A Study on the Translation of film titles

山东省德州市经济技术开发区赵虎镇丰乐李完小 申红霞

As an important means of modern cultural exchanges, film plays a quite important role in people's lives. With the continuous deepening of cultural exchange between China and foreign countries, large-scale foreign movies are introduced to china, which have enriched our minds. Hence the translation of films has gradually become a‘increasingly important area in Translation’ (钱绍昌,2001：1).

However, there exist a lot of problems, for instances,one film title has more than one translation edition, the good and bad are intermingled.In particular, the mainland,Hong Kong and Taiwan, because of the differences of cultural background and conventional way of thought, often have different translations for one title.

It’s the most common phenomenon in the translation of movie titles. Generally,the mainland edition is more faithful to the original title and is the maximum version to reserve the original form and meaning. Nevertheless, Hong Kong and Taiwan editions prefer to stand the commercial point of view, in favor of ‘treasonable Translation,’ that is, the recreation of the original title.For example, the blockbuster Catch me if you can performed by two best actors of Oscar was translated into‘我知道你是谁’in mainland ,‘神鬼交锋’in Hong Kong and ‘猫和老鼠’ in Taiwan .

Sometimes, because of the translator’s culpable consideration or incorrect understanding, the phenomenon of incorrect translation of film titles can be found everywhere.For instance , Mel Gibson's new work Passion, a film on the Passion of Jesus，was translated into ‘受难记：最后的激情’. With the distinction of region, some titles were often translated in company with slang. For instance,Space Tim was translated into‘太空也入樽’ in Hong Kong, as well as The Runaway Bride to‘走佬俏佳人’, which was not understood easily by viewers in mainland. Actually, ‘入樽’and‘走佬’respectively mean ‘play basketball’and‘escape’ in Yue language.

Movie is spirit product with artistic attributes, and also material product with merchandise attributes. But currently,commercial element occupies a considerable proportion in Hong Kong and Taiwan, leading to unrealistic title translation and entirely different from the original film. According to Hemingway's novel, the film adaptation The Sun Also Rises could be metaphrased to ‘太阳照样升起’, while it’s translated into‘妾似朝阳又照君’to attract viewers’ attention in Taiwan.Another film lolita, saying about the dramatis personae’s love with a girl who is about 20years younger than him, was transliterate ‘洛丽塔’ in mainland while in Taiwan and Hong Kong translated into ‘一树梨花压海棠’ which was from one of Sushi’s poem saying that his friend who is old has concubinage.With so thick commercial color,it’s very difficult for viewers to contact the title with the exactly content of the film.

Translation is inseparable from cultural backgrounds.Because of the differences between the East and West culture, it is often difficult for people to convey the original cultural consciousness to the target language completely in the process of translation. Sorokin,a scholar studying the theory of translation of Soviet, put forward ‘blank’ theory when they discussed discourse and its nation cultural characteristics.A good case is 〈卧虎藏龙〉, an infrequent perfect work made in our country in recent years. As the first homemade film winning four awards from Oscar movie festival, it’s a swordsmen film describing kind and enmity of all corners of the country in the ancient china. which makes the deep meaning of 〈卧虎藏龙〉nothing left, reduces the impression of the whole film greatly. There are others examples in this regard ： 〈霸王别姬〉 ‘Farewell My Concubine’,〈水浒传〉‘All Men are Brothers,Blood of the Leopard’etc.

Since there are so many problems existing in the translation of film titles, well then how to resolve these problems and what principles should be followed in the translation? I think that we should base on the equality conception to pursuit equivalent translation.

Meanwhile, like human’s name and place name, appeared in the English title, which must be transliterated according to its English pronunciation,also belongs to meterprase. For instances, Harry Porter ‘哈里.波特’，Hamlet ‘哈姆雷特’, Romeo and Juliet ‘罗密欧和朱丽叶’,Chicago ‘芝加哥’, Troy ‘特洛伊’ and so forth.

Translation of movie title is the same as other translation.It needs skill which is practiced and consummate craftsmanship.A good translation of movie title should not only be able to attract viewer, but also bring the viewer esthetical enjoyment. The current situation will be greatly improved in the future and the field of China's translation of movie titles could also stride forward the right direction.