The Study Of Chinese Titles Of American Films Screened In Shanghai From 1920-1949

It has been over a century since American films landed on China for the first time, and their Chinese titles have played significant roles in ensuring the cross-culture communication.This paper will firstly present the situation how the Chinese titles of American films screened in Shanghai were translated and renamed during the period from 1920 to 1949, then draw their rules and find out the major methods used to realize their commercial goals. The cultural background of their translation and creation will be dug out, with the marketing operation and the acculturation of those American films partly restored, and hopefully the aesthetic taste, cultural psychology and values of their Chinese audience could be reflected.The statistic method will be mainly applied to this paper, not only in the regard of American films screened in Shanghai as a whole in the 30 years, but also of their formularized titles. The total number of American films imported into China and those screened in Shanghai could only be estimated. Besides, as the number is so large that exemplification is the only possible and feasible way to exhibit the overall title features of American films screened in Shanghai. And with Shanghai as an identical example, the Chinese distribution of American films could be assumed.The domestication translation discipline and communication translation method will be applied to analyze the translated film titles' situations; the advertising psychology theory and practice and the intertexuality theory will be used to explain the renaming method; the cultural communication and local reception theories could be applied for the explanation of cultural system behind the Chinese titles of American films.The possible conclusions of this research are as follows: the distribution and exhibition market of American films developed in a mature way in Shanghai, oriented for the taste of local audience and aimed to realize their functional desire; the discount of film information and its cultural background could be reflected in their Chinese titles; the audience seeking for entertaining in the film theatre were in favor of popular films and were especially influenced by Chinese traditional culture.