A Study On The Translation Strategies Of English Film Title--From The Perspective Of Cultranslation

With more and more frequent communication of politics and economy between China and English-speaking countries, the interaction between cultures in the form of film title draws greater attention than ever before. If we say film is a mirror of life, then film title is the finishing touch that decides the audience's interest as well as the box office; Film narrates culture and film title reflects culture. In view of the above, the author intends to make a. complete analysis of English-Chinese translation of the film title through the perspective of cultranslation with lots of cases study, so as to suggest a solution of the dichotomy of free translation and literal translation as well as to provide a brand new angle for the future study.Creatively, this paper analyzes factors that influence the film translation strategies in two different ways:the synchronic and diachronic way, and finds that cultural gap, language custom, literature accumulation and the attitude of the translator are the main factors that matters.The author thinks that previous translation study based on linguistics and literary study focus on "form" and "charm". Though reasonable to some degree, it hasn't seized the main point. According to cultranslation, translation is the communication between two different cultures; therefore, culture is the theme, language the carrier, and literature the decoration. Only when the three combine could "form", "charm" and "meaning" of the translation be ready. During the film title translation, it is the cultural gap that decides the translation strategy. Generally, literal translation is mostly utilized in the culture overlapping cases and free translation more than often is utilized in the culture gap cases. Meanwhile, language and literature are also two important factors that influence the choices of translation strategies. The former can be reflected in the characteristics like harmony, briefness and naturalness that Chinese language advocates; the latter means literature forms like poetry, literary classics, and legends are preferred to be employed in the naming of film titles.According to cultranslation, the translator isn't invisible any longer. On the contrary, the attitude of a translator is also another important factor that influences the strategy and it varies with the translator's cultural refinement and cultural atmosphere of different times.With further opening and reforming of China, more and more excellent western films have been introduced to the Chinese audience. The author, sincerely with this paper, hopes that there will be more and more people concerned for the research of film translation so as to realize better communication between China and English-speaking countries.