On Title Translation Of One Hundred English Movies From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

Film is a significant part of people’s modern life. It is combined with various art measures. It can transmit information, express feelings and display rich and colorful life, by which way the audience can enjoy the art. Nowadays, a great number of films have been brought into China, so movie title translation has been a focus of how to make people in China gets the same artistic entertainment as the foreigners do. A good film can attract thousands of people because of the actors’ exquisite performances, philosophical dialogue, colorful pictures and even its profound and meaningful title. Title which seems simple but is a production of author’s idea is the brand of a film. Several words put all the essence together. Movie title leads us to know the film well, and it is the eyes of a film.The paper studies the translation of English movie titles into Chinese from the perspective of reception aesthetics. Movie title has informative function, aesthetic function and imperative function. It not only has to reflect film’s main idea and imply film’s category, but also it has to be short, different and eye-catching in order to attract audiences to a large extent and impress them, by which way film can be better propagandized. Consequently, movie title translation has become a new star in translation field. People will know that this is a production of translators’ wisdom from the concise style and rich content reflected by movie title translation and also it is a mirror of flexible usage of translation theory and methods. Nevertheless, traditional translation theory attaches importance to text production and attention on text itself, while reception aesthetics has turned its direction to text’s read and reception. What’s more, audiences’ horizon of expectation plays a crucial part in reception aesthetics theory. Therefore, the paper takes one hundred English films as examples explores merits and flaws from the perspective of reception aesthetics. Through comparing different translating versions of mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong, the features and techniques of movie title translation are concluded and important factors influencing on the choice of translation strategies are indicated.This thesis consists of five parts. Chapter One states a general introduction. Chapter Two addresses literature review which gives a brief introduction about movie title translation. Apart from that, it gives a review of studies on this kind of translation in the West and in China. Chapter Three contains definition, classification, features and functions of movie title and reception aesthetics’ definition, features and three principles are elaborated. In addition, how reception aesthetics theory applied into translation and even movie title translation are stated detailedly. Chapter Four analyses techniques of movie title translation combined with reception aesthetics and important factors influencing on the choice of translation strategies. Eventually, different translating versions of mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong are compared. The following one, Chapter Five, serves as a conclusion, summarizing the whole thesis.