以电影片名的翻译为研究目的，在翻译理论基础上，进一步提出了新的技巧，使
得电影片名的翻译既具有规范化又具有多元化。
关键词：电影片名翻译原则技巧
Contents
Acknowledgements (i)
Abstract (English) (ii)
Abstract (Chinese) (iv)
1. Introduction (1)
1.1 Background of the research (1)
1.2 Purpose of the research (2)
2. Principles of movie title translation (2)
2.1 Finding out the content of movie and grasping the thesis and background (3)
2.2 Transforming the language and culture (5)
2.3 Leaving the audience an imaginary space (6)
2.4 Being brief and appealing (8)
2.5 Being new and special and keeping in accordance with audience’s taste (8)
3. Skills of movie title translation (9)
3.1 Basic skills (9)
3.1.1 Epexegesis (10)
3.1.2 Literal translation (11)
3.1.3 Free translation (12)
3.2 Special skills (13)
3.2.1 Initialism or abbreviation (13)
3.2.2 Link with stars (14)
3.2.3 Pattern (15)
3.2.4 Utilizing the features of Chinese characters (16)
3.2.4.1 Apply Chinese terms and vocabulary (16)
3.2.4.2 Apply Chinese four-character form (17)
3.3 Different skills in different conditions (18)
3.3.1 A series of movies (18)
3.3.1.1 Same theme (18)
3.3.1.2 New edition of the same movie (19)
3.3.1.3 Sequel of the same movie (19)
3.3.2 Adapting from famous works or games (20)
3.3.2.1 Adapting from famous works (20)
3.3.2.2 Adapting from games (20)
4. Conclusion (21)
References (23)
Principles and Skills of Movie Title Translation
1 Introduction
1.1 Background of the research
As a kind of art for all ages, movie has a large number of audience and deep impact upon the society which the other arts are unable to compare with. What’s more, movie title, headline of a movie, is a symbol and one part of packing. An excellent title could attract thousands of audience. Wonderful movies achieve to appeal millions of people, not only because of the performers’ skillful acting and beautiful pictures but also the meaningful title.
Movie, one of the most important mass media, is an audio-visual art. It creates images, narrates stories, expresses feelings, states philosophy and attracts the audience by its sound, color and moving pictures. Movie is more direct and sensitive than any other forms of art to keep pace with times. Ever since the adoption of the policy of reform and opening up to the outside world at the end of the 1970s, cultural exchanges have become increasingly prevalent and the receptors of dubbed movies have greatly expanded. Meanwhile, people begin to investigate the movies from various angles and comparison between movies of different countries also starts to prosper. However, being a special and significant part of movies, movie titles are far from being explored and there is a relative paucity of writings on movie title translation.