电影标题翻译的研究---毕业论文.doc

【标题】电影标题翻译的研究 【作者】文 奔 驰 【关键词】电影标题；翻译；文化；翻译技巧 【指导老师】何远秀 邱彦文 【专业】英语 【正文】. IntroductionAs all we know that a good film needs a wonderful title. Every time we hear about a film, we always get to know its title first. And we decide whether to see it or not.If a film has a wonderfull title, we must have a big interest on it. The pleasure of watching a film comes as much from its content as from its title. The translations of the film titles require using a few words to express the topic of the films and at the same time, people shouldnt forget it after seeing it. The translation of western film titles is very different from Chinese film titles. The former one takes the reality important while the latter one considers the mood is great. These different views also lead to the different understanding of the translation of film titles.(This also can be seen from the different translations on Mainland China, Hongkong and Taiwan.) Simply out, they operate in different socio-cultural contexts. All of these are compounded in the translation of film titles. This paper gives a translation norm and a way to translating from the features and the approaches of the translation of film titles. And this paper gives a brief introduction to the features of the translation of film titles. People can see something of the translation of film titles from these features. The Definition and Features of Movie TitlesA. The Definition of Movie TitlesTitles,as all we know, are the brief statement which marked article or works. And simply speaking, they are the generelizations of movies, we can have a drought idea about the movies when we see the movie titles. Usually, whether the ideas are good or not has a deep influence to the movies.B. The Features of Movie TitlesEverything in the world has its own features, so do the film titles. They cant exist without their own features. To make the titles more impressive, people use many rhetoric devices are used in the translation of the film titles, such as simile, metaphor, oxymoron and the like. The features of the translation of film titles will be expounded from the art, economic and social perspective as follows.1 1. Art feature Film is a living art and as such it tends to respond promptly to the development of science and technology,2 which differentiates it from the other forms of art that can be written or painted on the paper. As the translation of film titles is the right key to keep the audiences attention, many factors are contained to reach this aim. One of them is the art feature. For example, the Chinese version of the film title“The Accused” is“暴劫梨花”, which consists of two parts:暴劫 and梨花. Here,暴劫 roughly means ravaged or devastated while梨花, which literally meanspear flowers, is often used to mean a fragile woman. 2. Economic feature There is no wonder that the film investors try any ways to attract peoples eyes. The translations of film titles are often put on the leading places of the bills to attract peoples eyes. How to occupy the film market? They rack their brains to seek the high competitiveness of the film market from scripting, filming to showing. And the translations of the film titles are even to add an apt word to clinch the point. The film industry includes the industrial production, the commercial system and the cultural transmission. There comes forth a great many films on the market. Just for the sake of high benefits from their investment, they didnt care much about the translation of the film titles, which led them far from the original film titles. Besides, for majority of the audiences, those improper translations are beyond their understandings. Even the national conditions have been taken into consideration, it is necessary to find a junction of the market and art. However, the importance is to find a naming that is close to the original title and eligible to the style of the film. Meanwhile, the response of the market should not be neglected. But they do the translating work only to pursue the advertising benefit. And in the field of western film industry, people benefit from the boundless chance to get more money from this productive business in spite of these. Some examples will tell us how this economic features of the film titles act.(1) It Happens One Night一夜风流(2) Sister Act修女也疯狂(3) Leon, the Professional这个杀手不太冷 3. Social feature Foreign audiences are more often than not to comprehend the original film titles. Once they are translated using free translation, it would be hard for the Chinese audiences to understand the quite content of the films. As the practice testified, a ringing translated film titles are the purpose of evoking the audiences curiosity. For example, The words“黑帮” in“Shark Tales”鲨鱼黑帮 gives us a room to associate. Are there“黑帮” in the world of sharks? Some people who have never seen the translated one will naturally translate it into“鲨鱼的故事”. You wouldnt expect its success of such a plain film. If so, it is really a documentary. Besides, films provide a forum in which certain pressing social problems. It is a way for the audiences to deal imaginatively with the problems to consider possible causes, to imagine possible consequences, and to hypothesize possible solutions. Here“Shark Tales” is an example to show the social problem.“Shark” symbolizes the bully in the society. Among these sharks, there is one who is the son of the leader. When he dies, the sea creature is happy with this and praises the untrue hero. It also conveys peoples wishes to wipe out the bad eggs. So the bad translation is unacceptable. It is a title just like the TV program“The world of the animals”. Quite often, the title of a film is used to inform would-be audiences. Nevertheless, these audiences choose to go into the cinemas unconsciously to admire the content under the drive of“黑帮”. That is the contribution of the vivid film titles. The different features themselves characterize the film titles. They are simple and coherent with sporadic lengthy titles in view. The examples, which were mentioned above, are just like a drop in the ocean of the translation of film titles. Lets go further into the principal points of the translation of film titles. And the chief among the approaches of the translation of film titles is the literal translation and the free translation. The Interaction of Culture and the Translation of Movie TitlesA. The Definition of CultureCulture refers to the cumulative depost of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, role, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the cource of generetions through individual and group striving.Culture is the system of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people.3B. The Influence of Culture on the Translation of Movie TitlesNational psychology is the accumulation of the collective unconscious which lived and produced by a nation in the production of long-term,embodied in different contexts of different psychological characteristics, resulting in such a different mindset. Common culture is the common practice of mankind, cultural differences lies in peoples productive activities and communicate activities and the diffierent environmentwhich it faces6. Different geographical living environment and life mode of production and peoples own physiological differences that make the ways of thinking and the thinking image are very diffierent in Eastern and Western. The Chinese thinking way performanced as whole and abstraction, while the English nation is shown as part of the thinking and concrete. Chinese people will subject the general and specific to the movie title is shown as the Chinese film titles use more refined and emotional mood of inductive titles, such as“无间道”，“不见不散”，“霸王别姬”，“卧虎藏龙”and so on. But the Western movie titles tend to lean, choose the representative of people, objects and names as the titles of movies.Due to different living habits and values, Western culture and Eastern culture have their own different implication on things. Chinese“龙”culture and West“dragon” culture is very different, it was for a long time that the Chinese“龙” was translated into English“dragon”,this leds the unnecessary misunderstanding to exchanges between Chinese and Western cultures. Life ethics film“龙年警官” translated as“Police Officer in 1988” on just right, not only in the context of Wester cultural tradition there is no Zodiac, and“dragon” is the symbol of evil.Similarly, movie“Dragon Heart” should not be translated to“龙之心”, which should be changed to“魔龙传奇” is more approprite. Differences in religions beliefs and cultural allusions also have a great influnce on the film titles translation. American film“seven” drawn the seven major crimes(seven deadly sins):gluttony, greed, sloth, lust, pride, envy, anger from Christian scripture and Catholic folklore as movie title. It repeatedly appears in the“Bible” of religious books and liteature. If you just literally translated as“七”, the Chinese audience would not understand. But it points the clear story line and most major religions implication of the film if translated as“七宗罪”, thus completing the faithful communication of cultural information. In Chinese cultural tradition.Lotus is always linked with the beautiful charming, Li Bai on the use of“天然去雕饰，清水出芙蓉.”7to discrible the history of China beauty Yangyuhuan. Movie“Bathing Beauty” translated as“出水芙蓉” is more approprite. The Translating Pinciples nd Methods Based on Cultural DifferenceA. The Translating Pinciples of Movie TitlesEnglish movie title translation, which is of great principles, is a cross-cultural communication. The movie title is the first thing the moviegoers come to know, therefore, it is so important that the translator bears a load to satisfy different audiences in different layers. A good translation is a culture, while an unsuccessful one is a kind of hoax. In order to achieve the expected effect, some principles are necessary for the translator to pay attention to. The three standards in text translation which are put forward by Yanfu are: faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance, these principles are the most authoritative and can be used in the English movie title translation. In the following parts below, they will be discussed briefly.Faithfulness, which is defined as a basic standard of translation, demands that the translator should express his standpoint accurately, and can not make any mistakes in principles. Moreover, according to the different features of language between Chinese and English, the translator should try his best to re-express the authors idea, tone, style and emotion. However, here“faithfulness” does not mean to show full respect to the original movie titles. It is fine to translate The Mummy into木乃伊. But for sake of faithfulness to the story, the author can abandon the original, such as The Mask is translated into变相怪杰. Isnt it better to be faithful to both? Some people may ask. Of course, it is perfect to be faithful to both, whereas, both of them can not be got at the same time, and the faithfulness to the original movie title should make a compromise to the faithfulness to the story.“Expressiveness” is originally defined that the usage of words and sentences making should be standard. Moreover, the passage should also be exact and fluent. If the translator couldnt achieve, the style of language of the translated text would be changed. In order to achieve“Expressiveness”, Yan Fu demands that the translator should comprehend the whole passage exactly, and express the content by the target language. Sometimes we even should pay less attention to the grammar. Here, the expressive function in movie titles refers to the creators attitudes or passion. Through it, the audience can understand the core, the basic atmosphere, and how the movie is organized. For example, A Beautiful Mind shows the positive attitudes of the creator toward the hero, who is a mathematician and gets schizophrenia.In the text translation,“elegance” means to express the meaning of the original vividly and exactly. The translator should use some exquisite words or sentences to make the translated text unforgettable. In the translation of movie titles, generally speaking, the versions must be artistic. Such as Waterloo Bridge:魂断蓝桥is fine, it not only gives the audience a feeling of sorrow, but also offers the enjoyment of beauty through the carefully selected Chinese characters.B. The Translating Pinciples of Movie Titles1. Literal TranslationLiteral translation is a good choice to translate lively and closely, as the original. It retains the idea, style and rhetoric of the original. Translators should grasp it. Literal translation is not word-for-word translation. Sometimes, translators should do some change in translation so that they can make the translation more acceptable. Word-for-word translation is unqualified. Not all sentences can translate literally. Some sentences, if used literal translation would not be according with the culture of target language. Especially for some idioms. Translators should have extensive knowledge, comprehend the original thoroughly. Especially in translating some proffessional materials Some film titles need not be considered and designed again by the translators, just use literal translation that can get the maximum effecttransmitting the original meaning and keeping the unity of the original naming and content of the film titles. Sometimes, the orders of the translated film titles are the same as the original ones, which are seen clearly to the audiences. Literal translation can keep the form, meaning and information of the film titles to be closely to the original film titles. For examples, the translation of the western film titles“Beauty and Beast”美女与野兽,“The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King”指环王3：王者归来,“Snow White”白雪公主,“Sleeping Beauty”睡美人,“March of the Penguins”帝企鹅日记,“Crocodile Dundee”鳄鱼邓迪,“Ben Hur”宾虚,“Madam Currie”居里夫人,“Stigmata”圣痕,“The Passion of the Christ”耶稣受难记,“The Last Temptation of Christ”基督最后的诱惑 and so forth, people can see from the examples above that it must use literal translation especially with regard to the historical figures and events or religious and ethical concerns which they are familiar with. People should notice that other film titles, which are adapted from famous books, also employ the literal translation. For example,“The Old Man and the Sea”老人与海,“The Godfather”教父,“Anna Karenina”安娜?卡列尼娜. One reason is to avoid the misunderstanding of the audiences who may be strange to them, and the other reason is that the effect of famous books titles can attract the eyes of the audiences. Take“如果?爱” as an example, its literal translation is“If?Love”. This original film title which use literal translation itself express the most beautiful mood of the film theme. It indeed need not be considered and designed again by the translators.If, this literal meaning of this film title can get the maximum effect to give hypothesis and at the same times, it arouses peoples imagination. The literal translation of this film title just reaches the best result of translation. Another example of these Chinese film titles is(成吉思汗)“Genghis Khan”. The foreign people are getting to know more and more about Chinese culture and history with the communication of two countries. And they have plentiful knowledge to understand the literal meaning of this film title. It is no need to make a note to explain it. As is known to all, how to translate the film titles well has become a controversial topic in the field of translation for a long time. In translating a foreign language into Chinese, the Mainland China. Taiwan and Hongkong always keep their own styles of translation. The unbounded literal approach is adopted by translators in Hongkong and Taiwan, particularly those in Hongkong. The translators in Hongkong are deeply influenced by the commercial entertainment culture. But the translators on the mainland show more respect for their profession and display less flippancy, and this is also reflected in the translation. People can see the advantages of the literal translation by comparing the differences in translation among three districts. 2.The Free TranslationFree translation is a skill. It need not pay more attention to the form of the original and the details. But free translation should accord with target language culture and customs. Then target language readers can accept translation easily. Though free tranlation gives leeways to translators, they should not add personal emotion to the original works. Because if translators added their own emotion to the translation, target language readers and source language readers would have different feeling. So the translation is unqualified. Free translation also needs extensive knowledge and culture of both source language and target language. Translators should be proviede with literature training. Especially knowing some idioms in both target language and source language is very important.Translation is not just a process to change one language into another. But as the original English movie titles are so concise and implied that it enhances the difficulties in translation. In this situation, the translator may often adopt free translation, which is an alternative approach used mainly to convey the meaning of the original title without mechanically sticking to the form. On some occasions, the freely translated versions are more sensible for appropriately conveying the spirit of the movi