摘要:In movie title translation, it is the most important for the translator to make the TT have the imperative function. To make the TT have the same informative function with the ST is less important. In practice, some English movie titles can be translated literally. However, most have some changes in their Chinese translations more or less.
ages, i. e. concrete thinking. Westerners are apt to think in terms of abstraction, i. e. abstract thinking. In movie title translation, we usually find the Chinese translation has some changes more or less. Some of them are re-created. The translator tries to make a title contain more information to make it agree with the Chinese thinking type. When all the meanings of a word in the dictionary are not appropriate in the Chinese translation, we have to make some changes. Apart from those titles which can be literally translated, the following is our focus in this chapter.
3. 2. 2 Partial Metaphase
Similar to Example (2), sometimes we need make some changes in movie title translation. For example, Patton is《巴顿将军》in Chinese. Patton was a famous American general during World WarⅡ. His name is so familiar to western audience, esp. those in the States. Though some people in China know him, most don’t know who he is. The addition of the two characters“将军”makes his identity clear. If it is translated into“巴顿”, there is fidelity without intratextual coherence for these audience. Since we regard intratextual coherence as our final objective, the better translation is《巴顿将军》. Partial metaphase means that we make a few changes in the TT and don’t reach the degree of re-creation.
3. 2. 2. 1 Perspective of Linguistic Differences
Linguistic differences certainly exist in any translation. They are mainly embodied in the following points in translating an English movie title into Chinese.
1) Changes of Part of Speech
Whether in movie translation or not, prepositions, gerunds and infinitives usually turn to verbs in Chinese.
Preposition to Verb or Omission
Since prepositions are more frequently used in English than in Chinese, we can easily find a large number of titles with prepositions in them. For those titles containing prepositions and prepositional phrases, we often use verbs in Chinese as their equivalents, e. g. Out of Africa vs. 《走出非洲》,Around the World in 80 Days vs. 《环游世界80天》, Beyond Borders vs. 《超越边界》and In Her Shoes vs.《. 偷穿高跟鞋》.
It is mentioned above that a distinctive feature of movie titles is short. Usually, Chinese have such strength in that a deeper meaning can be expressed with only a few characters. However, it does not mean that the English language is short of this point at any time. For example, we often have to use a lot of Chinese characters as an equivalent to an adverb after a noun in an English movie title. Such adverbs are called particles in the English language. A deliberate consideration is necessary in translating such titles. We can even change parts of speech.
Face off vs. 《变脸》is an example. Grammatically, the word “off” here is not easy to be translated. It is an adverb, meaning “away, gone”. The literal translation“脸没有了\丢失了”sounds so disagreeable and“没脸\丢脸”in Chinese just means being ashamed, which has nothing to do with the movie plot. Then, we add a verb“变”before“脸(face)”. It becomes acceptable, in accordance with the plot that the two heroes’ faces are once inter-changed.
Adjective to Noun
Legally Blonde is translated into《律政俏佳人》. “Blonde” in the title is an adjective which is modified by” legally”. Yet literal translation without any change of part of speech is quite alien to Chinese ways of expression. Therefore, we change the adjective to a noun“俏佳人”and the adverb to an adjective“律政” accordingly.
Past Participle to Adject
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