On Translation Strategies of English Movie Titles

Abstract

Movie titles are films’ eyes, having double effect of art appreciation and commercial advertisement, and directly playing the role of guidance and promotion. Good film names could convey the films' content as well as arouse audience's interest to get great box. With the continuous development of international cultural exchanges, film begins to get the attention of every nation increasingly as an important media in cultural exchange. With the opening of the Chinese market, we have more and more English movies. The Chinese audiences need to understand the movie titles before they enjoy the movies. But due to different cultural traditions, contexts, customs and thinking modes between the western and eastern world, the choices of their film names embodies distinctive cultural features. Movie titles convey the story to the audience to attract them. This requires the translation of movie titles to be accurate and embody the commercial values. This paper analyzes the translation strategies of English movie titles and explores a new strategy according to previous research results and research methods. This paper introduces the definition of translation strategies and some features of English movie titles and functions. Then it describes the principles of English movie titles translation and points out the translation strategies of English film titles. It is hoped that the context can help people to realize the necessity of proper translation of English movie titles, and accordingly promote the development of films in international market.