Translation Of Film Titles From The Perspective Of Peter Newmark’s Communicative Translation Theory

Film is a form of modern art involving the combination of artistic and commercial elements. Through more than one century’s development, film has become one of the most powerful and expressive media in the world. With the benefits brought about by China’s open and reform policy, China’s economy has gained a great progress, and the connection between China and other countries has been greatly increased. During this process, a lot of foreign films have been introduced into Chinese market, at the same time, many excellent Chinese films have been displayed on the world screen. If film is compared to soul, film title is the eyes leading to the soul. It not only has a guiding function to the audience but also helps the audience to better understand the theme of the film. A good film title should not only gain a favorable commercial value, bringing considerable earnings to the film makers, but also realize its aesthetic value as the audience enjoy the film. Therefore, film title translation has very important meanings.This thesis is trying to make a study of film title translation based on the communicative translation theory proposed by the English translation scholar Peter Newmark. By applying communicative translation, the translator attempts to produce the same effect on the target readers as is produced by the original on the source language readers. Communicative translation stresses the spread of information on the basis of target language and culture. Under the guidance of communicative translation, translators can explain source texts, reorganize the linguistic structure and adjust the genre to making the translation authentic and understandable.Communicative translation theory should be regarded as the basic rule in film title translation for the reason that as far as translation methods are concerned, three main factors---the purpose of the translation, the type of text and the nature of the readership---must be considered. Firstly, the purpose of film title translation is to attract audiences’attention, to make them interested and then make them act, in other words, to see the film or buy the related products. Secondly, film titles possess features of expressive, informative and vocative texts, but the vocative feature is prominent. And Newmark suggests communicative translation for vocative texts. Also it should be emphasized that the target readers are different from the source ones, such as language, thought, and aesthetic value. Translators have to make some changes in view of different audience when they start film title translation.Culture acts as the source of communicative translation theory. Culture and language are closely related to each other. It’s impossible to translate one language into another without considering the cultural factors involved. The basic task of language translation is cultural transmission. Film title translation is, in fact, a bridge of intercultural communication. With regard to film titles, the differences between English and Chinese cultures are shown in the following aspects:1. ecological culture;2. linguistic culture;3.religious culture;4. material culture;5.social culture. Since film title translation is target-audience-oriented, when translating films concerning different cultures, translators should struggle to make the version accord with the target culture.Under the guidance of communicative translation theory, the author ventures to put forward three criteria:First, the translation should be target-culture-oriented. Next, the translation should be artistic, giving full play of the vocative value and the aesthetic value of the title. Finally, the translation should be consistent with the content of the film. Specifically, film titles, which can also be translated by semantic translation, including films that are named after famous men who are well-known or popular in the target culture as well as films that are named on the basis of theme or plot without special cultural elements, that is, versions in another language are understandable and fulfill the functions of film titles at the same time. However, the semantic translation must be tested in the light of the three criteria listed above. To put it differently, semantic translation is a special case of communicative translation, which serves as the guidance of semantic translation.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One is the introduction to the whole thesis, the author elaborates the research background, purpose and significance of the study and the structure of the thesis. Chapter Two is literature review. It is the theoretical structure that guides the study of this thesis. In this part, the writer makes a general analysis of film titles, including the film title genres, features, functions, and naming methods. Then it describes the core content of Newmark’s communicative translation theory, and it also reviews the previous study on film title translation. Chapter Three is the methodology used in this thesis. It puts forward the questions about the application of theories to film title translation, and provides the design methods to solve this problem. Chapter Four uses Peter Newmark’s communicative translation theory to analyze film title translation from the five sub-culture perspectives. It also states the special case of the application of semantic translation theory. Chapter Five is the conclusion of this thesis. It gives a generalization of the study, including the major findings and limitations of this thesis and suggestions for future study of film title translation.