Research On Chinese Translation Of English Movie Titles From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

As China’s economy has flourished and intercultural communication has deepened, Chinese people have more access to western movies nowadays. As the first part which will be encountered by the audience, movie titles play a significant role. Movie titles serve multiple functions, for example, it can transfer much information to the audience:the genre, the theme and background information. A brilliant movie title can also entertain the audience aesthetically, and being attracted by the titles, audience will be called upon to buy tickets to enjoy the movie. Translation of the English movie titles is necessary for better promotion of the movies in Chinese film market, because not all the audience can appreciate the original version. Movie title translation has become a new issue in Chinese translation field. This thesis tries to do a little research on the English movie title translation from the perspective of Skopos theory.There are two reasons that inspire the author to do study on this topic. Firstly, most of the previous study on English movie titles is based on the traditional equivalence theory. However, the equivalence theory has many disadvantages. For example, it restricts the translation to the form and meaning equivalence, but equivalence cannot be always realized all the time, and sometimes, it is not even required. Movie titles are audience-oriented, and the response of the audience exerts a great effect on the success of the business benefit. Thus, the translators should take more initiative and contribute more creation to the movie title translation. Secondly, the study on the movie title translation has been extended, but it is far from satisfactory. A lot of researches focus on the translation strategies, but a corresponding and applicable theory has not yet been put into effect to guide the translation process of movie titles.This thesis probes into movie title translation from Skopos theory, which was proposed by German translator Hans Vermeer. In the light of Skopos theory, translation is defined as a purposeful activity as well as an intentional communication between cultures. "The end justifies the means" is the essence of this theory, which means the purpose of the translation decide the strategies adopted. It lays the emphasis on the purpose of translation activity, functions of the target text, the addressees’communicative situation, and empowers more initiative and freedom to the translators. This thesis argues that Skopos theory can be applied as the theoretical basis for movie title translation. Under the guidance of Skopos theory, translators can adopt appropriate translation techniques to make the movie tittles perform informative, cultural, aesthetic and vocative function in a more effective way, so that it can stir up audience’s attention, curiosity and interest, and finally achieve the Skopos of calling upon them to appreciate the movie to boom the box office.This paper can be divided into six parts. The structure of the paper is as follows:Chapter One is the introduction part which introduces the research background, concerns the significance and necessity of the study and the main organization of the thesis. Chapter Two concentrates on the literature review, including four stages of the Skopos theory, and an overview of previous studies in Chinese translation of English movie titles in china. From this chapter, it can be learned that Skopos theory went through four stages:firstly, functional category of translation criticism proposed by Katharina Reiss, secondly, Skopos theory put forward by Hans Vermeer, thirdly, translational action proposed by Justa Holz-Manttari, and fourth, functionality plus loyalty which is put forward by Christiane Nord. Chapter Three provides a theoretical framework for the whole thesis. First, the definition of Skopos theory is illustrated; in the following part some concepts relevant to Skopos theory, such as aim, purpose, function, etc are presented. The next part introduces some important concepts of Skopos theory, including adequate translation, translation brief, translation and translational action; the next part demonstrates the three rules of Skopos theory:Skopos rule, coherence rule and fidelity rule. Then the relationship between these three rules is discussed; and the last part focuses on the merits of Skopos theory. Chapter Four is devoted to the analysis of movie titles. The definition of movie title translation is proposed in the first part. Second part analyses the genres of movies. Movies can be categorized into documentary movies, science and educational movies and feature movies. The naming approaches of movie titles are illustrated in the following part. In brief, movie titles can be named on the basis of time and place, on the basis of heroes or heroines, on the basis of theme, and last on the basis of historical background. Next part is about the features of movie titles. As a form of art, movie titles have some unique features, including linguistic features, culture features and commercial features. After general investigation, the last part of this chapter put its focus on the functions of movie titles. According to the author, movie titles can serve the following functions:informative function, expressive function, aesthetic function and vocative function. Part Five illustrates the application of Skopos theory to English movie title translation. First, the Skopos of movie title translation is discussed. That is to provide much information to the audience, impress them with aesthetic entertainment and ultimately calling them upon to enjoy the movie in order to boom the box office. The second part is devoted to the analysis of movie title translation from four aspects, which are informative aspect, cultural aspect, aesthetic aspect and vocative aspect. Translators can keep the original linguistic features or make any adaption to make the translated movie titles to serve the four functions. The last part is the demonstration of translation methods that can be adopted in movie title translation. These translation methods include translateration, literal translation and liberal translation. This thesis analyses these three strategies by listing some good translated movie titles, and reach the conclusion that the application of any translation strategy is based on the Skopos of translation activity. Translators can employ any proper translation strategy flexibly to realize the Skopos. Chapter six is a conclusion, which summarizes the main findings, and the limitations of the thesis and some suggestions are given for further study.