电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论
摘要:随着文化交流的扩大,越来越多的国外影片引进中国,受到观众的喜爱,越来越多的中国电影受到外国观众的关注。电影标题作为电影语言的一部分,是电影第一面对受众的部分,其翻译自然是电影推广宣传的关键一环。众所周知,电影标题也是社会语言的一部分,当然会涉及到社会文化形式的各个方面,包括政治,经济,历史,宗教等。如何逾越不同社会文化背景所造成的理解鸿沟,是电影片名翻译首先要解决的问题。语境适应论作为国内语用学范畴探讨的新理论,对如何逾越不同社会文化背景所造成的理解鸿沟有较强的指导性。本文首先从商业、文化、艺术的视角指出了片名的重要性,接着分析了电影片名翻译主要影响因素——社会文化背景差异,然后详细分析了解决这一因素的语境适应论,并根据这一理论探讨指导中外电影片名互译的实用策略,同时指出语境适应理论对片名翻译有制约和延伸的作用。
关键词:电影片名;翻译; 文化差异; 语境适应论; 翻译策略
ABSTRACT:With the development of culture exchange in the world, more and more English films have been introduced into our country, which have gained preference of the Chinese people. At the same time, Chinese films are favored by foreign audience. Film title is an important part of film language, and the first part to be directly confronted with the audiences, whose translation plays a critical role in promotion of the film production in international film market. As we all know, film title is also a portion of the social language, so it surely relate to aspects of the social culture, such as politics, economics, history, religion, etc.. Therefore, how to bridge the comprehension gap of the audiences from different cultural background is crucial to film title translation. Contextual Adaptation Theory, a hot topics in pragmatics nowadays, mainly talks about the key to bridge the gap of different contextual backgrounds, so this paper will apply contextual adaptation to the film title translation. Firstly, the importance of the film title translation is analyzed from the perspective of commerce, culture and art; then the paper discusses the main factors of film title translation, that is the difference of the cultural backgrounds; in the following chapter, Contextual Adaptation Theory is introduced in details, for the purpose of exploring the proper strategies of film title translation.
Key words: film title; translation; cultural difference; contextual adaptation; translation strategy
1 Introduction
As we all known, film is an audio-visual art. This glamorous act is a magnificent gem in human history, which creates romantic stories and leads human into a marvelous land we have never come before. Looking back to the development history of film, we cannot deny that film reflects the society reality and the time spirit. As the cultural exchange between China and overseas become booming, film plays an important role as culture envoy. Film was entrusted with the mission to let more people from different cultural backgrounds to enjoy the entertainment and share advanced technology together. This is an unavoidable trend in the world now.
As the most popular form of mass communication, film has accompanied human for almost one century. In the long history, film industry experiences six serious changes. From the era of film’s father Liaster brother taking black and white documentary into people’s life to the era of talkie, ever-big change of film industry has remarkable significance in human history. Countless famous film stars show their charming glamour on the screen and many excellent films are popular with audience in the whole world. Entering into 21 century, the film industry continues to develop rapidly, which is entrusted with the mission to let more people with different cultural background understand foreign culture. As the development of society, the trend of film importing and exporting is unavoidable due to the globalism.
Since the policy of reform and opening carried out in China at the end of 1970s, an increasing amount of English films have entered Chinese market and the Chinese film industry has developed in the meantime. Both sides need to share the market and spread culture of each other. Therefore, it is curial to be accepted by the audience from other cultural background. Undoubtedly, film title translation is an important segment concerted, which is far from being explored. Film title musters the essence of the film wholly, and in some sense, a successful film title should be the one that can attract people to the cinema. A good translator should translate the film title in the base of the contextual adaptation, which reflects the culture surroundings of audience such as society current situation, religion and history. Those objective factors are in direct contact with acceptance and comprehension of audience. Actually, it is high time that film title translation should pay more attention to the contextual adaptation field. This paper makes a tentative study of Chinese and English film title translation with an attempt to formulate some practical theories and methods to explore film title translation.
The film title muster 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论s the essence of the film wholly, and in some sense, a successful film title should be the one that can attract people to the cinema and that should become a great box-office hit.
The intense rivalry of big film companies impels all film investors to pay careful attention to the international market. However, film title translation is a process to master the psychology and acceptance of foreign audiences. Namely, this process is a cruel segment to enter international market. The aim of translating film title is to inherit, that is to say, the translator should apply audience-oriented translation skills on the base of referring to film content in order to enter into the market successfully .The aim of film title translation lay the position of disseminating film . Translation is not just the process of language transferring, but the society phenomenon of culture exchange . [1]The great mission of film title translation is to incarnate the culture value and develop the understanding between different countries.
Being a special and significant part of translation, film title translation has been piloted from many aspects, such as the angle of reception aesthetics, the perspective of skopostheorie and cultural perspective. A great portion of scholars keep their eyes on reception aesthetics which has often been taken as the theoretical background to analyze film title translation. Based on those theories, typical models are established aiming at providing the theoretical framework to guide film title translation. Those fruitful research contribute a lot to the work. However, till now not a single theory or theoretical frame has been set up to guide the film title translation, which is far from being explored in the past years.
Contextual adaptation, a newly developed field in China, is adopted as the theoretical background of this paper and an audience-oriented English and Chinese film title translation approach is highly advocated. The reception process is a kind of Contextual adaptation, and the contextual adaptation significance of a literary work cannot be fully realized without the reader’s reception. Contextual adaptation provides us with a new perspective of the relationship between film and audience. Exploring the sources, types and styles of film title, this paper claims that translating film title is on the base of four-foundation rule: information value principle, culture value principle, aesthetic appreciation principle and business value principle. Accordingly, this paper put forward three basic translating methods with the guidance of contextual adaptation, which are literal translation, transliterate and adaptation. Then the paper will raise those translating approaches with rich examples to elaborate the importance and the way of applying contextual adaptation.
Contextual adaptation serves as the theoretical base of this paper due to its apparent applicability of this newly developed field, which is testified as guiding principles. Convincing examples and proper methods have been given. Chapter One gives the importance introduction of film title translation, from the angle of social development and the angle of the aim of title translation. Chapter Two sates the definition, content and importance of contextual adaptation. Chapter Three studies the application of the contextual adaptation in film title translation, which includes four-foundation rule and three basic translating methods with typical examples of film title translation.
2 Main Factors In The Translation Of Film Title
The translator should bear in mind that there are some main factors in the translation of film title. Aesthetic Principle, Ideology, Theme and Style of film are the main points that need careful consideration in the process of film title translation. Then, in this chapter, the key factors of film title translation will be analyzed according to rich examples.
2.1 Aesthetic Principle And The Translation Of Film Title
Chinese aesthetics emphasizes the balance very much, particularly in using the organizational structure of the language like a parallel symmetry. Therefore, Four- character phraseology is commonly used in Chinese film titles and the translated titles of foreign, such translated titles as 卢浮魅影, 生死时速, 完美风暴, 一往无前, 永不妥协, 天使之城, 择日而亡, 霹雳娇娃, 狼犬丹尼, 冰河世纪, etc.
Westerners' aesthetic concepts is putting more emphasis on analysis and paying more attention to local and inspanidual and advocating conciseness which is reflect on the film titles directly. Substantial factors affecting the development of the film plot (such as people, objects, things, location, etc.) or a single term are used as a film title universally, like the net, Saw, the piano, Congo, ghost, the car, cold mountain, King Kong, etc. So now many Chinese films, ac 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论cording to the appreciating custom and psychology, adopt the translated titles as brief as western films’, such as 决战紫禁之颠into the Dual; Jet lee’s latest film 霍元甲 with the name Fearless; Chen Kaige’ s blockbuster 无极 with its translated title the Promise; 看上去很美with the Little Red Flower, etc.
2.2 Ideology And The Translation Of Film Title
The concept of ideology has been broadening and its introduction to Translation Studies has enabled researchers to probe into some translational phenomena, which might have been neglected otherwise. The ideological manipulation in translation could refer to "any interference with the text is it cultural, religious, political or otherwise, imposing modifications that are not textual constraints, for the purpose of indoctrination".[2]
As growing and living in the different social system, the ideology of Chinese people and westerners are quite different even different between Hong Kong, Taiwan and china main land. the title of Chinese film 红色恋人 audience know clearly it is about the love of the Communist in hard years. But in westerners’ mind, on one hand, they may not understand red lover indicate a couple of Communist lover, on the other hand, even if they know the t indicative meaning of the red in china, they do not identify with Communist at all. So it is a good choice to adopt creative translation with the film English title a time to remember.
2.3 Theme And Style Of The Film
Usually the theme and style of the film is related to the film titles cheek by jowl. Naturally it is closely related to the translation of the film titles as well. A good translated title should reflect the main idea of the film proper, well and truly, which embody the theme and give prominence to the style of the film.
To classify the 63 films according to its theme as follows:
type Film Translated title Ethical Films American beauty 美国美人 Rain man 雨人 Monster 女魔头 Forrest Gump 阿甘正传 活着 To live Campus Life Film Coach Carter 铁血教练 Mr. Holland's Opus 春风化雨 American Pie 美国派 10 Things I Hate About You 对面恶女看过来 War Films Apocalypse Now 现代启示录 Enemy at the Gates 兵临城下 All Quiet on the Western Front 西线无战事 Hotel Rwanda 卢旺达饭店 Saving Private Ryan 拯救大兵瑞恩 Legend-Based Films Cleopatra 埃及艳后 Alexander 亚历山大大帝 Troy 特洛伊 King Arthur 亚瑟王 The Aviator 飞行者 Western film Dances with Wolves 与狼共舞 Unforgiven 不可饶恕 To Kill a Mockingbird 杀死一只知更鸟 Once upon a time in American 义薄云天 Romance Notting Hill 诺丁山 开往春天的地铁 Spring subway Are We There Yet? 小鬼上路 The Break Up 同床异梦 Just My Luck 倒霉爱神 情迷大话王 Everyday is valentines 大城小事 Leaving Me, Loving You Political Films Schindler's List 辛德勒的名单 JFK 刺杀肯尼迪 Good night, good luck 晚安,好运 生死抉择 Fatal decision Cartoon films Monsters, Inc. 怪物公司 Robots 机器人总动员 Chicken run 小鸡快跑 Peter Pan 小飞侠 Sci-Fi Films Jurassic Park 侏罗纪公园 Artificial intelligent 人工智能 the Island 逃出克隆岛 serenity 冲出宁静号 Stealth 绝密飞行 Thriller film The Others 小岛惊魂 Silent Hill 寂静岭 Halloween 月光光心慌慌 Final Destination 死神来了 The Silence of the Lambs 沉默的羔羊 Musical film The Red Shoes 红菱艳 Chicago 芝加哥 Moulin Rouge 梦断花都 如果·爱 Perhaps love Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School 舞动心方向 Action film Rush hour 尖峰时刻 Cliffhanger 绝岭雄风 霍元甲 fearless Dust to Glory 车舞狂沙 喋血双雄 The Killer 纵横四海 Once a Thief Documentary film Rize 瑞兹 The Year of the Yao 挑战者姚明 Fahrenheit 9/11 华氏911 Deep Sea 3D 深海大进击/深深的海洋
We can see the film titles of different types above with different characteristics, Documentary film is the track record of true life and affairs in the world, so its translated title need brief and direct without any exaggeration or more special translating techniques. Ethical films usually have profound social meanings and ethical thinking, which have serious and elevated topics in truly sense. So the translated titles of ethical film do not need to be added some elements in translating, as the primary film name has been the best summary of the film. As to the legend-based films, war films and political film, they are all adapted from the true history in a largely scale, therefore we advocated the literal translation and we need the true and impersonal film title no matter after translation or not.
Finally, title translation of the other kinds of film has a vast room to bring techniques and imaginations into play. Thriller’titles are to create thriller atmosphere so that abundant Chinese character and thriller cultural element could be used in translation. Ro 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论mance’s translated titles should be warm, cozy, romantic and especially charming to female audiences and amatory audiences. Sci-Fi films titles should have fantastic and illusory color with some pressure, giving the imaginative room for audience. Cartoon film’ titles should be cute, dramatic, simple-word and new-minded so as to attract both children and grown-up.
3 Contextual Adaptation
As discussed above, whether the film title can be appreciated by target audience involves many aspects of human life, such as, politics, economy, history, all of which are included in macroscopic context. So to attract the target audience is to adapt their context. In this chapter, the author introduces the definition and content of contextual adaptation and makes a study of film title translation on this base due to its apparent applicability of this newly developed discipline. According to the contextual adaptation, a new visual angle to analyze target title can be raised.
3.1 The Definition &Content Of Contextual Adaptation
The contextual adaptation is in the range of context, which notion is essential to the pragmatic study of language. [3]The context is spanided into two portions, which are macroscopic context and microcosmic context.
The macroscopic context means social cultural appearance, which involves every aspect of human life. [4]In contrast, the range of microcosmic context is narrow. We consider it as the concrete environment shared by the speaker and hearer. Accurately, the contextual adaptation is in the range of macroscopic context. There is a long history to explore contextual adaptation abroad, which is composed of microcosmic contextual adaptation and macroscopic contextual adaptation. The macroscopic contextual adaptation means the process of language adaptation to specific surrounding, which is analyzed in the aspect of the society and culture. [4]Social surroundings restricts using language, which are the foundation of language development and the most complicated factors in context. The social surroundings include politics, economy, religion, history, etc. Different nations have their own culture due to the specific social surroundings, which differ from that of other nations. Because of the culture relative independence, there is an understanding gap between native and foreign culture. To build a bridge over the gap is an arduous mission for translator. The microcosmic contextual adaptation refers to the use of sentence as what people actually utter in the course of communication. Actually, the macroscopic contextual adaptation is adopted as the theoretical background of this paper.
3.2 Importance Of Contextual Adaptation On Translation
Traditionally, people consider translation as “faithfulness”. Translators have laid great emphasis on both source text and target text, on faithfully reproducing the original first in terms of meaning and second in terms of style. [5]Nevertheless, Professor Wu Jun explored the study of medium and considered the translation as “the essence of translation is the transmit of information, that is communication” [6] It calls our attention to the transference of the efforts from the text to the reception of the potential reader. As a new voice out of context, contextual adaptation ushers in fresh air to local translation studies. Translator can become the bridge between different languages under the prerequisite of contextual adaptation. Namely, contextual adaptation is the foundation of culture exchange and understanding.
3.3 Importance Of Contextual Adaptation On Film Title Translation
As a popular art, film is tinged with a film of commercialization. When the film enters into target market, the first impression for audience is film title. Understanding film content is very important, but we should take contextual adaptation on the top of the list. Contextual adaptation provides us with a new perspective of the relationship between film and audience. Different nations have different traditional cultures and value preferences, letting along the distinction of western and eastern culture. Through comprehending contextual adaptation to find the appropriate approach, the deviation of understanding will be avoided. There are plenty of wonderful target names in film domain. Those successful cases state the importance of combination of film content and contextual adaptation during translation.
4 The Application Of Contextual Adaptation In Film Title Translation
As stated previously, to gain a toehold in the international market, the overseas and domestic film companies are bumping up efforts to put forward their film to target audiences. Obviously, contextual adaptation is curial in the film title translation. It is the contextual adap 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论tation that endows the title with uniqueness that pleases the senses and provided audience enjoyment. In this chapter, the strategies of film title translation will be analyzed according to the fundamentals of contextual adaptation.
4.1 Realization Of Four Basic Principles
In the process of film title translation, translator should persist in four basic Principles for the propose to make the effect of culture exchange. The four basic points are the informative value, the cultural value, the aesthetic value and the commercial value. Those points are the concrete centerpieces in exploring contextual adaptation from theory to practice. According to the standard of contextual adaptation, there are three audience-oriented title translation skills:literal translation , transliterate and adaptation.
4.2 The Feasibility Of Contextual Adaptation In Film Title Translation
As the newly developed filed, contextual adaptation can be the guidance of the audience-oriented translation skills in film title translation. Translator can regard the contextual adaptation as the criterion to judge the target title whether it is successful or not. The restriction and extension of film title translation in perspective of contextual adaptation will be raised with typical examples as follows.
4.2.1Restriction Of Film Title Translation In Perspective Of Contextual AdaptationFilm title translation is restricted seriously by contextual adaptation due to the distinctive cultural background. Those objective factors take the surroundings of audiences into translator’s consideration in order to inherit essence of the original title.
As a matter of fact, many English films and Chinese films are full of legendary contents that’ll thrill audiences world wide, but their target titles are terrible. Take the famous Chinese film 《霸王别姬》for example, which was premiered at the Cannes festival.The film tells the vagrant life of artist of Beijing opera under the background of Cultural Revolution. Beijing opera 《霸王别姬》is the core point of whole film which is full of contradictions secrets, love and Chinese sentiment that attract foreign audiences deeply. Moreover, the life of two heroes are combined with Beijing opera 《霸王别姬》. Unfortunately, the title of this excellent film is translated into Farewell My Concubine. Obviously, the translator applies adaptations and hopes to use succinct words to outline the complicated story, because foreign audience cannot fully understand the meaning of the opera name. However, he does not develop his dynamic initiative to the full nor makes some adaptations on the basis of the content of the film. The English title Farewell My Concubine has nothing to do with the content of the film. Whereas, a good translation of film title entails a thorough understanding of the story. The translated name cannot bear the dignified culture content of the film, in foreign audience’s view it is only a common film about entanglement among family members.
In the E-C film title translation, another lively example is American black comedy American Beauty, which owned Oscar in 1999.American people consider American Beauty as one of the best films of 1999. Its freshness and innovation of using the cinema's most powerful tool, namely the usage of visual images, make it a unique and truly wonderful film going experience. American Beauty is a meticulously written tapestry of the lives of two families living side by side in a suburban neighborhood in anywhere, USA. The story refers to the serious society phenomenon-middle age crisis in the States .But translator applies literal translation to render the title into 《美国美人》 in China mainland .Handled in this way, audience would be at loss to what is going on in this film and consider it as a female film. 《美国美人》 will mislead the Chinese audience and distort the original because Chinese lack the living background in the U.S. In fact, American Beauty is the name of a common red rose in the States. The color of that flower is scarlet which symbolizes human desire in the bottom of heart. For this, American audience can understand quickly. In contrast, Chinese audiences cannot catch the idea of idioms, popular words and slang when they come into contact with those words in film title. Therefore, 《美国美人》 can’t reflect any information about leading character from the visual angle of Chinese audience. From my point of view ,another version《美国心 玫瑰情》in Taiwan province is much better. Actually the second version carries more profound thematic meaning than the first one.
As mentioned above, the contextual adaptation is necessary in the process of translating film title. The translators, as reception subjects, they can apply the theory to avoid the error in translation. Film title functions as the direct channel to call upon t 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论he audience to see the film. If the significance of an art form cannot be fully realized with the presence of its receptors, the translated name is unsuccessful. [7] How are the translation skills and contextual adaptation combined? First of all, translator should fully understand the film content, because the title irrelevant to the story of film is pointless. To be faithful, the film itself is curtail to translate film title. Further more, translator should refer to the original name and analyze the possibility of it, striving for the unity between title and content. The last but not least, translator needs to analyze the cultural background of target audience as to apply appropriate translation skills. Undoubtedly, the realization of culture value lies in full understanding and transmitting the cultural information and emotion carried by the original titles, avoiding misunderstandings and misinterpretations. After getting these three points of translation, translator can handle the comprehension problem easier than before.
4.2.2 Extension Of Film Title Translation In Perspective Of Contextual Adaptation
If the film title grips the attention of the audiences at their first sight, it will contribute to the success of a film and has a say in box office. We can see many excellent target names in the film market. For instance, American film Seven, which is popular with Chinese audiences. The film begins with the overused premise of a young cop being teamed for a murder investigation with a veteran on the verge of retirement. Their investigation of a bizarre murder, in which a serial killer who uses the seven deadly sins --- gluttony, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy and wrath --- as his calling card and turns into a hunt for different people. All occurrences of decisive affairs have the direct connect with seven, which is the key word of this film. As we all know, The United States is a religious nation, greatly part of American audiences all acquaint with the original sin concept. However, if translator don’t consider the cultural background of Chinese and apply literal translation to translate the title into 《七》, Chinese audiences may feel confused. The number seven cannot lead Chinese have correct association about the film. Moreover, Chinese audiences lack the religion background. There is no the implied meaning of original sin in the Chinese Buddhism. It is obvious that the contextual adaptation restricts the understanding of this film title. Therefore, translator applies adaptation to flexibly render it into《七宗罪》,which not only sheds light on the message of the film, but also sets the religion background. The second version is combined tightly with the story, but not be against Chinese cultural background. Those factors are useful for the film transmitting in the target market.
Equally, the Chinese film can also make use of the contextual adaptation theory and take a reasonable method to translate film title in order to beat into an international market. Take《我的父亲母亲》for example , after analyzing the cultural background of foreign audience, translator apply adaptation to render the title into The Road Home instead of My Father and Mother. If it was literally translated into My Father and Mother with the guidance of functional equivalence, the version would be too mild and realistic. Traditionally, the impression of Chinese village is plain and insipid to Chinese audiences, and they may insist that the love between young teacher and petty girl in village should be pure and simple. However, the Chinese village is mysterious and comfortable in foreign audiences’ mind. The concepts about Chinese village are total different. Therefore, My Father and Mother is a good film title in the domestic, using The Road Home abroad then can even move foreign audience. The scene of a girl in red coat waiting for her lover beside the road home is though the film. At the end of this love story, the old woman keep company with her lover’s coffin go home from this road. The target name bears the romantic love story in the Chinese village. Obviously, it is preferable to render it into The Road Home instead of My Father and Mother.
These excellent target names all made good use of the contextual adaptation theory which guide translator adopt reasonable translation method in the process of film title translation.
4.3 Three Crucial Strategies Of Film Title Translation In Perspective Of Contextual Adaptation
After understanding the importance and usage of contextual adaptation in the process of translation, there are three basic translating methods with the guidance of contextual adaptation.
4.3.1 Literal Translation
The literal translation, which is word-for–word translation, aims to produce a translation that retains the content and form 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论of the original film title. [8]In the actual process of film title translation, this method proves simple when the original title reflects almost exactly the content of the story. Therefore, the target name applied literal translation retains the obviously trace of foreign culture. There are many typical literal translation examples. For instance, Cold Mountain into 《冷山》, The God Father into《教夫》, The Kill Bill into 《杀死比尔》, Schindler’s List into 《辛德勒名单》The Titanic into 《泰坦尼克号》, The Lion King into 《狮子王》, The Spider Man into 《蜘蛛侠》etc. Handled in this way, the target name keeps the surface structure of the original name to a large extent and arouse the audiences’ imagination towards the film at first time. Nevertheless, when literal translation is applied in film title translation, the translator needs to pay careful attention to the wording of the translated name because the target language has different layers in terms of quality. Take the Spider Man for example, translator understands that Chinese are enamored with swordsman then the title is flexibly rendered into 《蜘蛛侠》instead of 《蜘蛛人》.
Nowadays, Chinese films are introduced into the international market on a large scale and the process of translating film title is curial segment. Literal translation is applied frequently in C-E film title translation. Take a look at Chinese film《红高粱》directed by Zhang Yimou,the content and title keep strong Chinese culture flavor .Audience can appreciate the wonderful view of red sorghum in the film. Under the cultural background, translator apply literal translation to render the title into Red Sorghum. Chinese film《盗马贼》directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang is translated into The Horse Thief. Those target names retain the original culture and render information about the movie successfully.
4.3.2 Transliterate
Transliterate keeps the rhythm and form of the original title, and it is a common translation skill adopted in translating film titles containing names of peoples, events and places that target audiences are familiar with. [9] For instance, Chicago, a film named after the name of a famous American city, which can become the target title as 芝加哥. Transliterate turns out to be indispensable, especially the films based on the literature works, which are popular with Chinese people. The following serves as convincing examples: Romeo and Juliet into《罗密欧与朱丽叶》,Sister Carie into《嘉莉妹妹》, David Copperfield into《大卫科波菲尔》,Tess into 《苔丝》,Gandhi into《甘地》,etc. The original name itself also bears content of the literature works. To be specific, those names of famous literature works are already of great cognitive value and appeal to the Chinese audience. The film title applied transliterate can have a positive impact on the box office and attract people to the cinema due to the classic novel have been familiar to and memorized by the readers worldwide. Although transliterate not widely used in the process of E-C film title translation, deal with such cases, transliterate is the best choice.
In the C-E film title translation, the typical one is 《可可西里》 which tells the story about antelope in Tibet. Translator applies transliterate to render the title into ke ke xi li, which bears culture features of the region where the film is produced.
4.3.3 Free Translation
Free translation is a translation approach that is used widely to convey the content and spirit of the original film title without sticking to the form tightly. [10]Abundant culture elements have been traced in film title, such as idioms, slang, titles of literary and history events, etc. [11] If the target audiences lack the cultural background, they may be confused when the translated title is applied transliterate and literal approach. In the process of applying free translation, translator should translate title with much concern over the content of the film instead of the original title so as to avoid misunderstanding or unintelligibility.
Look at the typical example: the romantic love movie Ghost 《人鬼情未了》,which tells a deeply love story between a lady and the soul of her dead boyfriend . The word “ghost” is kept with literally translated. For it plays a considerably important part in the film and easily wins the audience’s identification. The Chinese characters “情未了”give birth to the tragic tone of this film and kindle the audience’s curiosity about the heart-stirring love story between people and ghost . If the translator apply transliterate or literal approach to render the title into 《鬼》, which may mislead the audience to consider the film as a thriller. Strictly speaking, good translation never mislead the audience nor distorts the original content. As it said by Ye Shengtao: A title is , to the author, to indicate the ideas he centers around in his writing; while to the reader, it is to manifest in advance what is going 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论on in the works before his actual reading. [11]There are many films based on the love between human and ghost in China due to the spreading of folk stories, such as 《倩女幽魂》. Generally speaking ,Chinese can acceptant the story about the fantastic heart-stirring love story. 《人鬼情未了》 arouse audiences’ proper imagination towards the film and it turns out to be more intelligent and readily accessible. After analyzing the Chinese cultural background, translator applies adaptation with the guidance of contextual adaptation and flexibly render it into 《人鬼情未了》 instead of 《鬼》.
In the E-C film title translation, the target name of Forrest Gump is excellent. In the contention of the best picture of the 67th Oscar Award in 1995, film Forrest Gump has got six Grand Awards, such as the best picture , the best actor , the best achievement in directing and adapting drama ,etc. Forrest Gump , the hero of this film is unfortunately born with a lower IQ and the muscle problem. Usually, people always think this kind of person can't be successful in doing anything. However, instead, this unlucky man has achieved lots of incredible success, he is a football star, a war hero, and later even a millionaire. This film adapt Winston’s novel of the same name of Forrest Gump, which is popular with American people.
However, if translator adopts transliterate to keep the original title flavor, the film cannot obtain expectation result in Chinese market although it is the box-office hit in the States. First of all, the Chinese audience doesn’t acquaint with this American novel. Moreover, as the target title,《佛列斯特甘普》is not simple and direct. This version may make no sense to Chinese audience because the title gives little information and hint about the film content. Translator, who disregards the distinctive between cultural backgrounds, runs the risk of being unintelligible. Thus, the translator combines this American novel with a famous Chinese novel《阿Q正传》written by Lu Xun. Such two advocate to traditional moral concept and embodiment. As is demonstrated in the foregoing discussion, the title is flexibly translated into《阿甘正传》due to many common information in the two literary works.
Moreover, the application of liberal translation is extensive in the C-E film title translation. Because the Chinese culture is farsighted and great, the Chinese character is also profound. Some excellent Chinese films could hardly arouse any interest from the audience on account of the difficult target names adopted literal translation or transliterate. The translator should bear in mind that the contextual adaptation is the foundation of film title translation. What should he do is analyzing contextual adaptation first, namely seeing the cultural context, then the situation context and finally the text itself. The examples here suffice to illustrate: love story《红色恋人》 based on the Chinese revolution is translated into A Time To Remember; the homosexual topic movie《春光扎泻》is rendered into Happy Together. Equally, some films with mild original names can apply adaptation to translate the titles as to attract more attention. Chinese film 《漂亮妈妈》 tells the story about the hard life of the deaf and dumb child and his mother . The title is flexibly rendered into Breaking The Silence. This kind of translated title got around the international sensitive topical skillfully. Handled in this way, many successful creative and appropriate target titles meet the audience’s eyes, in which the diction is carefully weighted, the thematic meaning deeply explored, and the artistic effect vividly reproduced.
5 Conclusion
As is demonstrated in the foregoing discussion, it is obvious that film title is an indispensable part of a film, which not only contributes to the success of box office, but also helps the film win an everlasting fame. This paper, mainly from the angle of contextual adaptation, explores Chinese and English film title translation with the aid of rich examples. In the previous chapters, the author has well expounded the significance and application of the contextual adaptation and attempts to give three basic methods to the film title translation. The aim of analyzing the successful title translation cases which combine the contextual adaptation with the content of film is to emphasize on the importance of contextual adaptation and the way to combine with translation skills flexibly. The process of film title translation is spanided into three stages. Firstly, translator should fully understand the content and master the essence of film. Moreover, translator should bear in mind that the contextual adaptation is the foundation of translation and analyze the social cultural appearance of target audience. Finally, yet importantly, the possible translated version is produced by adopting proper translation approach with the guidance of contextual adaptat 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论 电影片名翻译与语境适应论ion. However, this study has some limitation in terms of researching depth and width. It is worthwhile carrying out more researches in this field.
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