Abstract

In the past hundred years, movie industry enjoys a rapid development and becomes increasingly mature. With the coming of information era, exchanges between Chinese movies and foreign movies especially English movies become more and more extensive. English movies massively flow into Chinese market and become an essential part of our daily life. Thus translation of English movie titles is gaining more and more importance and is worth studying and discussing. Based on the basic theory of translation, this paper probes into the problems existing in the translation of movie titles and summarizes the characteristics of English movie titles. English movie titles translation should focus on faithfulness and artistry, which are the principles demanded by all kinds of translations, and the commercial fact and cultural effect which are characteristics especially belonging to movie title translation. In translation, translators can use the methods of literal translation, liberal translation, transliteration or an integration of those methods. Techniques like domestication and dissimilation can be also applied to avoid mistranslation and achieve the better results in the translating of movie title.

Key words: English movie; movie title; translation; characteristics; principles

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1  Introduction-1

1.1 Research Background-1

1.2 Research Purpose-2

2  Literature Review-3

2.1 General Profile-3

2.2 Domestic Researches-5

3  Problems of English Movie Titles’ Chinese Translations-8

3.1 Several Translations for One Movie Title-8

3.2 Overly Uniform Translations-9

4  Principles on the Chinese Translation of English Movie Titles-10

4.1 The Cultural Value Principle-10

4.2 The Informative Value Principle-11

4.3 The Linguistic Value Principle-12

4.4 The Commercial Value Principle-13

5  Conclusion-15

Bibliography-16

Acknowledgements-18