Intercultural Communication in Film Title Translation
Abstract
With the high development of globalization, people are getting tightly connected with each other and the intercultural communication tends to be unavoidable. The most universal way of intercultural communication in our common life is watching different countries’ movies. We can see the collision between different kinds of culture just through the film title translation. The present situation of film title translation shows some problems which caused by misunderstanding about foreign language and culture. If we focus more on the study of intercultural communication, we can do it better in the future. The paper shows the use of intercultural communication in our common life in film title translation perspective. First is the present situation of Chinese film title translation which followed with the analysis of the relationship between the translation and intercultural communication. In the end of the paper, the author will give some opinions about this.
The Present Situation of Film Translation in China传递作文
In modern China movie market, the translation of film title is irregularity. There are some wonderful foreign movies which have beautiful and suitable Chinese names such as ‘Gone with the Wind ’(乱世佳人), ‘Waterloo Bridge’(魂断蓝桥)and so on. But there have also many titles not been translated so well. At the same time, there is a problem that in China there are always some foreign films have more than one Chinese name. Let’s see a table first.
English Title | Hong Kong | Taiwan | Mainland |
Home Alone | 宝贝智多星 | 小鬼当家 | 独自在家 |
Bodyguard | 护花倾情 | 排骨做法终极保镖 | 保镖 |
The Rock | 石破天惊 | 绝对任务 | 勇闯夺命岛 |
Brave Heart | 惊世情未了 | 英雄本 | 勇敢的心 |
Ghost | 人鬼情未了 | 第六感生死恋 | 幽灵 |
Pretty Woman | 风月俏佳人 | 麻雀变凤凰 | 漂亮女人 |
The Sound of Music | 仙乐飘飘何处闻 | 真善美 福州电信 | 音乐之声 |
The Unbearable Lightness of Being | 布拉格之恋 | 布拉格之春 | 生命中不能承受之轻 |
A Fish Called Wanda | 倩女大贼神仙鱼 | 酸辣白菜的做法笨贼一箩筐 | 一条名叫旺达的鱼 |
| 初三毕业感言 |
We can see even in China film title translation differs from different areas from the table. It tells us not only the difference among different countries but also the different areas in one state. Film title is very important to a film because it has to show the viewers what the film is about and the spirit of it. Some scholars point that the film title translation should have three kinds of value: informative function, aesthetic function and vocative function (Journal of Shanxi Datong University, 2007, vol. 21). For this reason the film title translation should based on the contents of the film itself and then decorate it to make it sound more beautiful and meaningful.
Some translations just as the table shows have pay more attention on the title itself and ignore the film. For example, the movie ‘Ghost’ not only just tells a story about a ghost but also the tragic beautiful love story between the ghost and a woman. So it is better to be translated to ‘人鬼情未了’than‘幽灵’. The viewers can get some information about the film though the former title and can also feel the sentiment the title sends out. Another excellent India movie named ‘3 Idiots’ was translated as ‘三个傻瓜’ or ‘三傻大闹宝莱坞’. In my opinion the translation is awful. The movie is very incentive but its Chinese name s
ounds so stupid. Most viewers don’t want to watch this movie if only see the film title but almost all viewers who has watched the film love the film and hate the translator.
Above all, the present situation of film titles translation in China is complicated. We have many successful translation creations but on the country there are also many fail works which mislead the viewers to the misunderstanding to the movie.
The Relationship between Film Title Translation and Intercultural Communication
Intercultural communication refers to communication that takes place between people of different cultural backgrounds, whose cultural perceptions and systems are distinct enough to alter the communication events (Yan Ming. 2009:1). Movie is an important channel to promote intercultural communication. We know that the most important tool to communicate with others is the language. Different nations have different kinds of language and different kinds of language create different culture. And different kinds of culture create intercultural communication. In modern society, films play an important role in intercultural communication.
Firstly, we should identify the six fundamental patterns of cultural differences. They are different communication styles, different attitudes toward conflict, different approaches to completing tasks, different decision-making styles, different attitudes toward disclosure and different approaches to knowing. In the film title translation perspective, the differences manifest as the different understanding about the titles. There is an example: a movie named ‘The Third One’ was translated as ‘第三者’ because of the different language style between Chinese and English. The viewers always think this film maybe is about a man or a woman breaks a couple’s love world. But in fact it means a witness and the story is not a love story at all. This tells us when we translate a foreign film’s title into Chinese we should study more about the difference between foreign language description and Chinese description. In case the mistranslation leads people to misunderstand the film just like the movie ‘the third one’.
Besides the study on the differences among different kinds of culture, we should also focus on the Chinese traditional culture. When we translate the title, we should think about the Chinese traditional description. Chinese concludes many particular idioms and i
f we can combine them with foreign film titles well we can create wonderful translations. Generally speaking, based on the study we have four methods to translate the film titles: they are Transplantation, Collage, Transformation, and Formatting (Journal of Nanjing University of Finance and Economics, 2009:157). Among these methods, transplantation can describe the amalgamation of foreign culture and Chinese culture. Some translators use Chinese traditional idioms as the film title and make perfect effect such as the movie ‘The Naked Face’ translated as ‘绳之以法完全竞争市场’ and ‘Levity’ translated as ‘世事无常’.
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