Nowadays,with the rapid development in science and technology,audio-visual media,with their perfect combination of sound and image,are playing a more and more important role in our daily life.and have become one of the fastest and the most convenient means of cross-cultural communication.Audio-visual translation is undoubtedly one of the commonest form of translation encountered in everyday life in our contemporary society.
Audio-visual culture,especially film and television culture,has already been promoted to be one of culture in modern society.AS an artistic form,film films cater to both refined and popular tastes .They tell stories,create vivid images,express deep emotions and attract the audience by their perfect combination of sound,color and moving pictures.To some extent,films really touch the social life from different aspects.Besides,they are also one of the most important elements in the world’s cultural communication,which can be regarded as an effective way of promoting mutual understanding between different people in different countries.
Ever since 1979 when China’s policy of reform and opening up to the outside world was carried out,china has gradually taken an active part in international communication.In recent years,with china’s entry into WTO and the strengthening process of globalization,communication between nations is becoming more and more prosperous,of which cultural exchange is an essential part cannot be ignored.As a mode of cultural transmission,more and more English films have entered Chinese market,which has become a part of people’s lives and exerted great influence on the formation of people’s language,living patterns,and even values.Therefore,we should attach much importance to the study of film translation.
Like the title to a literary work,the film title delivers the most important information about the film to the audience,which can grip the attention of the audience at the first sight.Apart from the impressive plot of film and wonderful performance of actors and actresses,a good translation of film titles will undoubtedly contribute a lot to the charm of the film. Since.‘ they have always been put in an eye-catching place, a film must have a concise and meaningful title. A good title should not only reveal the theme of the film concisely and comprehensively, but also
should generalize the content of the film tersely and succinctly. Being a kind of brand and advertisement, the film title has commercial value, which plays a leading role in the box office of the film. A good film title not only attracts the eyeballs, but also helps the film win an everlasting fame. A case in point is the classic film Madison County Bridge((廊桥遗梦》，which tells a deeply touching love story between a photographer and a housewife in Madison County. The original English film uses the bridge of Madison County where the story takes place and ends as its title, which is quite familiar to the American audience. However, a direct translation《麦迪逊郡的桥》may not convey much meaning and thus may not be appealing to the Chinese audience. By preserving the headword "bridge", the Chinese version conveys the main plot of the film. Then the two Chinese characters“遗梦，，extend the original content of the English film title by giving birth to the tragic atmosphere of the film. In this way, the Chinese version may easily kindle the audience's curiosity to see the film. From this, one can see that an excellent translation of the film title grill undoubtedly contribute a lot to the success of the film. On the contrary, a poor one will certainly fail to attract the audience, mislead the audience as well as degrade the beauty and value of the whole film.
The translation of film title is not a simple and easy task, but actually a very complicated and problematic matter. It has its own linguistic, stylistic and cultural features, which deserve the translator's careful consideration. Until now almost no one has provided a systematic principle to guide the translation of film titles. For this reason, there appear many problems during the process of translating film titles. It is the starting point at which this thesis tries to offer some constructive instruction for English film title translation (EFTT for an abbreviation).
1.2 Theoretical Framework
This thesis will take German functionalist translation approach, mainly Skopos theory as theoretical basis. With the industrialization and commercialization of film industry, film has far exceeded the conventional art form. Therefore, films, especially film titles, should not be seen and translated as pure literature under the direction of "equivalence" and "reception aesthetics" theories. Instead, Skopos theory, which sees translation as a purposeful activity, as an intentional intercultural communication, can
be used as a guideline for the translation of English film titles.
According to Skopos theory, the prime principle guiding the translation action is the Skopos (purpose) of the target text, which in turn is determined by the intended
receiver's needs and expectations. As an artistic form, films cater to both refined and popular tastes. When an English film is released in China, its Chinese film title is correspondingly publicly shown to the Chinese audience in cinema. Making clear of the Skopos is of vital importance in English film title translation. For Chinese audience, they go to cinema mostly for entertainment. The ultimate purpose of film title translation is to attract the audience to see the film and film title translation means to produce a target film title with defined functions of informing, persuading and entertaining the target audience, serving as the cultural communicator and appealing to the audience's interest, thus becoming a box-office hit.
In light of Skopos theory, in the course of translation, the intended functions of target text have been attached much importance to in order to meet the demands and
expectations of the target audience. Based on functional theories, the author of this thesis will mainly analyze the functions of film titles as follows: the informative function, the aesthetic function and the commercial (appellative) function. In English film title translation, the informative function means that the translations convey the information of the original title or of the plot of the film in order to help the audience have a perceptual comprehension of the film. The aesthetic function means that by using concise and popular language, especially in the form of Chinese four-characterphrase in some cases, the translations can make the audience obtain aesthetic entertainment. The commercial (appellative) function refers to the fact thai by taking the commercial element into consideration, the tr面slated film titles should fully arouse the audience's interests, thus fulfilling the commercial value of the flm.
