On Chinese Film Title Translation From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Film is one of the cultures and plays a very important role inpeople’s daily life. As the “eye” of the films, film titles play key roles andrefer to the propagation of culture and value of the commerce. Thusobviously film title translation is very important. There are manyresearches and studies about E-C film title translation, but not much hasbeen done on C-E film title translation. Therefore, this thesis will take theview that researchers should pay much attention to Chinese film titletranslation in order to spread Chinese culture to the world of the world.This thesis aims to analyze the translation of Chinese film titles fromfunctional perspective in the hope of elaborating the application area ofSkopos theory and finding a guiding theory for film title translation fromChinese to English. Skopos theory proposes that translation is apurposeful action, and film title translation is a purposeful cross-culturecommunication. With the guidance of Skopos theory, film title translationcan be analyzed from the perspective of informative, expressive, aestheticand vocative functions. The translation strategies applied includetransliteration, literal translation, free translation and creative translation.This thesis also explores the differences between Chinese film titles andEnglish film titles, and sums up the unified methods of film titletranslation. Skopos theory not only offers a feasible theory for thetranslators, but also develops a new visual angle for the practice of film title translation.