Skopostheorie and the Application to English-Chinese Film Title Translation     

尹常彬 《海外英语》2015,(2):216-219

This paper aims to explore the film title translation(FTT) from English to Chinese with an attempt to adapt Skoposthoerie as a guiding theory. Although usually short, film titles have a significance influence on box-offices. However, generally in China, FTT lacks a guiding theory. In fact, FTT is a purposeful activity. Among numerous translation theories, Skopostheorie is appropriate for FTT because, unlike previous theories, it enables the translator to employ various translational strategies to realize the main skopos. Its distinctive feature is"The end justifies the means". Generally, the main purpose of FTT is to attract the target audience(the Chinese audience) to watch the movie. This essay mainly classifies FTT into partial and total literal translation and free translation and, under the guidance of Skopstheorie, tries to probe into different strategies for different title types. In the introduction part, research background is presented. ChapterⅡ is devoted to the overview of Skopostheorie. Chapter Ⅲ is an overview of English film titles. As the core of this essay, Chapter Ⅳ focuses on the application of Skopostheorie to FTT. In order to realize vocative function, which is to call upon the audience to watch movies, intratextual coherence should be achieved. And abundant target film titles are adapted to explain that different strategies are employed for different titles. The conclusion is that Skopostheorie can play an active role in guiding FTT and in terms of Skopostheorie, FTT is in essence a process of renaming and recreation with certain strains to realize its vocative function.  相似文献