英语电影片名的翻译英语专业毕业论文.doc

英语电影片名的翻译 摘 要电影是一种集艺术性和商业性于一体的艺术形式，是最具有影响力的媒体之一。随着中国改革开放的成功，中国与英语国家的经济文化交流日益频繁。近年来，越来越多的英语电影涌入中国电影市场。为满足中国观众日益增长的观影需求，英语电影在不断地被译为汉语。电影的翻译既是介绍异域文化的一种简洁直观的手段，又是传播本国本民族文化的一个重要途径，而电影片名的翻译又是影片翻译中的重中之重，所以我们通过实例，针对不同的片名采用不同的译法，进而深入研究电影片名的翻译方法。由于英文电影片名独特的文化内涵，在汉译时必须要从多方面考虑，采用适当的翻译方法。文章从分析英语电影片名总体情况入手，分析了英文电影片名的特点和功能，研究了英语电影片名英译汉时应遵循的理论原则和翻译方法，然后提出了音译、直译、意译、编译四种方法。关键词：英文电影片名；特点；翻译方法AbstractThe movie, a popular art with both artistic and commercial values, is one of the most influential mass media nowadays. With the success of Chinas Reform and Opening up Policy and the strengthened economic and cultural communication between China and English-speaking countries, recent years we have seen a large flow of English movies into Chinese movie market. English movies are being continuously translated to meet Chinese audiences growing needs. The translation of movies is not only a simple and direct way to introduce the exotic culture, but also an important channel to transfer our own culture. While the translation of the title of a movie is the top priority in translation movies, therefore, we study the way that the translation of movies deeply, using different ways to translate movies. As the titles of the English movies always carry the special cultural senses, when they translated into the Chinese, many factors should be considered and different methods of translation should be taken accordingly. The paper explores the general analysis of English movie titles, discusses the features and the function of the movie titles, and puts forward the relevant theories and methods, then gives the four translation methods: transliteration, literal translation, free translation and adapted translation.Key words: English movie title; feature; translation methodsContentsAbstractII1 Introduction12 A General Review of English Movie Titles22.1 Categories of English Movies22.1.1 Adventure Movies22.1.2 Fantasy Movies22.1.3 Comedy Movies32.1.4 Lyric Movies32.2 Features of English Movie Titles32.2.1 Linguistic Features32.2.2 Aesthetic Features42.2.3 Cultural Features42.2.4 Commercial Features42.3 Functions of English Movie Titles52.3.1 Informative Function52.3.2 Aesthetic Function52.3.3 Commercial Function63 Methods of English Movie Title Translation73.1 Principles of English Movie Title Translation73.2 Methods of English Movie Title Translation83.2.1 Transliteration83.2.2 Literal Translation93.2.3 Free Translation93.2.4 Adapted translation11Conclusion13Bibliography15Acknowledgments16161 IntroductionAs an audiovisual art, a product of a particular culture, movie is one of the most influential mass media reflecting peoples life. Although movie was born in the west, it is gaining prosperous popularity and has now become a global art. During the past decades since 1978 when China began to conduct its Reform and Opening-up Policy to the outside world, communication between China and the rest of the world, has been becoming increasingly frequent, resulting in the plunging of many foreign movies into Chinas movie market. Since very few people can understand original English movies, all the original works have to be translated to reach the vast Chinese audience. Translating foreign audiovisual art works has become a significant activity in promoting cultural exchanges. However, movie translation is far from being explored. It is true to movie title translation in particular. The movie title, being short in form but rich in meaning, has its own linguistic, aesthetic and cultural features, which deserve careful investigation and consideration from the translator. Movies titles translation is the translation across cultural boundaries. A good translation of the movie title would unquestionably contribute a lot to the charm and success of the movie. On the contrary, a poor translation may not only fail to attract audience or even mislead the audience, but degrades the value and beauty of the original movie on the whole. Thus the translation of movie titles is an interesting, meaningful and demanding activity. A properly translated movie title should be concise, condensed and compact, which can grip the attention of the audience at their first sight and stimulate their association with the plot, reveal the theme or offer some clue. In this paper, we will introduce the categories of English movies, the general features, and functions of English movie titles, then set out four methods of translation, and a set of principles followed by the translation, then sum up movie titles translation should be combined with the translation practice, and continually improve in the practice. 2 A General Review of English Movie TitlesIt is not difficult to see that movie, as a special art form, is different from other forms such as books or magazines, which could be laid on bookshelves for readers to appreciate first and decide whether to buy or not later. Movie differentiates itself from books, magazine and TV series in that it is able to achieve the effect of aesthetic, artistic and sensual pleasures at a very fast speed. Particularly in this hustle and bustle world, movie title is destined to be very attractive in the first place, so as to arouse peoples desire to watch before they walk into the cinema, and achieve its commercial goal, that is more box office as well. Whether the movie is attracting or not, the name is one important deciding factor, for it is often the first that comes into the potential viewers attention. If the title is eye-catching and curiosity-stimulating, the movie is half successful. As has been stated above, a good translation of movie titles may add charm to the movie and contribute a lot to the box-office value. Before we come to the core of the thesis, it is quite necessary to make a general analysis of English movie titles in order that it will provide a better understanding of the research subject.2.1 Categories of English MoviesAccording to He Ying, movies usually fall into three categories based on different contents: documentary movies, science and educational movies, and feature movies. Feature movies are most popular in Chinese movie market, they not only cater for people of all walks of life, but also convey the most cultural information, hence the present paper focuses specially on the Chinese translation of English feature films, which are further divided into four sub-categories, namely, adventure movies, fantasy movies, comedy movies and lyric movies.2.1.1 Adventure MoviesAdventure movies include action movies, horror movies, western movies，disaster movies, spy movies and crime movies. Titles of this kind of movies normally feature emotion-stirring effect. Examples are The Godfather教父,Once Upon A Time in the West西部往事, Rebecca蝴蝶梦.2.1.2 Fantasy MoviesFantasy movies are usually scientific, visionary and imaginative, with science fiction movie as the main component. Titles of this kind aim to reveal new and strange things to the audience. A host of movies belong to this group, such as, Star War星球大战, Alien异形, Jurassic Park侏罗纪公园.2.1.3 Comedy MoviesComedy movies are designed to arouse laughter from the audience. Comedies are light-hearted dramas, crafted to amuse, entertain, and provoke enjoyment. Being rich in humorous flavor is the feature of titles of this type of movies. Movies such as Hot Shots! 反斗神鹰, Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World疯狂世界belong to this category.2.1.4 Lyric MoviesA large number of movies can be categorized into this type, including love story movies, family movies, drama movies and musical/dance movies. Movie titles of this kind are plain in wording but rich in romantic lyric and emotional flavor. Examples are Gone with the Wind乱世佳人, Golden Pond金色池塘, Love Story爱情故事, etc.2.2 Features of English Movie TitlesAlthough movies, as a kind of literary form, have something in common with other literary forms, they also possess some unique features, which make them different from others. The same is true of the case of movies titles. In the following part the overall features of English movies titles will be expounded from the linguistic, aesthetic, cultural and commercial perspectives.2.2.1 Linguistic FeaturesGenerally speaking, although English movie titles are very short, concise and compact with regard to the structure, yet rich in meaning. Lots of movie titles only contain one word, which may be the name of the hero or heroine, the place, or the time where or when the story happens or the theme of the whole story. For instance, Ali拳王阿里, Jaw大白鲨, Crash冲撞and Munich慕尼黑. Sometimes, they adopt various kinds of phrases as titles, namely, noun phrases, verb phrases and prepositional phrases, which are exemplified in the following titles: The Silence of the Lamb沉默的羔羊，consisting of a modifier and the word it modifies; Dance With Wolves与狼共舞，using the structure of a verb-object phrase; On Golden Pond金色池塘，employing the prepositional phrase. In addition, some movies employ highly concise sentences as the titles. For instance, Its a Wonderful Life美好生活，The Superman Returns超人归来.2.2.2 Aesthetic FeaturesAs mentioned before, movie is a typical form of the modern art, which has its own aesthetic values and features. Being the part which first greets the audiences eyes, the title of a movie can well reflect such aesthetic features. Generally speaking, the aesthetic characteristics of movie titles are closely related to the application of rhetorical devices, such as simile, metaphor, irony, personification, alliteration, and so on. For example: The Elephant Man象人(metaphor), Crystal Heart心如水晶(simile), True Lies真实的谎言(oxymoron), What Price Glory光荣何价 (rhetoric question), The Science of the Lambs沉默的羔羊(allusion). 2.2.3 Cultural FeaturesMovie titles are closely related to various aspects of societies, such as religion, history, philosophy and so on. More often than not, cultural features are closely related to the quotation of idioms and allusions, which convey rich cultural meanings.For example, movies such as Seven七宗罪, Original Sin原罪are enveloped in strong Western color, and clearly show the great influence upon English movie titles exerted by western religious culture. A movie is a mirror and conveyer of a specific culture as the social context, cultural phenomena and ideology are shown and implied in it. This feature of movies can be reflected at the level of movie titles, which are inevitably branded by the typical national characteristics and cultural values. Chinese people can gradually get familiar with western cultures by getting in touch with English movies and fully understanding the titles with cultural-loaded words. 2.2.4 Commercial FeaturesAs a popular artistic form, movies are products of commercialization. To some extent, it is justified in saying that a movie will be meaningless if it cannot attract the public attention and bring large profit. Therefore, film titles should always be eye-catching and be tinged with commercial color. In a sense, such characteristic can help to boom the movie industry. However, this does not mean that one can merely pursue large commercial profit by providing some queer titles with no regard to the connotation of the original.2.3 Functions of English Movie Titles What on earth is the function of a movie title? Simply speaking, its primary function is to identify the film. In other words, a film title is a guide and interpreter of a film, which is firstly able to promote sales of the film and cause peoples interest, viewers discussion, researchers analysis etc. Therefore, a good title can be regarded as a kind of catalyst for the audience so that they have already had an emotional resonance with the film before the actual appreciation of it. Generally, movie titles have three basic functions: the informative function, the aesthetic function and the commercial function.2.3.1 Informative FunctionThe informative function is the basic function that any movie titles should possess. As the word “informative” reveals, this function provides basic or relevant information to the target reader. The core of informative function is the facts of the topic, the reality outside the language and the idea. As for a film title, it is supposed to give hint to the audience about what is going on in the story, thus help the audience decide whether they are interested in the movie or not.2.3.2 Aesthetic FunctionThis is the language designed to please the senses, firstly through its actual or imagined sound and secondly through its figures of speech. The rhythm, balance and contrasts of sentences, clauses and words also play their part. An excellent movie title can also perform aesthetic function in terms of providing the audience aesthetic enjoyment through colorful words with sound effects and the application of rhetorical devices. Movie titles with aesthetic function please the feelings of audiences through their unevenness in intonation, smoothness in sound and vividness in image presentation. 2.3.3 Commercial FunctionNowadays, it is very common that a movie costs hundreds of millions of dollars, especially the hot hit made by Hollywood. The commercial function proposed in this thesis is, to some extent, similar to the vocative function, the core of which is the readership, the addressee. Taking this explanation as reference, it can be concluded that a good movie title can also “call upon” the audience to see the movie, or to react in the way intended by the producer-buying tickets so that great box office will be generated.3 Methods of English Movie Title TranslationThe title is the head of the movie, and it serves at least three functions, as afore-stated, that is the informative function, the aesthetic function and the commercial function. A movie title usually embodies more than one function; nonetheless it inevitably will put emphasis on one of them. It is also the case with translation methods. Various translation methods or techniques exist and can be employed by the translator. Yet, none of them can solve all of the problems, so in movie titles translation, there must be one or more methods that are favored and are relied on by a translator. This chapter is devoted to the demonstration of the main techniques and methods enjoying the most popularity in this field, and when necessary, examples are cited to further elaborate the demonstration. 3.1 Principles of English Movie Title TranslationThe so-called principles and criteria of translation are actually the two aspects of the same thing. The former lays emphasis on the translator, who should follow these principles while translating; while the latter on the reader or critic, who may use the criteria to evaluate translation works. Whenever principles or criteria of translation are under discussion in China, Yan Fus “three-character guide”, which was first proposed in 1898, would be mentioned, namely, the principle of “信，达，雅” (faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance). In the past decades, Mr. Yans principle of translation has been generally regarded as a yardstick to measure the professional level of translation and a goal for translators to strive after. However, some scholars maintain the original three characters, and in the meantime add some new concepts to the character “elegance”. Despite the variety of opinions, two criteria are unanimously accepted, namely, the criterion of faithfulness/accuracy and that of smoothness, we may also take these two criteria as the principles of translation in general. A movie title is the foremost window through which the audience may get a rough idea of the content of the movie at first sight. Therefore, how to translate English movie titles successfully into Chinese has become an exceedingly important issue for the introduction of English movies to China. However, adopting what translation methods for translating English movie titles first needs a set of scientific principles, under the guide of which the translated film titles would be attractive, easy to be accepted and can fulfill the functions the original ones have. At the same time, English movie title translation is a cross-cultural communication process. In order to achieve the expected effect, in the translation of English movie titles, the translators need to pay attention to the above principles. 3.2 Methods of English Movie Title TranslationAs we all know, there exist many translation methods and no one single method can solve all problems of translation. This is especially true with English movie title translation. Techniques and methods are applied in English movie title translation. There are four types of translation strategies altogether in the present thesis, namely, transliteration, literal translation, free translation and adapted translation.3.2.1 TransliterationTransliteration means to write words or letters in or as the letters of a different alphabet and to preserve the sounds of the original to the largest extent, is an indispensable translation method when there is no semantic equivalence between two texts. In movie titles translation, it is characterized by phonetic correspondence, that is, to describe the English syllables through the corresponding Chinese characters carrying similar sounds. Transliteration is usually used in the translation of proper names, names of persons and places in movie titles. The translator needs to find the corresponding Chinese characters carrying similar pronunciation and acceptable to Chinese audience. Although this approach is not widely used in English movie title translation, it is indispensable. A few examples are given below: Casablanca卡萨布兰