| Film, as a unique way of mass communication and media, is playing an increasingly important part in people's daily life. For most people, film is an inseparable part of their entertainment life. They can seek happiness, experience the others' life, travel to the other countries at home, follow instructions and etc. Moreover, films, as the windows of the society, not only reflect the reality of the home country, but also provide considerable information about different cultures and languages of the other countries. Good films should not only bring about provoking thoughts to the audience, but also can refresh them with new angles to view the outside world.As is known to all that the title is the "eye" of the film, and it not only indicates the information of the content, but also arouses the audience's imagination and curiosity towards the film, and therefore it is the name that appeals the audience most and leads them into the cinemas in the ultimate purpose that the box office is increased and enlarged. Therefore, it is critical and most important to translate film title properly. However, at present, there are many problems about film-title translation, the phenomena of different translated versions for the same original English film title are rather popular, and even there exist wrong translations and improper translations.This thesis discusses English film title translation from the perspective of Relevance Theory. Context and Cognition in this theory play an important part in the translation of English film titles. The past two or three decades have witnessed vast development in film translation. However, being a special and significant part of translation, film translation is an area that is far from being explored, especially the study on the translation of film titles. Up to now no one has ever offered a systematic and feasible principle to pilot film title translation.This paper discusses the film title translation on the basis of different Context and different Cognition in Relevance Theory. Relevance Theory, as defined by Sperber and Wislon(1986/1995:25), proposes that the two preliminary conditions formulated by the definition of relevance are: 1) an assumption is relevant in a context to the extent that its contextual effects in this context are large; 2) an assumption is relevant in a context to the extent that the effort required to process it in this context is small. In the author's opinion, when these two conditions are satisfied, it can be said that the film title translation is consistent with the principle of relevance and successful communication is thus guaranteed. That is to say, the theory can direct and guide the practice of film title translation in the daily life.In addition, the thesis presents a detailed analysis of the unique features of film title translations in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan respectively. On the basis of Relevance Theory, the author proposes that the disunity of the translation of English film title in the three regions should be remained. Furthermore the similarities and differences of film-title translations in the three regions are also discussed and the potential reasons causing this condition is talked about. In the author's mind, the diversity of film title translations in the three regions will and should remain at present and in the further it will continue to remain for a considerable period of time. The very reason for this situation is that the cultures, language systems and the living habits still varied, in order to respect different cultures and customs; we should obey the present condition. Moreover, film is only a kind of entertainment, it is reasonable and no harm to remain different in different environments as long as it can attract and meet the aesthetic aspects of the local people and reach the aim of the film itself. Finally a method is put forth by the author to avoid causing confusion to the audience when they are confronted with several translated versions with the same original film.
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