On the Translation of English Film Titles from the Cross-cultural Perspective 跨文化视野下的英语电影片名翻译.doc

本科毕业设计论文 (2013 届)题 目：on the translation of english film titles from the cross-cultural perspective跨文化视野下的英语电影片名翻译 分 院:外国语分院专 业:英语班 级:09英本四姓 名: 学 号:09307613408指导老师: 完成日期:2013年3月温州大学城市学院学位论文原创性声明本人郑重声明：所提交的学位论文是本人在导师的指导下，独立进行研究工作所取得的研究成果。除文中已经加以标注引用的内容外，本论文不包含其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的研究成果，也不含为获得温州大学城市学院或其它教育机构的学位证书而使用过的材料。对本文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。本人承担本声明的法律责任。作者签名：日期： 年 月 日学位论文版权使用授权书本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，同意学校保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版，允许论文被查阅和借阅。本人授权温州大学城市学院可以将本学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。本学位论文属于1、保密，在_年解密后适用本授权书。2、不保密。（请在以上相应方框内打“”）作者签名：日期： 年 月 日导师签名：日期： 年 月 日contentsacknowledgementsiabstractii摘要:iiichapter one introduction1chapter two the definition of language, thought and translation22.1 the definition of language22.2 the definition of thought22.3 the definition of translation2chapter three the relations between language, thought and translation63.1 thought and language.3.2 thought, language and translationchapter four cultural backgrounds contributing to the different modes of thinking between english and chinese.74.1 the principle of transferring information74.2 the principle of reflecting culture74.3 the principle of aesthetic art84.4 the principle of commercial value9chapter five the translation strategies of english film title translation95.1 transliteration105.2 literal translation105.3 liberal translation115.4 the combination of a variety of translation methods13chapter six conclusion14references16acknowledgementsi would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, li shude, who has patiently instructed and unceasingly encouraged me, with kindly assistance and valuable suggestions throughout the course of writing the thesis, without his help, the completion of this thesis would have been impossible. his willingness to give her time so generously has been very much appreciated.gratitude should also be extended to all the authors, who have provided useful referential materials that are related to my topic. in writing this paper, i have benefited from the presence of my teachers and my classmates. they generously helped me collect materials i needed and made many invaluable suggestions. i hereby extend my grateful thanks to them for their kind help, without which the paper would not have been what it is.last but not least, i am much indebted to my family, without their affection and support this thesis could not have appeared in its final form.abstract: in this information era of globalization and internationalization, cinematics is increasingly becoming a widely popular culture with powerful influence. it makes the cinematics beyond the country, nation, identity, culture factors such as history, geographical environment, custom and religions and beliefs and other restrictions, which becomes the cross-culture that shared by the different languages audience . in view of the popularity of english in the world, english turn into main language of the film in the international dissemination. in the meanwhile, the english film title also is the enrichment and soul of film script. only by understanding the associative meanings and cultural connotations can one avoid misunderstanding in cross cultural communication, and can transcend cross-cultural obstacles in cross cultural translation successfully. thus the cross-cultural communication can be achieved favorably. an in-depth study on the translation of english film names can not only promote sino-western cultural exchange, but also can exploit cultural and economic market, enhance the information transmission and the communicative activities between china and western countries in the cross-cultural background. the thesis will discuss some features and functional analysis of english film title translation, and provide some methods and strategies of english film title translation. from the perspective of cross-cultural communication, understanding translation of english film is one of the important parts in cross cultural communication and cross cultural translation. author analyzed the general principles of film title translation, discussed film title translation related theory from perspective of cultural communication and gave specific theory in practical process of translation. key words: cross-cultural; english film title translation; translation strategies摘要: 在如今这个不断全球化和国际化的信息时代，电影艺术日益成为一种广泛传播、影响力超强的大众文化，这就使得电影欣赏不断跨越国家、民族、身份、文化等限制。成为不同语种的观众所共享的跨文化现象。鉴于英语在世界的普及，英文成为电影在国际上传播的主要语言，同时，电影片名是电影文本的浓缩和灵魂所在。深入对英语电影片名的翻译研究不仅能促进中西方文化的交流，开拓文化经济市场，增强我国与西方跨文化背景下的信息传通与交际活动。本文将讨论关于英语电影片名翻译的一些特性与功能性，从跨文化交流的视角,研究电影片名翻译的一般原则，并给出了相关的实际例证探讨英语电影片名的翻译方法及策略。关键词:跨文化；英文电影片名翻译；片名翻译策略15chapter one introductionnowadays, with the economic globalization and opening-up policy of china, intercultural communication becomes increasingly closer than before. peoples esthetic sentiments have constantly improved. film works is art form that through using of the image thinking to form the art visualization which is the particular reflection of life, and can express thoughts and feelings, arouse peoples aesthetic awareness, aesthetic education and aesthetic entertainment (pu zhehao, 2008:97).as time goes on, the film become the best way to communicate, and there is no doubt that nowadays english films become increasingly popular among consumers of all ages in the chinese market. as known to all, a profound title can give the film more charisma and attraction, therefore, the quality and the accuracy of translation not only affects the cultural artistic conceptions of the original movie transmission, but also directly related to the film culture benefits and economic benefits.the film title translation is a magnificent and creative job. good translation help enrich the movie. it is not to be neglected that good title gives audience vivid leisure life, lead chinese movie to the world and promote international cultural communication.with the acceleration of the globalization process of the world, cross-cultural communication becomes increasingly closer than before. peoples ability to appreciate the aesthetics have improved, film is becoming the best way to culture communication, and english films in the chinese market is increasingly popular among consumers of all ages. a profound film title can give more attraction to films. the quality of film title translation not only affects the artistic conception of the original movie language, but also is related to the cultural and economic benefits directly.from the perspective of cross-cultural communication, author made research about translation of the film title between east and west and communication between different cultures. first, author analyzed the problems generated from translation of title in the process of culture communication and reason for it. then author studied the general principles of film title translation, discussed film title translation related theory from perspective of cultural communication and gave specific theory in practical process of translation. the thesis aims to explore the features and principles of english film title translation under the background of cross-cultural, and gives some suggestions on the translation strategies, and discusses various translation methods adopted in english film title translation with rich examples to see how they are used.chapter two features of english film titlesin this chapter we are going to explore the features of english film titles, just as sources, types，functions and styles of movie titles, with functiona1 equivalence. 2.1. source of film titlesthe precondition of correctly original film translation is to understand the source of the title accurately. specifically, both chinese and english film title always derive from affection, background, theme, hero, and clues.sometimes, the title is based on content，with summing up original film. for this reason the plot is always the primary source of film title creation. just like deep impact (天地大冲撞).the background that can represent the epitasis、theme and characterization which have a great significance also is an important source of title. for example: titanic (泰坦尼克); waterloo bridge (魂断蓝桥); air force one (空军一号).quite a few film titles are named after theme which is meaningful and thought-provoking. just like: as good as it gets (尽善尽美); indecent proposal (桃色交易); brave heart (惊世未了情).the other film titles are often named after the leading character. for instance: forest gump (阿甘正传); the lion king (狮子王); rain man (雨人).the others films depend on the development of the plot clues, such as schindlers list (辛德勒的名单); golden eye (黄金眼).2.2 style of film titlesthe language style of film title is brief and to the point, has a concise framework and vivid with rhetoric such as metaphor and parable. “and the film titles are closely related to the application of rhetorical devices, such as simile, contrast, metaphor, irony, personification, oxymoron alliteration.” (ding jin, 2008)2.3 function of film titlesfilm title always has four functions.1) information transmission function. it means to highlight film content to help the audience to understand the original film better and better. and through the title, convey the contents of the film to the audience concisely, the audience can better understand the content of the original film. such as the film forest gump (阿甘正传), which was popular around the world, we will know that the film is about the forest gumps story at the first sight. this is the title what we say conveys information function.2) expression functions: to resonate with the audience with strong lyric, thrilling or comedy atmosphere. the function in order to attract audience, the use of the rhetorical devices can help chinese film translation has a better performance of the expression function, make the audience feel a beauty of language, and be impressed by the chinese film translation at the same time, for example, the use of contrast: the silence of the lambs (沉默的羔羊); the use of personification, chicken run (小鸡快跑); the use of pun, dances with wolves (与狼共舞); the use of alliteration: pride and prejudice (傲慢与偏见); the use of oxymoron: true lies (真实的谎言) these all makes the titles memorable.3) aesthetic functions: move audience in beautiful and fluent language, and make the audience have an aesthetic pleasure. aesthetic function is to craft the title carefully, to ensure the audience to enjoy a sense of beauty.english film titles used to express plainly, nevertheless, chinese film titles are good at using rhetoric with romantic style. such as the famous american film a walk in the clouds (云中漫步), if we translate the film in the literal sense, it would be (在云中走), it would be hard to make the audience understand this is described a love story that a couple of young men and women fall in love in the vineyard. (云中漫步) conforms to the target language audiences habits, which also is relevant to a romantic love, the theme of the film ,will make audience associate with romantic and poetic artistic conception of the film.(lou jimei, 2008)4) commercial functions: to attract audience, increase the income of the box office. the function can cause the audiences interest, stimulate them to think about it, and to act immediately, that means buying a ticket to watch movies. for example: leon (这个杀手不太冷), inception (盗梦空间). “盗”“梦”“空间” these words make a high-level generalization of the content. “盗” highlight the plot of the movie, which cause the curiosity of the audience, stimulate the audience to explore secrets, “梦” which is bizarre and fantastic, has capture the movie theme accurately. this translation not only introduced the plot, but also conveyed the suspense effect of the film, to attract audience to theaters to check it out. however, if we translate inception to (奠基)，then the audience will be completely confused , and have no desire to go to cinema2.4 type of film titlesgenerally speaking, film usually falls into three types: documentary, educational and fictional.we may see that the first two types mainly serve the purpose of information transmission and scientific popularization, so these types always become plain in style and formal in wording. for example: one survivor remembers (一个幸存者的回忆);stories from the quilt (共同的线索).the fictional film is the most popular type of films, which usually tells an interesting fictional story, and can be accepted by a large proportion of audience. in view of various kinds of fictional film have different characteristics. author divides fictional film into 4 types.1) first kind: horror film, which include action movies, disaster film, the horror movie, western, heist film, espionage film. these titles mainly serve the purpose of highlighting breathtaking atmosphere. for example, the ring (午夜凶铃); die hard (虎胆龙威); impossible (碟中谍).2) second kind: fantasy film is based on scientific imagination and futuristic technology. this kind of film usually reveals the fancy idea of the film intent to attract audience. for instance: star wars (星球大战); jurassic park (侏罗纪公园); back to the future (回到未来); harry potter and the goblet of fire (哈利波特与火焰杯); spider man (蜘蛛侠).3) third kind: comedy: this title itself possesses intense comedy. it is designed to provoke the laughter by exaggerating the situation, action, and language. correspondingly, this title in order to produce a humorous effect on the film, for example: home alone (小鬼当家); mr. bean (憨豆先生); meet the parents (拜见岳父大人); the mask (变相怪杰); legally blonde (律政俏佳人).4) fourth kind: lyric film, which consist of romantic film, ethical family film, feature film and musical. this kind of title has prose style, plain language coupled with sincere emotion. for instance: golden pond (金色池塘); a walk in the clouds (云中漫步); a room with a view (看得见风景的房子); four weddings and a funeral (四个婚礼和一个葬礼); pretty woman (风月俏佳人).2.5 translation theory of film titlestyler, a. f. wrote that in essay on the principles of translation: a good translation is to remove the advantages of the original work to another language completely, is to make the people of another countries can understand the feeling of original language clearly, strongly. (qtd in zhang jin, 1987, : 92) that means a good translation should produce the same effect no matter in a different language society or the original language society. translation is the process and tool of communication between two language-communities, it aims to promote the progress of politics, economy and culture in the language-community of its own kind, and its mission is to perfectly shift the real worlds logical or artistic images, which are involved in original works, from one kind of language to the other kind.contemporary american famous translation theorist eugene a. nida put forward formal equivalence principle and dynamic equivalence principle, at last came up with functional equivalence, improve this principle constantly. (qtd in lian zhenran,2010:92)nida is the language of contemporary western scholars. in his view, translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.( eugene a. nida,2004:12).therefore, its important to lets the translation reader and the original text reader similarly smoothly obtains same or the basic similar information,similarly, the most famous english theorist of translation newmark peter s communicative translation is as same as that, its theoretical core and functional equivalence principle are inseparable: communicative translation refers to the translation of the readers effect should be equal to the original to the original readers effect. communicative translation attach importance to the effect , paying attention to the reader as a starting point, pay attention to words and effect that caused by the readers for the realization of the communication.(wang jing,2002:52)in a textbook of translation newmark peter explains that compare to the authors as the center of semantic translation ，the reader as the center of the communicative translation are more likely to achieve equivalent effect.as newmark peter said，this principle is more suitable for “special type text” which is emphasize accept effect , film translation that is one of them. newmark considered that language has six functions: expressive function; informative function; vocative function; aesthetic function; phatic function and metalingual function. among them, the first four kind of is the most important. in authors mind, it is proper to retain original information value, culture value, and aesthetic value in the process of transmission. at the same time, the commercial value should be stressed. in specific, not only follow the original content and context but also fit the target languages cultural characteristics. by doing this, the goal is to keep precise and concise content and, in addition, attract and affect audience to boost box officethe movie title is a proper noun. it is the product of the writers elaborate conception, which can highly generalization on the theme of the content, and can strongly arouse readers desire to watch the film. that is why the movie mainly has the informative function, vocative function and aesthetic function.this functional equivalence theory should be applied to the english translation of film titles, we should not rigidly adhere to the corresponding formal title, but fully understand the films content, st