Just as a book has a book title, the film title is often the first face that a film shows to the audience. However, unlike the title of the books or newspapers, the film title cannot tell the audiences the plot of a film until they buy the tickets and go into the cinema. For this reason, the film title undoubtedly becomes the initial factor that attracts them. Zhao Chunmei (1998) contends that the translated film is a kind of cultural product and to some extent a commodity. Therefore, the translated film title also plays an indispensable part to make sure the success of. Film is an artistic form with artistic quality and commercial and is one of the most influential forms of cultural transmission. As an integral part of the film, film titles should not only play the role of guiding, but also have commercial value to stimulate interest of the audience and enhance the film. Almost every department has an outstanding film with an attractive title.
English film title translation should belong to a kind of cultural activities, from one language to another language, from one culture to another culture and convert on the same information transfer process. The film contains a wealth of cultural identity, these cultural characteristics directly affect the English film title translation. Therefore, translators need to full understand western culture and it is an important factor to translate a good title.
1.2 Research Significance
Nida says:“ Translation consists in the reproduction in the receptor language of the message of the source language in such a way that the receptors in receptor language may be also to understand adequately how the original receptors of the source language understand the original message”(刘宓庆,2003: 41). Title is the most informative part of a film. A successful translation of it can guide receptors to the threshold of the original message. How can this success be achieved? Besides Mr. Lin Yutang’s criteria, “faithfulness, fluency, and beautifulness”, which are developed from Mr. Yan Fu’s “faithfulness expressiveness, and elegance” (马会娟, 2003: 28). As an audiovisual art, film is one of the most influential mass media, it follows and reflects people’s life and it is a product of cultural. The film title, being short in form but rich in meaning, has its own cultural, linguistic, aesthetic features.
By comparing and studying the influence of Western culture on film title translation, we understand the differences in Western languages and the Western cultural differences impact on film title translation clearly and we should fully take into account the aesthetic psychology, religion and culture corresponding values and other aspects of culture, the flexibility to choose the appropriate translation strategies and methods. Ultimately maximize the retention of the cultural characteristics of various ethnic groups, to achieve a perfect conversion of two languages and cultural information. 中西文化差异对电影片名翻译的影响(2):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_39231.html