电影片名翻译目的论的应用.doc

Essay 撰写：1017734167Application of Skopostheorie in Film Title TranslationA Thesis Presented to theFaculty of Binhai School of Foreign Affairs Tianjin Foreign Studies UniversityIn Partial Fulfillmentof the Requirements for the Degree Bachelor of by May，201214ContentsAbstractIII. Introduction1II. Literature review22.1 Development of the skopostheorie22.2 The theoretical foundations of skopostheorie32.3 current situations of translations on film titles52.3.1 The commercial character52.3.2 The purposive of translation on film title62.4 Film Title Translation in China72.4.1 Skopostheorie in Film Title Translation7III. Evaluations on the directing significance of the Skopostheorie for the film title translation and application of the Skopostheorie on the film title translation strategies83.1 The skopostheroie makes the effect of the film title translation better83.2 The skopostheorie provides more approaches for translating the film title93.3 The skoposthorie makes the translation on film title more valuable103.4 Applications of the Skopostheorie on film title translation strategies103.4.1 by means of metaphrase113.4.2 By Means of Re-creation113.4.3 by other means12IV. Conclusion13References15摘 要随着近年来电影业的商业化和产业化，电影已经完全超越了传统意义上的艺术形式，对电影、特别是电影名的翻译已不能单纯作为一种纯文学形式用传统的“等效”翻译理论或“接受美学”等理论进行研究,而应以“目的论”为理论依据,把电影看作有目的的交际行为,积极探索电影名的翻译,以满足当今电影业快速产业化的发展对电影名翻译所提出的新要求,实现电影的市场化和商业价值。 关键词：目的论；电影名；翻译；商业价值AbstractThe meaning of film has surpassed the ordinary art form with the industrialization and commercialization of film industry. Therefore, films, especially film titles, should not be seen and translated as pure literature under the direction of traditional “equivalence” theories. This paper, based on skopostheorie, will see translation as a purposeful activity and will give specific discussions on film title translation. The application of skopostheirie in film title translation might meet new challenges of film title translation putting forward by the rapid commercialization of film industry as well as it can be helpful to realize the industrialization and commercial value of film in the process of translation.Key words: Skopostheorie; Film Title; Translation; Commercial Value I. Introduction The movie industry was firstly made at the end of 19th century and it developed rapidly during the 20th century. Now it is one of the most influential pubic Medias in the world. At the meantime, a large number of foreign films were imported into mainland as it becomes an easy thing to communicate among different cultures and countries. It is very important to translate the names of these foreign films carefully because the titles are seen as outlines of the contents of these films. To some extent, the titles are decisive for consumers decisions. The titles of films can function as commercial ads as well as tools of art appreciation. Therefore, it is more important to translate these titles well. Moreover, the qualities of translations on the film titles rest on a premise. That is what the main theory directing translators to do their jobs is. As to the translation theories, they changed with the social development. Traditional translation theories, especially the equivalent theory made by the Christiane Nord, were recognized by the mainstream of academic field. Katherina Reiss and Hans J. Verneer, two famous theorists in German, found out limitations of the traditional translation theories in 1980s and put forward the Skopostheorie. This kind of new theory provides new approach for the scholars studying translation. The writer of this dissertation thinks that it is significant to apply skopostheorie into the translation field for the reason that it can fulfill the demand of the rapidly developing film industry. This dissertation will firstly discuss the content, foundation and development of skopostheorie on the basis of some scholars. Following this, it will discuss differences between traditional translations and the skopostheorie translation theory. Then, applications of the skopostheorie on translation will be involved. Finally, a conclusion will be summarized. II. Literature review2.1 Development of the skopostheorieThe skopostheroie is the main theory of German Functionalism which was generated in 1970s. It developed about 3 stages. In the first stage, Reiss pointed out in 1971 that the equivalent theory could not adjust to some kind of special communicating environment since some equivalent cannot be achieved. Therefore, special demands of translation were necessary for translating. Reisss viewpoints laid the foundation of skopostheorie. The Skopostheorie was put forward by Hans J. Vermeer (Vermeer, 1978). This theory surpassed the limitations of traditional approaches and stressed that translation was a purposive activity and the first rule needing to be obeyed was the purpose law. The purpose here referred to the social purpose of translation. The connotations of the theory mainly expressed his ideas: Skopostheorie was the cornerstone of the functionalist translation theory. In other words, the research on the functionalist theory paid great attentions to Skopostheorie. Except Vermeer, Christiane Nord is another important scholar. He did some thorough analysis of the functionalist theory including Skopostheorie on the basis of previous researches and wrote a book named as Translating as a Purposeful Activities: Functionalist Approaches Explained (Nord, 2001).The book still plays a very important role in the translation field nowadays. Christianes great contribution is that she added loyalty to the theory, considering its drawbacks and criticisms. Her main thought was function plus loyalty. Additionally, she was the first one to summarize main ideas of the Functionalism systematically in English and then was supported by the people all over the world. According to Toury (1999), all human beings had an inherent tendency toward socializing and social acceptability. As for Skopostheorie, he emphasized the role that a translator played. A visible translator had to accept the consequences of his/her translational decisions, as Toury (1999) declared, “it is always the translator herself or himself, as an autonomous individual, who decides how to behave, be that decision fully conscious or not. Whatever the degree of awareness, it is s/he who will also have to bear the consequences”. The translator, as an expert in translational action, must interpreted ST information “by selecting those features which most closely correspond to the requirements of the target situation” (Shuttleworth and Cowie, 1997).The practical significance of skopostheorie is that it takes breakthroughs on the traditional translation theory and puts forward that translating is not only finding out the pure changings among different languages, but also providing wholly new practical approaches and thoughts for translators to realize their goals. Moreover, the research level abroad has reached a level of some height. Most of the articles are about the theory itself. They give a brief or detailed introduction to it. Skopostheorie emphasizes some factors other than the ST and brings about some breakthroughs in translation. Despite its drawbacks, most people affirm the achievements of the theory. This is why it is drawing increasingly more attention around the world, including China.2.2 The theoretical foundations of skopostheorie As to the aspect of definition of the contents of translation, the skopostheorie bases on the behavior theory and intercultural communication theory. Translation is thought to be complicated behavior aiming at realizing the goal transferring information among different cultures and different languages environment. Vermeer thought that translation meant that translated for specific objectives in a specific environment. The law of purpose is seen as the first rule in the Skopostheorie as to all the translation rules. This point of view thinks that the process and measures adopting in the process are determined by the goals which translation wants to achieve. Translators who support skopostheorie hold that it is unnecessary for translators to consider all demands made by their clients, because clients may not be familiar with the materials for the reasons like limited professional knowledge or some other reasons. So translators can negotiate with their clients on the items like expectations and social communicating demands on the basis of numerous social cultural backgrounds. Only in that way can they ultimately achieve the communicative purposes setting by themselves. Additionally, the skopostheorie has to follow both the coherence rule and fidelity rule. The fidelity rule is derived from the coherence rule. That can be demonstrated in a fact that the fidelity rule will not be applicable if the functions of translated text differ from original text in accordance with the purposive rule while the coherence rule will not be used if it is not necessary to be smooth according to the purposive rule.There is a significant character in the theory of skopostheorie comparing with traditional translation theory. That is the falling status of the original text. The original text is seen as the most crucial factor in the traditional translation theory. Translators are asked to comply with the original text according to the traditional theory. At the same time, the theory of skopostheorie considers that measures will be determined by purposes and the original text is just only one of many sources needing to be considered. In other words, the original text is not the primary basis for translating. Therefore, it can be illustrated in the theory of skopoetheroie that the position of original text dropped. 2.3 Current situations of translations on film titles The film has become one of the mainstream art forms nowadays after about 100 years development since the birth of it in the end of 19th century. The movie is easy to be accepted by the audience because of its specification and highly ornamental comparing with words literature. There are lots of characters like appreciate, entertainment and commercial in the film since it was produced in western countries. The reason why may be the unique commercial character of capitalism culture. Films are classified into totally 3 groups: popular science film, instruction film and feature film. The former 2 kinds of movies can be translated by using the equivalent theory because the forms of them are simple and the main purpose is to describe some scientific phenomenon or some particular history incidents. Therefore, it is better to follow the original text. At the same time, the feature film differs greatly from others and has its own character which means that it is necessary to abandon the traditional approaches and translate following the rule of the skopostheroie in order to realize the commercial goals of movies.2.3.1 The commercial characterMovies are not only made for appreciating purely since the first beginning, but also for realizing the ultimate goal of producing and exchanging. The film is truly a creation activity from the perspective of aesthetics, while as to the objective of producing; it is just a product which would be made on a highly industrialized production line. The character of art is not obvious by contrast with its commercial character. Since the purpose of producing is maximum the profits, the movie has to have its own economic and exchanging value. Take the market of America as an example, the statistics of the Motion Picture Association of America show that the revenues made by the domestic movies are about 7.6 billion dollars while the revenues made by oversea markets are about 6 billon dollars. The number of revenues is the only decisive factor for producing movies. The movie industry has become the cornerstone industry in the service sector in America. To sum up, the movie industry there benefits a lot from its highly commercialized character. At the same time, the revenues made by the foreign language films are the major components of the whole revenues of the movie industry.2.3.2 The purposive of translation on film titleThe trend and objective of film translation rest on the highly commercialized movie industry and extensive space for development to some extent. So translation on film title is a very important link of the whole process of movie translation. The title of film can be seen as the brand of the product. Excellent movie name can attract pubic eyes and promote ordinary consumers to watch that movie. Finally, commercial value of the film can be realized by that kind of advertisement. The film title plays an important role in the commercial advertisement because of its foundation on numerous values like artistic, cultural and esthetic. These multiple value fulfills the demands of consumers psychologies. Therefore, the elements in this process can be describe as following: the value of film title can be seen as a bridge, multiple values like artistic, cultural and esthetic can be seen as piers while the commercial value can be seen as the road of the bridge. Based on the analysis mentioned above, it can be concluded that the translation cannot be limited by translating itself or realizing ordinary values, but to do the best to realize the tremendous value in the commercial advertisement. 2.4 Film Title Translation in ChinaTitle translation in China does not own much attention in China. However, when talking about title translation, there is one kind that has much discussion comparatively. That is the translation of film titles. With the development of our life, more and more Chinese, especially the youth, are fond of films. Some go to the cinema, buy and rent DVDs regularly. Therefore, it is not surprising that there is so much researches on films and relevant sectors. Considering the differences between English and Chinese, people pay more attention to the translation on foreign film titles. Wang Zheng (2001) used functional equivalence as the guiding theory. However, most of them dealt with specific methods. Xiong Qixu and Wang Chunyan (2003) viewed “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance” as the crucial standard. Also, it is known that a good film title is of aesthetic value. Yang Yongchun and Xu Xianjing (2007) emphasized this point in their essays. Ruan Hongmei and Li Na (2006) considered about cultural differences. In short, many scholars study film title translation from different translational perspectives in China. At the same time, some articles emphasized particular methods, while others focused on an integrated approach.2.4.1 Skopostheorie in Film Title TranslationIt is mentioned above that a lot of articles focus on specific methods in the perspective of film title translation. But most authors even dont talk about what kind of major theory they using as a guiding approach. In light of Skopostheorie, Liu Xiaohui and Cao Ning (2006) explored the limitations of the standard of “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance” in translation. They advocated that, talking about film title translation, the purposes and functions of the TT should be decided before particular means would be considered. Wang Huiling and Zhang Bihang (2006) held the view that films had far exceeded the conventional art form. Therefore, neither functional equivalence nor reception aesthetics was appropriate as the guidance. They viewed translation as a purposeful activity. They thought that the application of the theory to film title translation satisfied the new challenges which were brought about by the rapid industrialization of the film industry for the purposes of realizing cinematic commercialization. Both the articles talked about the limitations of some translation theories. They analyzed the characteristics of the theory and proved that Skopostheorie was suitable for translating the film title. Such researches are the initial exploration into the application of the theory to film title translation as valuable references in China.III. Evaluations on the directing significance of the Skopostheorie for the film title translation and application of the Skopostheorie in the film title translation strategies3.1 The skopostheroie makes the effect of the film title translation betterThe idea of functional equivalenceachieving in the process of translation which supported by Nord refers to that the thegrammatical structureofthe originaltext and the literal meaning of text shouldnot be rigidly adhered to, the translation should focus more onthereactionsofthe readers for the purpose of realizing the goal that readers read original text and translated text can both share the same psychology and feelings. Nord believed that the fundamental task of translation was to find out the most appropriate equivalence. Obviously in this kind of viewpoint, the fundamental task of translation is to make the translated text could be similar to the original text to the largest extent. Nords translation theory is seen as the guiding rule in the traditional researches and translations on film title. It still cannot get rid of the constraint of the rule of equivalence even it has already freed from the shackles of form of the rule. The original text is generally set in the core position in the process of translating the film title. Considerations and scrutinywill be done repeatedly in order to achieve the “equivalence” to the largest degree. The first rule is the purposive rule in the eyes of the skopostheorie. This theory as mentioned before, help the translators get rid of the bondage of the “equivalent” and change the role the purposive rule playing in the process of translating. It is more possible to achieve ide