A Study On The Translating Of Chinese Film Titles Based On Functionalist Theory And Relevance Theory

Film, as one of the most significant forms of art, combines artistic features and commercial features. It has been an essential part of our daily life. With the rapid development of Chinese open policy, the intimate communication between Chinese culture and global cultures and the prosperity of global film industry, a bunch of foreign films have been introduced into Chinese market. Meanwhile, Chinese film companies also make their efforts to participate in the competition. Fortunately, we have already made several outstanding achievements and won a significant position in the industry.The importance of the translation of film titles, as a first connecting bridge between Chinese films and their audiences, is obvious. In recent years, scholars from all over the world begin to pay high attention to the translation of film titles. The German functional school offers the theory that the purpose of film title translations should be conveying information to audiences and attracting audiences’ interests.At the beginning of the thesis, the author gives an introduction to the definition, characteristics and applications of functionalist theory and relevance theory and analyzes examples of film title translations. Then the author comes up with three effective principles of Chinese film title translation, which are optimal relevance principle, environment based principle and skopos principle, and four translation methods:transliteration, literal translation, addition and reduction, and reproduction. The author also finds the imperfections in Chinese film title translation, which need improvement.