By
Qi Yushan
Submitted to the Department of Foreign Language of Shandong University of Political Science and Law in Partial Fulfillment to the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts in English
Under the Supervision of Professor Ms.Liang Juntong
May, 2010
Acknowledgements
I gratefully acknowledge all those people who have assisted me in the process of completing my graduation thesis. Without their help, this thesis would have been impossible.
First and foremost, I would like to express my great appreciation to my supervisor, Ms. Liang Juntong, who has followed my toils with invariable kindness and patience, reading as well as correcting this dissertation at different stages of its conception, giving me advice instructive and constructive in addition to valuable encouragement.
My thanks also go to Ms. Yuan and Ms. Bi for their encouragements and suggestions in the opening defense of this paper which have given me much benefit in writing it.
Finally, thanks go to my classmates and my dearest parents, who in one way or another have given me help and encouragement during my work on this thesis.
Review on the Translation of Movie Titles
Abstract: Translation is an art, as well as the translation of movie titles. Malcolm Cowley says “Translation is an art that involves the re-creation of a work in another language for readers with a different background” (陈德彰). There is no denying that the translation of movie titles is one kind of translation, belonging to the overall scope of a translation, but it still has its uniqueness. As an audiovisual art, movie is one of the most influential mass media, it follows and reflects people’s life and it is a product of culture. The movie title, being short in form but rich in meaning, has its own cultural, linguistic, aesthetic features. A properly translated movie title should be concise, condensed and compact, which can grip the attention of audience at their first sight. Besides, it needs to be not only concise but also contain a wealth of information, the total content of the movies. This really requires high translation skills between two different languages, as they are reflected in the context of the movie plot. I write this thesis to state that the translation of the movie titles must be loyal to the main meaning of the movie. We have to take all the meanings which are conveyed in the movies into consideration if we want to ensure that our translation can make the audience think of the main contents of the movies just from the titles. The movie titles are the headings of the movies and a good title can catch audience’s eyes when first noticed. The translation of movie titles is a communication between different cultures and when we do the work we must flexibly use literal translation, liberal translation and transliteration.
This thesis is made up of seven parts. The first chapter gives a brief introduction of translation which includes definitions, criteria and translation methods. The following five parts focus on the literal translation, liberal translation, transliteration, complementary translation and creative translation separately. And the last part is a conclusion which states my review on the translation of movie titles.
Key Words: Literal translation; Liberal translation; Translation of movie titles;
关于电影片名翻译的评论
摘要：翻译是一门艺术，电影片名的翻译也是如此。马尔科姆考利说：“翻译是一种艺术，涉及到不同的背景重新在另一个语言文字工作为读者创造”。不可否认，电影名称的翻译也是翻译类，属于翻译的总体范围，但它仍然有其独特之处。作为视听艺术，电影是最有影响力的大众传媒之一，它遵循并反映了人民的生活，是一种文化的产物。电影片名，形式简单，但意义丰富，有自己的文化，语言，美学特征。一个正确翻译的影片标题应该简明扼要，浓缩，紧凑，可以让观众第一次看到就留下印象。它不仅需要简洁，而且要包含丰富的资料，该电影的总内容。这确实需要两种不同语言之间高超的翻译技巧，因为片名将会在电影情节中反映出来。我写这篇论文，是为了阐述电影片名的翻译要忠于影片的主要内容及其意义。如果我们想确保我们的翻译可以使观众仅仅从片名中就能联想到电影的主要内容，我们要把电影中传达的所有意义考虑进来。电影名称的翻译是不同文化之间的一种交流。当我们做这项工作时，我们一定要灵活运用直译，意译，音译，补译和创译方法。
这篇论文由七个部分组成。第一章给出了翻译的基本介绍，其中包括定义，标准，翻译方法。接着三个部分分别侧重于直译，意译，音译，补译和创译来展开论述。而最后一部分是结论。
关键词：直译，意译，电影片名
Contents
Acknowledgements i
Abstract ii
Key Words: ii
摘要 iii
关键词 iii
Contents iv
Chapter One Introduction 1
1.1 Definitions of translation 1
1.2 Criteria of translation 2
Chapter Two Literal Translation of Movie Titles 3
2.1 Literal translation 3
2.2 Examples and analysis 3
2.2.1 Positive examples and analysis 3
2.2.2 Negative examples and analysis 4
Chapter Three Liberal Translation of Movie Titles 6
3.1 Liberal translation 6
3.2 Examples and analysis 6
3.2.1 Positive examples and analysis 6
3.2.2 Negative examples and analysis 8
Chapter Four Transliteration of Movie Titles 9
Chapter Five Complementary Translation of Movie Titles 11
Chapter Six Creative Translation of Movie Titles 13
Chapter Seven Conclusion 14
Bibliography 15
Review on the Translation of Movie Titles
Chapter One Introduction
1.1 Definitions of translation
There is no denying that it is difficult to define the translation. Different individual has different view. In fact, there are many definitions of translation. Now let us look at a few of them. We can find that “Translating is the art of recomposing a work in another language without losing its original flavor” from Columbia Encyclopedia (陈德彰). Eugene A. Nada put it that “Translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style” (任虹). By the same way, Malcolm Cowley gave us another definition of translation —“Translation is an art that involves the re-creation of a work in another language for readers with a different background”(杰米里·芒迪)..
In the above definitions several words are of much importance. The first one is “textual”, which reminds us what we usually translate are texts rather than independent words or sentences. The second word is “natural” which tells us that it is not enough to produce grammatically correct sentences. The translator should do his best to retain the special flavor of the original writer in order to let the target readers get a unique culture from his or her translation. The translator should understand perfectly the content and intention of the author whom he is translating. The principal way to reach it is reading all the sentences or the text completely so that you can give the idea that you want to say in the target language because the most important characteristic of this technique is translating the message as clearly and natural as possible. The translator should have a perfect knowledge of the language from which he is translating and an equally excellent knowledge of the language into which he is translating. At this point the translator must have a wide knowledge in both languages for getting the equivalence in the target language, because the deficiency of the knowledge of both languages will result in a translation without logic and sense.
1.2 Criteria of translation
The activity of translating in China has a long history. Thousands of years ago,
when people of different tribes and ethic groups speaking different languages and dialects communicated with each other, the translation is necessary. Most translators think that the essence of translation is the conveyance of the original meaning and expressiveness. It is sometimes said that there is no task more complex than translation. In translation, a translator not only need to know their source language well, they must also have a thorough understanding of the field of knowledge covered by the source text, and of any social, cultural or emotional connotations that need to be specified in the target language if the intended effect is to be conveyed. Until now, the most popular and acclaimed criterion was “faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance” which was raised by Yan Fu (任虹). Although we can find many other criteria raised by modern scholars, I acclaim the “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance”. And in this paper, I mainly discuss the criteria of movies titles’ translation. But the translation of movie titles is a little special. A movie title is like the lintel of a movie and it has to be able to reflect the movie’s central element, also short, novel and it can lead audience into the door.
Chapter Two Literal Translation of Movie Titles
2.1 Literal translation
Literal translation is a word-for-word translation, it means translating source text literally. And in the translation of movie titles, this kind of translation accounts a large proportion. In the premise of not leading to misunderstanding, movie titles are often translated literally. Literal translation is an important translation method and it has many advantages including maximizing the retention of the original title of the ideological content and forms of expression to achieve the perfect unity between the two and ensuring the original flavor of the movie title. Since the literal translation is the mostly used method in the translation of movie titles, we can easily find a great number of good examples. These include Love Story《爱情故事》, The Sound of Music 《音乐之声》On the Golden Pond 《金色池塘》,Wedding Planner 婚礼策划人》,Cider House Rules《苹果酒屋的规则》,and A Room with a View《看得见风景的房间》.
In fact there are so many examples that I can not list one by one. The following is analysis of some examples of literal translation.
2.2 Examples and analysis
2.2.1 Positive examples and analysis
Firstly, Big Liar is translated into “大话王.” Its Chinese title is very simple just like its original one and it can make people think it is maybe a movie about a person who likes to talk big and hardly keep his promise. As the matter of fact, the hero in the movie is a lawyer who is good at lying. He lies to his boss, his colleagues, his wife and his little lovely son. What is worse, he often lies in the court in order to win lawsuits. From this example, we can find something common between Chinese and American culture. In Chinese, if a man says he can do something but he actually can not do it, we call him a big liar. And it is about the same in English. The translation of Big Liar, which translated in a word-for-word way, is simple and effective.
The Graduate, directed by Mike Nichols, starred by Dustin Hoffman, was really a success. It is a milestone of American movies’ history. Its Chinese title is “毕业生”, a typical literal translation. The translation is concise, simple and successful. The movie mainly gives an account of a graduate, a young man who does not know where his future is. Living in a rich home, he is lucky and surrounded by glory and wreath apparently. In fact he is lonely and prefers to do nothing but keep silent. He graduates from university and should plan to find a job and then own his family. He is an adult now and he is eager to get a love but it seems that his preparation is not enough. When a middle aged woman, one friend of his parents, flirts with him, he knows that he should deny her but his inner desire makes him to develop an abnormal relationship with the woman who still has a mature charm. Nowadays graduates in China also face the same problem. They leave school and enter the complicated society and will meet enticements like this or that. Maybe graduates are not children any more and have their own ways to think and act, they are still too young to ponder some intricate problems in a rational way. The title is translated into “毕业生” and it is appropriate and good.
There is another good American movie whose title is translated into “勇敢的心”. This is Braveheart, an epic movie which is directed and starred by Mel Gibson. It is a great work which makes us excited. As usual, we say a brave man, a brave boy, a brave horse and so on, but we find brave heart in this movie. If you have watched this movie, you must have been shocked by the hero William Wallace’s brave heart. He fights for his country and his love and his freedom. He is afraid of nothing because his brave heart can defeat anything. It is Wallace’s brave heart that gives him endless power and steely determination. To his country, Wallace is a national hero who is admired by every citizen; to his love, Wallace is a strong man with a gentle heart; to himself, Wallace is a man who can control his fate and have the courage to get the life which in his dreams. After watching this movie, we are touched by the hero’s brave heart without a doubt. So the audience is attracted by the title first and then remembers the hero and also the movie Braveheart. A literal translation of Braveheart can convey the content of the movie well.
2.2.2 Negative examples and analysis
Not all the movie titles can be translated literally. We have to take different culture between Chinese and English in consideration. In the first place, there are many idioms in the two languages and some idioms occur in the movie titles. If we always translate the movie titles which consist idioms and words with special meaning word for word, we sometimes make mistakes which can mislead the audience to misunderstand the related movies.
American Beauty, directed by Sam Mendes was a classic movie. The popular translation of this movie is “美国丽人”. It is right at first glance as there is nothing wrong in grammar. However, it is a literal and mechanical translation. American beauty is a kind of flower called Red Rose which blossom throughout the year. This beautiful rose symbolizes pure love. And here “beauty” does not a pretty woman. So we should not translate it into “美国丽人” but try to do the work from the plot and the meaning of the movie. The movie compares the rose to the lady and conveys the meaning through the flower. As a result, famous flower and beautiful woman are combined. A translator who are familiar with the words of this flower translated American Beauty into “美国心？玫瑰情”. He used Chinese rose (玫瑰) to replace American beauty to reveal the spirit and connotation of the movie.
Besides, because of difference between two languages and culture, two words in same form maybe have totally different meanings. For example, First Wives Club, a comedy movie, was once translated into “大老婆俱乐部”. But “first wife” in English means one man’s first wife and unlike a concubine in Chinese culture. So we can find a better translation “原配夫人俱乐部”.
Another example is the translation of Rambo: First Blood, Whose popular Chinese title is “第一滴血”. “First blood” is an English idiom which should be translated into 首战首捷. So the translation of this movie is absolutely wrong. The movie mainly tells us a series of stories of Rambo acted by Stallone. Rambo is a preeminent soldier and he fights for his country and survive the terrible surroundings. There is little relationship between first blood and the movie’s plot.
Chapter Three Liberal Translation of Movie Titles
3.1 Liberal translation
As discussed above, literal translation is a free translation. Free translation is a skill in translation. Translators should first comprehend the original thoroughly, and then translate it correctly into target language, and acceptably comprehending of the original thoroughly is on the basis of extensive knowledge and excellent literature training. Some successful translators, when they were translating they did the research on the original author at the same time. Free translation refers to a translation method which is according to the meaning of the original, without paying attention to the details and this translation would also be fluent and natural. Free translation need not to pay attention to the form of the original, including construction of the original sentences, meaning of the original works, and metaphor of the original and so on. But free translation does not mean to delete or add content to the original and translators must consider the original carefully, knowing its stress, and translate it naturally, expressing the meaning of the original. Free translation is a skill which translators must know the culture of both source language and target language and have extensive knowledge. If we want to take some good translations as examples, we can focus on the following movie titles: Mission Impossible 《碟中谍》, The Mission 《传教士》, Sideways 《杯酒人生》, In the Cut,《正中下怀》, It happened one night 《一夜风流》, The Rock 《勇闯夺命岛》, Somewhere In Time《时光倒流七十年》.
3.2 Examples and analysis
3.2.1 Positive examples and analysis
Sometimes the literal translations of movie titles are not appropriate. So we have to resort liberal translation or free translation. Some strange movie titles confuse our Chinese audience. For example, The Bourne Identity, which is “伯恩身份” if translated word for word. The audience just does not know what happens in this movie and the Chinese title is too common to attract people’s attention. A smart translator gave this movie another name “谍影重重”. This is a good translation which itself is a charming name. People are interested in the movie immediately seeing the title because it gives people a kind of tension. In the movie Bourne, acted by Matt Damon is a spy at beginning. But with the development of the story, his lost his identity and both his boss and his enemy want to kill him. There is no denying that Bourne was framed. In order to survive and get back his identity with glory, Bourne overcomes difficulties one by one and he is lucky enough to escape. As a specially trained spy, Bourne shows us his strong body, good marksmanship, keen observation and extraordinary courage. Each time when he is in danger, with the intense background music, the audience can not help to worry about him and he always does a good job at last. The relationships among actors in the movie are intertwined and complex. A band of guys look for Bourne to kill him while Bourne tries his best to find out the person who frames him. So “谍影重重” conveys the theme of the movie vividly and it is really worth our commendation.
A Place in the Sun, adopted from Dreiser’s novel The American Tragedy is a classic movie. The movie title’s translation is a good example of liberal translation of movie titles. “A Place in the Sun “means a place located in the sun. It is a little strange and difficult to understand for people who have little knowledge about the plot of the novel. And it is obscure and it hardly tells people the main plot of the movie. We can translate it into “太阳中的某个地方” which is just like a fairy tale for children. Firstly, we need to get enough information about this movie such as its plot, meaning and purpose. This movie is about a poor young man. This young man falls in love with a pretty girl and the girl also loves him deeply. Then the young man strives to be a rich man and he does everything possible to get what he wants to get. The desire to be rich makes the young man lose his reason and he kills her love at last. Every audience can easily get the point that the young man is a criminal and he hurts his love’s heart and even kills her. In the man’s eyes, his love is nothing compared with his great wealth. The young man is not an indifferent person without conscience. His heart is as cold as iron. “郎心似铁” is a proper translation of this movie as it can tells us what is about the movie and it is loyal to the content of the movie and it mainly epitomizes the movie’s aim. So it is easily accepted by receptor audience.
The Pursuit of Happiness, directed by Gabriele Muccino, is a classic work. The protagonist whose name is Chris Gardner, acted by Will Smith impresses audience deeply. This movie is translated into Chinese “当幸福来敲门”. It is another good translation which belongs to liberal translation. When we translate movie titles, we have to consider expressions of the target language. It is also right to translate this movie title into “追寻幸福”. However, “追寻幸福” sounds prosaic. In the movie, Chris Gardner works hard to change his terrible life and he runs around to sell his medical equipments. What he is thinking is to
sell more medical equipments to get his payment until he meets a stockbroker who drives a Ferrari and can make 8,000 dollars each month. From that moment on, Gardner makes up his mind to work as a stockbroker even though he knows it is not easy for him. It is an opportunity for him to be a stockbroker when he is allowed to attend a training of being a broker. In that period of time, Gardner is not happy at all and busy both learning and caring his little son. It is said that “where there is a will, there is a way.” Gardner gets a job being a stockbroker at last and he can live in a happy life and tastes the happiness. When an opportunity comes, Gardner seizes it tightly and works hard to make his dreams come true. In fact, the movie’s plot is simple and it wants to tell us one should catch hold of every opportunity through Gardner’s story. Now it is safe to say “当幸福来敲门” is enough to lead us to watch and understand this movie.
3.2.2 Negative examples and analysis
We can easily find a great number of good liberal translations of movie titles. However, we can also find some examples which are not suitable and hardly deserve our admiration.
Good Boy, directed by John Robert Hoffman was once translated “我爱一嘴毛” which lets the audience hardly understand the movie. The Chinese title is a little contradictory and few people can receive it. This movie gives an account of a story of a boy and his loved dog. The dog, being from the Alien, is not an ordinary dog and something interesting and incredible happen on the dog and its master Owen. According the plot of the movie, a translator gave us a better translation of the title “外星神犬”. Good Boy is a science fiction and “外星神犬” is vivid to tell us the movie’s protagonist. But “我爱一嘴毛” is nothing related with the movie and it fails to give rise to the audience’s interest.
I, Robot, another science fiction directed by Alex Proyas，was translated into “机械公敌”. Maybe because there is a movie starred by Will Smith whose Chinese name is “全民公敌”, people are used to translate Will Smith’s movies into “**公敌”. But this movie is not like Enemy of the State. We must be loyal to the plot of the movie and translate its title according to movie’s content.
Chapter Four Transliteration of Movie Titles
Transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another. Transliteration attempts to be lossless, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words. To achieve this objective transliteration may define complex conventions for dealing with letters in a source script which do not correspond with letters in a goal script. (Net.1.)
Transliteration is a kind of method that the movie title is translated according to its pronunciation, usually used to translate the specialized nouns. Some movies are named after some heroes and the places as we mentioned above, and the names are well known to every one. Then transliteration is the first choice. We translate movie titles Jane Eyre, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, as “简.爱” “奥赛罗”, ,“罗密欧与朱丽叶”. Because all of them are adapted from famous literal works and most of us are familiar with them. The popular movie Harry Potter translated as “哈里波特”is also a good example of transliteration.
Besides, we translate the title of the movie Casablanca as “卡萨布兰卡”; Titanic, a ship’s name , “泰坦尼克号” is also an adoption of transliteration. It is well known to all that the movie Titanic is based on a real story of a splendid ship and we need not to explain its name. When translating foreign movie titles, we have to obey the following three rules:
(1). to follow the original language pronunciation. That is to say, if the leading role in the movie is an Englishman, we should translate it based on pronunciation in English. And if it is a name of a Frenchman, it should be translated into target language based on French pronunciation. Take “Theresa” as an example, if it is an English name , we translate it as “特里莎”, and if it is a French name, we translate it as “泰雪扎”. Another example is that “Tokyo” is a Japanese word, so we translate it based on Japanese pronunciation, that is “东京”, not“托克约”.
(2). Convention. Although some foreign names people or places are not standard pronunciation, they are well known and accepted by people all over the whole country and the world. Then we can also adopt the conventional names to avoid misunderstanding and chaos. That is why we translate “Athens” as “雅典” not “阿辛斯”.
(3). Writing proper and standard Chinese words. Marty is translated into “马蒂”not “马啼”or “马帝”, because it is a name of a woman, not one name of a man or others. By the way, “马帝”in Chinese is one male name as usual. We need to be careful when we translate movie titles in order to make sure that our Chinese words are properly used. Otherwise, we may make mistakes and mislead audience to understand the movies. (Net.2.)
Chapter Five Complementary Translation of Movie Titles
Compared with literal translation and liberal translation, complementary translation is rarely mentioned. It is a not only a method of translation but also a skill which is indispensable when we translate movie titles. Complementary translation is to translate movie titles based on literal translation or liberal translation. In general, the translator adds some words to the original translation which is not in line with the target language audience. We can find many examples of this new translation method.
There are a great number of good examples such as Blood and Sand《碧血黄沙》, The Piano 《钢琴别恋》, Taken 《飓风营救》, The Terminal《幸福终点站》, Shine 《闪亮的风采》and Waterworld 《未来水世界》.
Patton, directed by Franklin J. Schaeffer, is a war movie. In this movie, Patton, acted by George C. Scott, is a courageous, resourceful and gutsy officer. He is called a general unbeaten because he is able to control the battlefield and win. In his army, the disciplines are strict and every soldier is loyal to Patton and their country in the brutal battles. Patton is excellent commander who often makes his enemy routed. Based on content of the movie, the translator translated the title as “铁血将军巴顿”. This is a good example of complementary translation. When Chinese audiences see the title, they naturally think the movie is about a heroic general and this translation meets the Chinese people’s aesthetic requirements.
Shrek, a cartoon movie directed by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, is really a popular movie. Its Chinese title is “怪物史莱克”. It is clear that the English title is just Shrek which is translated as “史莱克”. The translator added 怪物to its transliteration in order to tell the audience that Shrek is a monster. It is loyal to the movie and “怪物史莱克” is vivid enough to guide audience to guess what is Shrek like. And this is just the aim of the translator and it is hard to say the translation is a failure. Besides, “怪物史莱克” can easily attract audience and children who are fond of fairy tales, in particular.
About complementary translation of movie titles, we have to mention the classic movie Ghost which moved thousands of people. It is about a love story between a living girl and a ghost. They fall in love and live a cozy and happy life. Unfortunately, Sam is murdered by one of his good friends. This greedy guy wants to get Sam’s bank savings and approaches to Molly by all means. To protect Molly, Sam, as a ghost, stays around Molly’s house. Time flies day by day, and then Molly feels the existence of the ghost of Sam. They can feel deep love between them all the time but can not meet. It is a strong love that connects Sam and Molly. One is a living person and the other is a ghost. The brilliant director gives us such a beautiful and dreary love story. By common sense, we may translate the movie title as 鬼or 魂, which mean terror and death in Chinese culture and audience may guess that Ghost is a horror movie and many of them have no plan to do to cinema. In fact, it is well known that its Chinese title is “人鬼情未了”. It is also a complementary translation which gathers up the love story in the movie and this title caters to Chinese audience’s psychological needs.
Chapter Six Creative Translation of Movie Titles
Creative translation is a novel translation method. It refers to a creative method which centers on the content of the movie rather than fixes on the form the original title possesses. A movie title translated by this method is intended to cater to aesthetic view of the audience. Although some titles by creative translation without any clues of the original, through careful analysis we can still get the wit and intentions of the translators. Top Gun《壮志凌云》can be regarded as the best example to explain the translation method. And we can also find other movies which are translated by creative translation such as Mission: Impossible《碟中谍》, The English Patient 《英伦情人》, Wolves of Wall Street 《吞食纽约》, The Italian Job《偷天换日》Somewhere In Time《似曾相识》.
When seeing Top Gun, we must think that it is a movie about war or about guns. As a matter of the fact, it is about a pilot of a fighter, Maverick acted by Tom Cruise. The Chinese translator translated Top Gun as “壮志凌云” which gives us a outline of fighting in the blue sky. In this movie, Maverick is a top pilot and his dream is in the sky. To be number one is every plot’s aim and Maverick finish his dream at last. When pilots are shuttling in the clouds and we feel the speed and pleasure, we can understand the translation is suitable.
Bad boys, an American movie directed by Michael Bay, whose title is translated as “绝地战警”, is a good movie. It is another good example of creative translation of movie titles. Det. Mike Lowrey, acted by the superstar Will Smith, is a very humorous Miami policeman and he always can finish the tasks with his gold partner Det. Marcus Burnett acted by Martin Lawrence. Both of them are not gentle policemen and they often call themselves “bad boys”. It is true that they are bad boys to the drug traffickers because the “bad boys” always can be able to break the criminals’ plots. The “bad boys” are brave and clever policemen and they are not bad boys in audience’s heart. The translation “绝地战警” can be their best names and it can attract people’s attention as it can easily make audience guess the movie’s main content.
Chapter Seven Conclusion
A movie is a vector of different culture and it can act as a communication tool between people from different countries. We can get a lot of knowledge by watching foreign movies such as customs, languages. For example, the classic movies from Hollywood do not only treat us with a visual feast but also but also give us a chance to have a trip to American customs. A movie title, as the eyes of a movie, is crucial to the success of a movie. A good movie title is concise and meaningful so as to touch audience’s hearts. And a movie title is a snapshot of language in use at a particular point in time. So the translation of movie titles is of vital importance. In my opinion, in the triple criteria “faithfulness, expressiveness, and elegance”, the first one is the most important. A title must be loyal to the content and plot of a movie and can make people easily understand what is about the movie. Besides, a movie title must be simple and concise.
To do the translation of movie titles well, a translator firstly should be familiar with the content and plot of a movie and understand the movie’s meaning. Secondly, a translator must be good at all kinds of translation methods including literal translation, liberal translation, transliteration, complementary translation and creative translation. Those are not enough because there are more methods which are not mentioned in this paper and they also need to be taken into consideration. Sometimes a translation method is not enough in the translation of movie titles. In this case, we need to use two or more methods flexibly. Finally, I appeal to the translators to put the service of the audience as their ultimate aim and translate more and better movie titles.
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[2] 陈德彰：《英汉翻译入门》，北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2005。
[3] 任虹：《翻译引论》，南京：东南大学出版社，2007-03。
[4]杰米里·芒迪：《翻译学导论:理论与实践》，北京：商务印书馆，2007-09。
[5]Net.1. Transliteration
http://zhidao.baidu.com/question/28104786.html
[6]Net.2. On Translation of Film Titles
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