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1、浅谈影视翻译On Movie TranslationAbstract: Movie is a kind of art which has appealed to both the young and the old since it was first invented in 1895. Nowadays, movie is playing an increasingly important part in peoples lives. It is an essential part of their entertainment life. I will merely focus on the

2、 movie translation. The movie translation should obey the correct translation principles and methods. From my point of view, we cannot take movie translation for granted that it just focuses on the definite rules but it also needs translators inspiration. As a matter of fact, movie translation needs

3、 the translators creativity. Based on translation methods, I raise the requirement for creative translation. Applying creative translation in movie translation it should depend on movie styles. Key words: movie translation; subtitle translation; movie styles; title translation; creative translation摘

4、要：电影在1895年发明的时候，它就是一个老少皆宜的艺术。现在电影在人们生活中扮演的角色越来越举足轻重，变成生活中重要的一部分。我将仅仅注重电影翻译。电影翻译应遵循正确的翻译原则和方法。我认为，我们不能想当然的着重电影翻译的规则，而也需要翻译者的灵感。事实上，电影翻译需要译者的创造力。根据翻译方法，我提出创造性翻译。在电影翻译中应根据题材不同而运用创造性翻译。关键词：影视翻译；字幕翻译；电影题材；片名翻译；创造性的翻译ContentsI. Introduction1II. The Historical Study of Movie Translation in China and Abroad

5、.1A. The historical study of movie translation in China.1B. The historical study of movie translation abroad.2C. The thoughts that is put forward by Chinese translators.2III. Title Translation.3IV. Subtitle Translation.6V. What is the Creative Translation?.8VI. Requirements of Creativity in Movie Tr

6、anslation.8A. The correct analysis of movie resource8B. Paying attention to the brief language.8C. Audience is the centre8D. Translation should be based on characters.9VII. Conclusion.9Works Cited.10I. IntroductionMovie is a kind of art which has appealed to all ages since it was first invented in 1

7、895. Nowadays, movie is playing an increasingly important part in peoples lives; it is an essential part of their entertainment life. Ever since China adopted the reform and opening-up policy in 1979, foreign movies have been flooding into China. Meanwhile, Chinese movie is longing to win Oscar Priz

8、e. To most judges of Oscar Prize, they want to understand the whole movie through the performance of actors and the scenes of movie. Besides, movie needs to express itself by subtitles. It is beyond all questions that movie translation plays a significant role in social reality. In fact, to introduc

9、e Chinese movies is to introduce Chinese culture to foreign countries. So the movie translation is a carrier of spreading Chinese culture.Because of the requirement of movie development, a new kind of translation movie translation, which is not mature yet, has been developing silently. For a long ti

10、me, Chinese translators have been paying their attention to the translation theories but they ignore the creative translation in movie translation. Creative translation matters a lot and plays a very important role in movie translation. It is a carrier of our Chinese culture and a window of our coun

11、try. II. The Historical Study of Movie Translation in China and Abroad Movie translation will be discussed in this paper. As we know movie translation has gone through a long history both in home and abroad. The following are the brief introduction to the historical studies on movie translation. Gen

12、erally speaking, the foreign study on movie translation is maturer than Chinese one. A. The historical study of movie translation in ChinaIn China, the research into movie translation has barely begun. Empirical Suggestions were published while theoretical and systematic study in this field remain t

13、o be done，Ma Zhengqi(麻争旗) provided five principles on movie translation in his On the Basic Principles of Movie Translation published in May,1997. In l998 and 2000 Chinese Translation Journal published Zhang Chubos(张春柏) A General study on Film Translation and Qian Shaochangs(钱绍昌) Film TranslationA M

14、ore and More Important Field in the World of Translation. Discussion on the characteristics, principles and techniques of movie translation was included in Zhang Chunbos article and “five principles” and “seven pieces of experience” were proposed in Qian Shaochangs essay. All the above articles have

15、 contributed something to the study of movie translation though their contribution is empirical，not theoretical. Although Zhang Chunbo argued that movie translation should be guided by Nidas functional equivalence he did not continue the discussion after proposing these argumentsB. The historical st

16、udy of movie translation abroadMovie translation is a new but a rapidly-developing discipline abroad. Essays in large numbers have been published in this field，examining various aspects of the subject. Translation Journal has a special column “arts and entertainment”, where many articles on audiovis

17、ual translation appeared, such as Dr. Karamitorglous A Proposed Set of Subtitling Standards in Europe. Besides this，many research institutes of audiovisual translation have been established，such as European Association for Studies in Screen Translation. These institutes organize conferences dedicate

18、d to audiovisual translation studies and lay down their own guidelines for this fie1d.Even though our surveys on movie translation are still in a young stage, recently many outstanding theses have been springing up in this field. The translators put forward brilliant views on movie translation and m

19、ake their contribution to this matter.C. The thoughts that is put forward by Chinese translatorsThe new thoughts are “The translator should pay close attention to the artistic application of language，and adopt the appropriate translation strategy of taking the audiences into full consideration so as

20、 to improve the cultural exchange and narrow the cultural gap” (Yang 94-97). “Audiovisual programs can be a tremendously influential and extremely powerful vehicle for transferring information in different culture. Dynamic equivalence theory should be taken as the guide in audiovisual translating” (

21、Yue 3).Zhu Yuming once discussed in her paper that a good audio-visual translation should be one that can let the target language audiences get the same enjoyment and entertainment as the audiences of the source language, and enable them to experience new and different cultures. Foreignization and d

22、omestication can co-exist and complement each other. One translating method is not enough to cover such an extensive field as audio-visual translation (Zhu 2).“Domestication takes priority on linguistic dimension while on the dimension of cultural studies, priority varies with power to some degree,

23、and the audiences acceptability that is conditioned by cultural distance. According to the authors principles of the dubbing translator as native speaker and the subtitling translator as economist, the corresponding strategies are given and inquired into, accompanied by living example” (Huang 5).Wan

24、g Xiaofang in her paper wrote that with Nidas theory of “functional equivalence”, the author insists that the success of film translation should be evaluated by the criterion that the relationship of the target language audience to the translated film should be as close as possible to the relationsh

25、ip of the source language audience to the original film (Wang 3).III. Title TranslationAs we all know, a good title will attract many people. Apparently an attractive movie title can bring millions of interest to the movie company. For instance, Disney cartoon movies are suitable for both young and

26、adults. Disney gets a splendid triumph in their native states, whereas, how to fulfill its brilliant achievements in China, creative movie translation is the vital key. Creative translation in cartoon movies makes kids beam with smiles, and adults are delighted in talking about them. People from dif

27、ferent cultures and different geographical locations are likely to give different translations. Such different thoughts result in different expression in different languages. As to English movie title translation into Chinese, first we should consider the different thoughts and different cultures. C

28、hinese mode of thinking differs a lot from that of western tradition, and the reason of such differences lies deeply in their respective philosophical thought and aesthetic value, which are the most important factors in human thought. In the following, the differences between the western and Chinese

29、 movie title translations will be discussed.Let us first take “The Sixth Day” as an example. It is a science fiction story. In order to translate the title properly, the translators have to consider the target audience himself or herself. Whether he or she can understand the content or the theme if

30、translating it into 第六日. What does it mean? For an eastern or Chinese, it may be hard to understand it. But for the people in the west, it is easy. This movie mainly talk about a story that an international companys research on cloning human being. The title comes from a story in Bible. In the story

31、, God is creating the world. He is creating human being on the sixth day. Western people have been cultured by Bible for hundreds of years, so that they know it very well. But it certainly causes confusion to Chinese because they never heard of before.As in the example of “Spiderman”, the translated

32、 version is 蜘蛛侠 not 蜘蛛人. To the western people, man sometimes is used to refer to the superficial one not the average one. But in China, 侠 is often used to indicate the almighty and powerful hero, and it is very popular in the Chinese tradition. In this way, it is more attractive for the Chinese aud

33、ience. This year, “Avatar” gained its fame and it was recorded into the history of movie. Because it is the most expensive movie in the world and it draws the largest audiences. Avatar is translated into 阿凡达 or 天神下凡. From my point of view, 阿凡达 may be more suitable, because this movie is about a plan

34、 whose name is Avatar, people whose DNA is combined with human and alien is also called Avatar. They are not gods, therefore, 天神下凡 is not correct. The movie “Seven” is a very breath-taking and exciting movie. It is a crux play. In this movie, there are seven crimes and seven punishments. In the seve

35、nth day, seven is everywhere. Even the poster of this movie is written as “Seven”. Making full use of the audiences curiosity and misunderstanding to metaphysics, this movie tells a story of a series of murders. “Seven” is a mysterious number in religion, and this is best shown in the Old Testament.

36、 God created Adam on the seventh day, and Satan is a fire dragon with seven heads. If the translators are not familiar with the content of the movie or the Bible, they may just translate it in to“七”. In this movie, the criminals leave the mark of “greed” “glutton” “lust” “pride” “envy” “wrath” “slot

37、h” at the places where he commits crimes. These are the seven crimes being talked about in the Bible. According to the cultural information of this movie, it should be foreignized into七宗罪. These are very good examples of foreignizing strategy and they have enriched our vocabulary and culture. The lo

38、anwords from foreign countries have become a very proof that foreignization is a feasible strategy.“Bodyguards and Assassins” (十月围城) draws peoples attention. The story happened in October in Hong Kong, a year before the Revolution of 1911(the Chinese bourgeois democratic revolution led by Dr. Sun Ya

39、t-sen which overthrew the Qing Dynasty). It was a true story about Dr. Sun Yat-sen who came to Hong Kong to deliberate how to overthrow the Qing Dynasty. There were a battle between bodyguards and assassins. The English title is direct and brief and it can be understood by foreigners clearly. Howeve

40、r, it also has its limitations. The English title “Bodyguards and Assassins” cannot transmit or reflect the historical background. It may be a little dull and rigid.The literal translation of “The Italian Job” is 意大利工作. It gives a wrong idea to Chinese audience that it is a story that happened in a

41、foreign country, and maybe it is about ones job and occupation and the content is plain. Even though the translation is clear to the original. In a word, this kind of literal translation only shortens the quantity of audience and has no good to the movie itself. The translator creatively translate i

42、t into 偷天换日pointing out the mystery of the movie and strongly increasing the audiences interest. But to others, such as, Jane Eyre and Harry Potter, those fabulous names, literal translation can achieve the goal. “Alvin and the Chipmunks” is a very jubilating cartoon movie. During the lunar New Year

43、, it brought happiness and relaxation to us. If “Alvin and the Chipmunks” is translated into 艾尔文和花栗鼠, the first image to audiences is that a zoologist studies chipmunks. They may think it is a documentary about chipmunks habits. They will hardly think of it as a cartoon movie. Fortunately, its Chine

44、se name is 鼠来宝. It is a traditional jolly Chinese title. As to elegant translation of film titles, 出水芙蓉 for Bathing Beauty is a typical one. Resorting to a figure of speech in Chinese, such a Chinese title even surpasses the English one in its implicit and creative expression, let alone the literall

45、y translated one 游泳的美人. Also there is a classical Chinese translation of “Lolita” 一树梨花压海棠. 一树梨花压海棠 comes from Tang poems. It refers to a marriage of an old man with a young wife. This translation compromises the merits of Chinese traditional culture and reflects the story properly and certainly it i

46、s more classical than others.From their titles we can know their movie styles. The movie title is the first card to audience. It is very important when audience pick up movies. As to science fiction movie, the title cannot be poetic and too long. It should be short and basically uses some avant-gard

47、e and new words to translate in order to attract the young people. The crux play has horrible atmosphere so that the title should be more eye-catching to convey its profound meaning.Title translation is similar to womens make-ups. Heavy or light make-ups are depending on the content or meeting the s

48、tyle of the movie. The just right translation will make audience joyful and enjoy them so much. IV. Subtitle Translation Subtitle is a part of movie translation. What is a subtitle? “A subtitle is a printed statement or fragment of dialogue appearing on the screen between the scenes of a silent motion picture or appearing as a translation at the bottom of the screen during the scenes of a motion picture or television show in a foreig