The Meaning Construction Mechanism Of E-C Film Title Translation

Nowadays,watching English movies has become an crucial part in the daily life of Chinese people.The translated version of English film title has a direct and indispensable effect on whether people watch the film or not.Though there are many researches about film title translation,very few focus on how to convey the original meaning(s)of the English title into that(those)of the Chinese version.From the perspective of contextual adaptation theory,this thesis attempts to discover the meaning construction mechanism during E-C film title translation process,aiming to enrich the film title translation study and help the translators to improve their translation practice.To figure out the meaning construction of E-C film title translation,the translator must have a deep understanding of the linguistic features of English film titles and their Chinese versions,and analyze the contextual factors involved in the process of E-C film title translation.The thesis collects 87 samples of Oscar Best Picture's titles and their Chinese versions.With a qualitative and quantitative approach,the phonological features,grammatical features and semantic features of the samples were identified respectively.It is found that the information conveyed by a film title includes the referential object and film-related objects while the film-related objects include the ones referred by film title and the ones associated with film title.The information conveyed by film titles reflects three aspects of their meanings:referential meaning,literal meaning and naming meaning.Based on the analysis,the meaning of a film title is affected by contextual factors from four aspects: change in literal meaning,change in naming meaning,change in both literal and naming meanings and original meaning kept.From the perspective of contextual adaptation theory,the process of film title translation is essentially the process of original meaning decoding,choice making and target language constructing and expressing.This process is influenced by the syllable number,grammatical functions and semantics in the linguistic context,the film maker and local companies' purposes and the demands of the audience in the marketing context,and the differences of expressing habits,social customs and morals in cultural context.In order to get a better translation,the translator should adhere to three principles of linguistic context adaptation,marketing context adaptation and cultural context adaptation.They can apply translation method like literal translation,free translation,transliteration and mixed translation,etc..Translator should change different meanings to choose a translation that meets the demand of the target audience.