English Film Title Translation From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

With the further development of China's reform and opening-up, communication between China and the rest of the world, especially with the English-speaking countries, many English movies swarmed into China's movie market. Needless to say, translation is believed to play an important role in the introduction of these movies, which has consequently given rise to the study of their translation. However, being a special and important part of translation, film translation is an area that is far from being explored. Few monographs at home and abroad have discussed this topic. Just a few chapters can be found touching upon this issue. In the foreign language master journals published in the past decade, it is noticed that there is a relative scarcity of theoretical writing on film translation in general and on film title translation in particular. Film title translation is an important and creative work. An excellent version can contribute a lot to the attraction of the film and plays a key part in the introduction of a new film. Nevertheless, up to now no one has offered a systematic and feasible principle to conduct film title translation. Actually, film title translation is very problematic in that it is in the grip of a state of disunity. And now, it is high time that film title translation should be given due attention to in the present field of translation studies.Skopostheorie, a newly developed theory, is adopted as the theoretical background of this thesis and an audience-oriented film title translation approach is highly advocated. The author proposes that the Skopos of film title translation is to call upon audiences to see the film. As an important complement to translation studies, the Skopostheorie has given a new perspective to the study of the translation of film title. According to Skopostheorie, translation strategies are determined by the purpose (Skopos) of the target texts.Proceeding from the features and functions of the film title, this thesis analyzes the main translation methods and strategies applied in English film title translation from the perspective of Skopostheorie. The merits and limitations of each method are discussed. This thesis intends to argue that English film title translation should be under the basic principle of fulfilling the specific functions of the film title through adopting translation methods properly. This thesis discusses and compares the different translation methods applied and the different features of the versions in the three regions Mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan respectively, and holds that the differences in socio-cultural context are the main reason for the disunity.