陈莉莉

（宿州学院 外国语学院，安徽 宿州234000）

0 Introduction

The translation of movie titles is considered as a crucial and creative job, for a good or bad translation will definitely affect the popularity of the foreign movies,and the movie title is the first step that makes the audience be aware of movies. Many scholars, such as, Nin Zhishou[1], Lin Qun[2], He Ying[3]have focused on this topic and put forward some translation methods. However, the studies have more or less shortcomings and those methods seemed so general that they could not include all of the translation strategies and methods and other approaches on the movie titles translation were ignored. On the basis of the previous studies on this field,this paper, firstly indicates some problems of the movie titles translation,then analyzes the features of the translation of movie titles, and at last,based on Nida's “functional equivalence”, provides three main approaches, including literal translation, transliteration, and free translation.

1 Problems of the Translation of Movie Titles

Currently, one of the most prevalent problems in the translation of movie titles is that a movie possesses several translated titles, which causes the translation of movie titles in a state of disorder. Since the differences in social environment, cultural background and mode of thinking, there are different versions in translating movie titles between the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan. For examples, Sound of Music is literally translated into《音乐之声》in the mainland, 《仙乐飘飘处处闻》in Hong Kong,and《真善美》in Taiwan; also, American Beauty is respectively translated into《美国丽人》、《美国有罪》、《美国心玫瑰情》in the mainland,Hong Kong and Taiwan respectively.

It is clearly known that versions in the mainland generally correspond with the original movies, and emphasize the literal translation and formal equivalence; the versions of Hong Kong are relatively more flexible and free, which always put emphasis on the functional equivalence and recreate the original; also, the traditional Chinese poems or the beautiful phrases are usually quoted in the Taiwan translated movie titles, which tends to endow the versions with elegance. However, because of various reasons, the phenomenon of having several translated titles in a movie is very serious, and some of the translated versions belong to misinterpretation and usually cause many mistakes. For instance, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is translated into 《飞越杜娟窝》in Taiwan,but the cuckoo's nest actually implies the meaning of lunatic asylum (疯人院)，and the movie mainly tells us a man's experiences in a lunatic asylum,so the versions of the mainland《飞越疯人院》is comparatively appropriate.

2 Features of movie titles

2.1 Concision

Usually a short and concise title can make the audience more easily to obtain the main idea of the movie at the first sight and strike them more deeply than a long and loose name. Generally a movie title is composed of one or several phrases, such as The Godfather, The Graduate(《教父》、《毕业生》), which are concise and easy to remember.

2.2 Understandability

Movies is a kind of art appreciated and accepted by common people,therefore, the title of movie should be easy to understand and manage to use the understandable expressions rather than the obscure and elusive words. The Perfect World is a typical example to prove this feature, and the Chinese version 《完美世界》is also very simple and make audience long for watching this movie.

2.3 Attraction

The movie belongs to a kind of business behavior, so whether an attractive title can absorb the audience's attention is very essential for a good movie to acquire the business profit.Also,only if the audience got interested in the title,they could strive to be the first to go to the movie theater to see it,and then the business profit could achieve.The movie Sister Act is translated into《修女也疯狂》，which attached Chinese audience's attention and warmly welcomed in China.

3 The Translation of Movie Titles under the Guidance of Functional Equivalence

3.1 Functional Equivalence

According to Eugene Nida's“functional equivalence”,“the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that which existedbetween the original receptors and the original message[4],that is,in the process of translation,atranslator should not be constrained in the form of the original, and a translated version could be free as long as making the receptors in the target language distinctly understand and feel the same as the original readers.In the translation of movie titles,it means that the title of the source language should fully and accurately present either the image or the connotation or both contained in the original titles and do some changes when necessary.

3.2 Translation Methods

3.2.1 Literal Translation

Literal translation means the versions should possess both the same content and the same form as the original. For some movies which adapted from masterpieces or the names of the actors or actresses, it is appropriate to use literal translation, for instances, Jane Eyre 《简爱》, The Merchant of Venice 《威尼斯商人》, Pride and Prejudice 《傲慢与偏见》，《茶馆》Teahouse,《雷雨》Thunderstorm,《白毛女》The White-haired Girl.Since the masterpieces and the names of the actors or actresses have been familiarized by readers at home and abroad, and according to the functional equivalence, following to the original is much easier for the target audience to accept them.

However, there are numerous translated movies which are not adapted from the original works or stories. Some movies like A Walk in the Clouds,True Lies are respectively changed into《云中漫步》、《真实的谎言》, and 《喜剧之王》、《红高粱》 are replaced by King of Comedy and Red Sorghum.The translated movie titles preserve the concise, informative and appealing features of the original, and have the advantages of acceptability and understandability, in other words, after using the literal translation method, the general impression of the foreign audience is as equivalent as the original audience.

3.2.2 Transliteration

This kind of method is mostly used in the translation of the proper nouns. Movies like Hamlet 《汉姆雷特》and Romeo and Juliet 《罗密欧与朱丽叶》are all adapted from the masterpieces of Shakespeare, so the audience of foreign countries tend to accept the form of transliteration.Likewise,《周恩来》、《林则徐》、《小兵张嘎》are translated into Zhou Enlai, Lin Zexu,, Little Soldier Zhang Ga respectively, for the characters presented above are warmly loved and well-known by Chinese people,and the transliteration method used here can make people of the foreign countries know much about China and Chinese history as well as improve the communication between the different cultures.

3.2.3 Free Translation

When literal translation and transliteration can not express the original meaning completely, according to functional equivalence, a translator should not be constrained in the form of the original, and in this case, free translation is appropriate. Free translation refers to changing the literal meaning and forms of the original title and keeping the content of the source text. For instance, Waterloo Bridge is replaced by《魂断蓝桥》rather than《滑铁卢桥》, because the latter sounds boring and unattractive, and the audience could associate this name with the war of waterloo. Actually the love story in this movie happened on this bridge and the actress committed suicide on it, too. The translator replace“滑铁卢” into “蓝桥 ”, and use “魂断” to imply the death of the actress, which not only accords with the source content, but also possesses the appeal to audience. Besides, the wonderful examples are as follows: Gone with the Wind《乱世佳人》, Home Alone《小鬼当家》, My Fair Lady《窈窕淑女》, French Kiss《情定巴黎》, All's Well Ends Well,too《花田喜事》.

4 Conclusion

The translation of movie titles plays a very important role to the popularity of the foreign movies. Based on Nida's functional equivalence,literal translation, transliteration, and free translation are put forward to in order to make target audience achieve the same feeling and understanding as the source audience. A translator should combine the national culture with the content of the original, recreate the title, and translate the excellent movie titles accepted by the audience in the target language.

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