摘 要

电影产业是一种重要的文化产业，它结合了文化价值与商业价值。优秀的电影作品可以给观众带来美好的文化欣赏体验，给予创作者巨大的商业回报，更能丰富国家乃至世界的文化多样性。随着全球化及电影产业的不断发展，许多英文电影在中国上映，这就产生了对电影字幕以及片名进行翻译的需求。电影片名对于电影的宣传有着举足轻重的作用，电影片名有四种基本的作用，即描述影片的主要内容，刺激影片的票房，展露影片的审美内涵以及促进文化交流。由于英文和中文在构词、语法、语言习惯、文化内涵等各方面千差万别，因此，在进行片名翻译的过程中，译者扮演了重要的角色，他们需要尽可能地克服英语和中文之间的语言及文化等壁垒，使得英文影片能够在中文语境中达到更好的宣传效果。

虽然大陆地区、香港地区和台湾地区均使用中文作为官方语言，但是由于地区性的各方面差异对于语言的深刻影响，这三个地方的译者在翻译同一部电影的片名时往往会采用不同的方式，形成不同的版本。这些不同的版本在含有英译汉片名翻译的共同特征之外，也显露出鲜明的地区特征。本文将对电影片名的特征及片名翻译的方法进行研究，在此基础上结合具体例子，对大陆、香港和台湾地区英译汉片名翻译性进行对比研究，由此探索地域性差异对英语电影片名翻译策略选择的影响。

关键词：电影片名；片名翻译；英译汉；地区差异

Abstract

Film industry is very important because it contains both cultural and commercial value. An excellent film can bring wonderful cultural appreciation, reward large amount of money and enrich cultural diversity. Based on the globalization and continuous development of film industry, many English films have been released in China, which uplifts the need of subtitle translation and title translation. Film title plays an important role when propagandizing the film according to its four main functions－to express the main information, to uplift the box office, to show the inner aesthetic value and to promote cultural communication. Due to the diversity between Chinese and English , including language, culture and so on, the translators need to overcome these difficulties to make the films known by more Chinese people.

Although the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan all regard Chinese as official language, translators often choose different ways to translate movie titles because of regional difference’ influence on language. These different versions not only show common features of title translation—from English to Chinese, but also reveal distinct regional features. This paper will make a research on the functions of film titles and translation methods used while translating the titles into Chinese. And by doing this comparative research, this paper will reveal how regional culture exerts influence on the choice of translation methods in the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Key Words: film title; title translation; English to Chinese; regional differences

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Research Background 1

1.2 Research Purpose 1

1.3 Research Significance 1

2 Main Functions of Film Title and the Principles of Title Translation 2

2.1The Functions of Film Titles 2

2.2The Principles of Title Translation 3

3 Translating Methods Used in Title Translation 4

3.1 Literal Translation 4

3.2 Transcreation 4

3.3 Adaption 5

3.4 Transliteration 5

4 Comparative Analysis on Regional Differences in Title Translation 6

4.1 Historical Factors 6

4.1.1 The Mainland 6

4.1.2 Hong Kong 7

4.1.3 Taiwan 7

4.2 Regional Dialects and Cultures 8

4.2.1 The Mainland 8

4.2.2 Hong Kong 8

4.2.3 Taiwan 9

4.3 Personal Preference 9

4.3.1 The Mainland 10

4.3.2 Hong Kong 10

4.3.3 Taiwan 11

5 Conclusion 11

References 13

Acknowledgements 14

The Regional Comparative Study On Film Title Translation

1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background

Under the development of Internet and globalization, the film industry, as an important part of cultural industry, has exerted more influence to people’s daily life and the whole society. An increasingly larger amount of foreign films have been on screen in China over the years. In this process, successful translation of the title has been attached great importance to because a good title itself can show the connotation of the movie as well as promote the box offices. However, even if the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan all speak Chinese, most of English-speaking movies’ titles were translated into different versions in in these regions. And the various Chinese titles make different effect on the popularity, positive or negative.

1.2 Research Purpose

Film is not only a commercial product, but also has significant meaning in the culture and civilization development. With the background of growing need of film title translation, Chinese translators are playing important role in the process of importing English-speaking films. Compared with translation in other fields, the film industry contains both the cultural and commercial value that should both be concerned while translating the English titles. At the same time, the movie titles hold four main functions, which are information transmission, art aesthetics, commercial value and cultural communication. In this research, we need to obtain how the translators achieve these four main effects the same as its original titles as much as possible. This paper is also trying to figure out the factors that lead to the differences between these three regions and make research on the using of translation methods in film industry. By doing so, this paper could point out the importance of successful translating when we import foreign films.

1.3 Research Significance

By making research on this subject, we can know how the translation techniques and methods are practically used in film industry and its special requirements when translating the titles. It is meaningful for us to understand the translation industry better. Furthermore, although the people in mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan all speak Chinese, they have diverse local culture in all aspects, especially in the way people communicate with other people. This paper will analyse cultural background’s influence on the translation of English film titles. It is also significant in realizing the mutual influence between the source language and targeted language based on the local culture. Moreover, we can obtain the importance of translating while promoting foreign films in China and realize its influence in film industry as well as the cultural communication between China and English-speaking countries. Language epitomizes the culture of one region, and film is a kind of sticking representatives. It can reflect many in-depth aspects of different social issues and interpersonal communication, perceivable or imperceptible. Last but not least, we can improve our professional literacy as an English major and also know the true meaning of accurate translation and excellent translator, especially in film title translation.

2 Main Functions of Film Title and the Principles of Title Translation

2.1The Functions of Film Titles

Film title represents the core information of one film, so whether the title is excellent or not highly decides whether a successful film is paid off accordingly, including the commercial reward and the honor.

Generally, film title has four main functions. The first one is to express the main information of the film. It can be the main character, the main story, the clue or an importance sentence. Therefore, audience can know the general content.Second function is to increase the box office. Since film industry is a commercial industry, it needs to earn money. So a good film title should arouse more public interest, and attract them to book the tickets and go to the cinema. Therefore, people can be appealed to more wonderful films and appreciate art products, at the same time, the creators can feel the sense of success and can create more excellent films. The third one is to show the inner aesthetic value. Movie is a kind of product that can lead people to experience the aesthetic journey, can it be ocular, sensuous or aural. So a good title should show the inner aesthetics to the audience.The last function of film title is to promote cultural communication. Since one culture inevitably contains some content of its nation, so the film, as an important cultural product with extremely high impact among different countries and nationalities, is obviously influenced by and labeled with its national personality. Therefore, an excellent movie title should show its value in promoting cultural communication and diversity.

2.2The Principles of Title Translation

As an increasing amount of foreign films are introduced into China in recent years, the need of title translation has increased. Generally speaking, the main principle of title translation is that the translated title should also achieve the same functions as the original one, that is to express main information, to promote the box office, to show the inner aesthetic value and to promote cultural communication. Then translators can help attract more people come to the cinema to see the film.

However, there is also the fact that Chinese is totally different from English. Chinese belongs to Sino-Tibetan language while English belongs to Indo-European language. They have different words, grammar, cultural background and so on. In terms of film title, English and Chinese have diverse features except from common functions. There are more nouns or noun phrases used in English movies but more verbs or verb phrases used in Chinese ones; English ones are more direct while Chinese ones use more image. And due to diverse culture, English-speaking countries and Chinese hold different senses of values, ways of thinking and religious faith, which profoundly make effect on the content of films and of course the film titles.