Culture Identity And The Translation Of English Film-titles

This thesis focuses on the translating strategies of English films titles from the perspective of Culture Identity. Through the comparison of culture identity of HK,Taiwan and Mainland China to explore their film-titles translating strategies.In the early 1950 s, Culture Identity was first put forward by Eriksson, who was an American psychoanalyst. Culture identity, also known as cultural identity, is the identity or feeling of belonging to a group. It is the inevitable product of globalization.At present, culture identity is widely used in the research of a lot of fields, such as:social, historical, political and cultural fields. In recent decade, domestic research of culture identity focuses on the mass media of communication, especially, the role it plays in the construction and broadcasting of Chinese culture identity.As a part of mass media of communication, films play an very important role in introducing foreign culture and propagandizing domestic culture. There are three main functions of film-titles: information function; appellative function or advertising function and aesthetic function. Exploring film-titles translation from the perspective of Culture Identity takes full account of audience response, and that can play the functions of film-titles most as well. Through examining the research of film-titles translation in recent decade, it can be found that the research mainly focuses on three categories:(1) the construction of theoretical framework of film-titles translation;(2)the principles of film-titles translation;(3) the concrete translation techniques. In addition, Skopostheorie, functional equivalence and Relevance theory are often used as the theoretical framework to explore the translation techniques. This thesis seeks to examine film-title translation from culture identity, which is a new perspective and rarely made before.Before 1950 s, foreign films had always adopted the same translated titles in the three regions--Mainland China, HK and Taiwan. However, film-titles translation has presented a different tendency, especially, after 1980 s and 1990 s. Through analyzing a large number of examples, the thesis tries to draw a conclusion that this phenomenon results from the discrepancy of culture identity in the three regions. In addition, withthe diversified development of culture identity, translating strategies have also become increasingly diversified.On the whole, the translated titles in three regions present the inheritance of traditional culture, meanwhile, they also present the characteristic of a mixture of various culture. HK embodies a post-colonial identity of vulgarization, worship of money, commercialization. All kinds of colloquial, Cantonese with English expressions appear in films titles. In the influence of western culture, transliteration and literal translation are often employed in Taiwan’s film-titles translation. Moreover,in the influence of American consumptive culture, in order to cater to the audience,Taiwan’s translators will reveal more information about the films or give the similar titles to the same genre of films. Due to the strict censorship, Mainland translators are conservative, and the translated titles presents the trait of socialist culture.The conclusion is that in the film-titles translation, culture identity will influence the choice of translating strategies, to some extent. Diversification of culture identity will lead to more translating techniques.