The Operable Translation Strategies of English Movie Titles

YAN Xin

【Abstract】Movies can potentially reflect life， culture， or values of a society and their titles are the informative windows. The study is to present and research the effective and operable strategies of translation of English movie titles through real examples and detailed analysis.

【Key words】English movie titles； translation； strategies

1. Introduction

The title is the movies trade brand and is always put in the most eye-catching place on the movie bill. A properly translated title helps reveal the theme， the style and the features and plays a positive role of predicting the content. Its necessary to pay more attention to the translation of titles and get a clear understanding of it.

How to translate the movie titles appropriately？ Since titles are more often to be words， phrases or short terms， rather than long sentences， what translation strategies can be used and applied for movie titles translating？

2. The Operable Translation Strategies

The operable translation strategies can be divided into some categories： transliteration， literal translation， free translation and annotation. Each strategy is basic and operable. The application of them should be used in different situations with various cultural contexts and background.

2.1 Transliteration

Transliteration refers to the strategy of translating a title to target language according to the pronunciation of source language. Chinese and English are different languages， so it is hard to realize absolute equivalence of them in pronunciation， but it can be as close as possible.

Transliteration can maintain the original style and characteristic of the movie. For example， Macbeth “麥克白”， Tess “苔絲”and Avatar “阿凡達”. There are still some special cases. Cleopatra is a celebrated historical woman in western world. She is of wisdom， beauty and mystery. But if the movie Cleopatra is transliterated to “克里奧佩特拉”， some audiences who dont know the very period of history may feel puzzled. “埃及艷后” is a better translational version， which can draw more attention of the audiences.

2.2 Literal Translation

Sometimes functional equivalence between Chinese and English does exist. In this case， literal translation can be used. It refers to the strategy of translation without altering the structure of the source language or cause wrong associative meanings.

In translation of English movie titles into Chinese， the strategy is frequently applied and the instances are given as following： Pearl Harbor “珍珠港”， Star Wars “星球大戰”， A Beautiful Mind “美麗心靈”， The Patriot “愛國者”， Million Dollar Baby “百萬寶貝”.

2.3 Free Translation

Free translation is reproducing the general meaning according to the original text without paying attention to the form. If free translation is needed， the translator should deeply understand the themes of movies， and express them fluently in Chinese.

Mr. Hollands Opus can be regarded as the most classic example of free translation. It was translated as “生命因你而動聽” about a story of an ordinary music teacher， Mr. Holland， whose dream was to be a musician and to compose an immortal symphony， but he had to be a music teacher for livelihood. He confronted some difficulties in life， but he still devoted himself to the cultivation of his students interest in music for 30 years. In his old age， he realized that he had already composed a marvelous opus of which his students are the musical notes. If it is translated literally to “霍蘭先生的樂章”， the title is so plain and cannot reflect the deep meaning of the movie.

2.4 Annotation

Annotation is to add some words to the source text to complete its meaning in target language. On account of social and cultural differences， some English words meanings do not exist in Chinese. Adding information to the titles may help the audience obtain an understanding of the movies.

3. Conclusion

Titles are the indivisible part of the movies. Translating movie titles is an arduous activity owing to its leading role and great cultural and social differences between China and the western countries. In spite of the difficulties， it can be translated properly， as long as we master the basic， correct and operable strategies of translation which turn out to be pragmatic and successful.

References：

[1]Sobhan Shokri，Translating Movie Titles：Strategies Applied on Persian to English Cases[J].Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences.2014（5）.

[2]Yanxin，A Study on the Influencing Factors in the Translation of English Movie Titles[J].English on Campus.2015（7）.

[3]陳宏薇.新編漢譯英翻譯教程[M].上海外語教育出版社， 2014.

作者簡介：閆欣（1989-），男，漢族，陜西西安人，研究生，講師，西安郵電大學外國語學院教師，研究方向：翻譯文化與教學。