Abstract and Key Words

Abstract: Film, as a cross-cultural media of art and communication, has long been an important part of culture in many countries, while the film title, just like the brand of a film, could catch the audiences’ eyes at once. Therefore, a proper film title translation is significant. However, because of the social, historical, cultural and dialectic differences among the Mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan, there always are three different versions on the same film, and those versions lead a serious confusion in film title translation confusion. Based on a large number materials collected from the Internet, film magazines, and some translation monographs, this study compares and analyses the different translation methods in these three places, sums up the cause of the difference, and then tries to conclude some suggestions on the improvement of the film title translation. It is hoped that the present study can provide a new constructive insight into the translation of film title.

Key words: translation; cross-culture; translation of film title 

摘要：电影，作为一门跨文化的艺术和交际形式，早已成为各国文化的重要组成部分，而片名，就如同电影的门楣，能瞬间抓住观众眼球，因此，一部优秀的英文电影离不开好的片名翻译。然而，纵观我国内地、香港、台湾三地英文电影片名翻译，由于存在着社会制度、历史文化、意识形态和语言文字的差异，对同一部电影片名翻译各异，一片多名、译名混乱的现象十分突出。本文通过大量搜集、整理两岸三地的英文电影片名来进行对比分析，归纳各地翻译方法，总结差异成因，旨在探究电影片名佳译的原则和方法。

关键词：翻译；跨文化；英文电影片名翻译      

1.    Introduction
Film is one of the most influential mass media in the world. It is so popular that whether people are old or young, or from which class in the society, film could cater for all the different tastes. That is incomparable for other arts. Over past decades of reform and opening up to the outside world, with China’s more and more frequent economic, political, and cultural exchanges with Western countries, foreign films, especially English films, have entered the Chinese market and occupied an increasingly important position in Chinese people’s life.
Film title, however, is just like the brand of a film. Appearing on playbills, advertisements, and TV-setters, film title is always put on the most attractive place in order to catch the audiences’ eyes immediately. It directly takes a role of “guidance”. A good film title can not only provide information about the film content and its genre to the audience, but also arouse audiences’ imagination and curiosity towards the film. Hence, with the significance of the film title, a proper translation for English film title draws an increasingly attention to Chinese people.