(3) Misunderstanding the cultural information
Film titles usually contain rich cultural implied information. Only if the translator knows well of the cultural background and the local social culture condition in which the film is produced, can he translate the title correctly. Sometimes it can create jokes.
Example: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
It was translated as 《飞跃杜鹃窝》 in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In fact, Cuckoo’s nest is the nickname of mental hospital. It is a typical example of being fooled by the superficial meaning of the title.
2. Cultural Diversity in Film Title Translation
2.1 Classifications
(1) The persity of national psychology character
People who study cultural persity often cast more attention on the tangible outer presentation of the persity, such as customs and historical stories, while they pay insufficient attention on the intangible inner presentation of national psychology prototype. In fact, there are deeper features hidden behind outer presentation of cultural persity, such as the temperament, way of thinking and value orientation of a nation. It is because that the psychology pattern of one nation was generated and evolved throughout the whole developing process. This psychology pattern and its features might be entirely unfamiliar and distinctive or even exclusive to the other nations. It will lead to communication barrier and then result in the inequivalence from the original text during translating. Only when we bear in mind the factor of national psychology character, can we achieve deeper understanding of the enormous persity between Chinese and English on expression and aesthetic pursuit
(2) The persity of myths, legends, famous historical events
In the past times, nations were developing in separate regions respectively, they had barely communicated with the nations which are developed in the different surroundings. It is at these times, those nations’ essential character began to form, of course separately. At those relatively primitive periods, the myths, legends and historical events were spread in the people generation after generation. The foreigners may have great trouble to include all the stories to his scope of knowledge. When translating these titles including foreign names, it is necessary to add appropriate auxiliary explanation. 英文影片名汉译中的文化多元性初探(3):http://www.751com.cn/yingyu/lunwen_5487.html