A Study of English Translation of Chinese Movie Titles from the Perspctive of Reception Aesthetics 《接受美学视角下的华语电影片名英译研究》开题报告

1. 研究目的与意义

Withthe deepening of globalization and opening-up, cultural communication ways andchannels between China and foreign countries are becoming more and morediversified and flexible. And cultural communication has been more closelyintegrated with the media. Movie, as a cultural carrier, plays an important role in cross-culturalcommunication. It reflects the spiritual connotation of a country’s values andmorals. The movie title, as a business card of the movie, contains the essenceof the whole movie. In addition, as the first medium for the audience to contact the movie,the priority of the movie title is earlier than the movie posters and trailers.An appealing title can bring a great preliminary heat to a mediocre movie. Onthe contrary, an inappropriate and not eye-catching enough title can also leadto a good-quality movie being discredited. Therefore, the translation of movie titles is one ofthe key factors for the success of movies when they are released into theinternational market. At present the domestic outstanding movies areinnumerable and domestic movies have already become matured. Therefore, China has enough confidence and ability topromote and spread Chinese movies, so that Chinese culture, Chinese spirit andChinese stories can take on the world. However, in the field of movie title translation,there is a lack of C-E translation studies and researches, so the quality of C-Emovie title translation is uneven. Therefore, it is necessary and significant to study the Englishtranslation of Chinese movie titles. In theory, it can supplement and expandthe field of movie title translation, and provide inspiration for the further relevantstudy; In practice, it can standardize and improve the quality of Englishtranslation of Chinese movie titles, and promote Chinese movies to reach out toglobe better.

2. 研究内容和预期目标

this paper takes the englishtranslation of chinese movie titles as the research object,. it firstintroduces the current situation of movie titles and their translation; and nextit summarizes the features of english movie titles after analyzing and comparingthe different naming methods and characteristics of chinese and english movietitles; then, based on the theory of reception aesthetics, considering thebasic values of movie titles, it makes a detailed analysis of the translationof certain movie titles in china; thus, the paper summarizes feasible c-e translationstrategies on the basis of the foregoing.

3. 国内外研究现状

atpresent, scholars at home and abroad pay more and more attention to the fieldof movie title and its translation, and the research is more and morediversified.

the research on thecharacteristics and differences of english and chinese movie titles has been fruitful.chinese scholars cao and tian (2021) summarize the characteristics and translationprinciples of movie title naming from the influence of the different ways ofthinking between english and chinese on english-chinese movie titles and theirinter-translation, point out to grasp the theoretical support behind the movietitle and the various influencing factors that affect the translation of thetitle.

in terms of translation theory, the functional equivalence theoryproposed by american linguist eugene a. naida in 1969 has been one of theclassics of translation theory, which points out that translation does not seekto achieve a rigid correspondence on the surface of words, but to achievefunctional equivalence between two languages. for example, domestic author li (2018), following theprinciple of functional equivalence, proposes a method of creative translationbased on lexical equivalence, syntactic equivalence and textual equivalence. in addition, hans vermeer''sskopostheorie is also often used as a translation theory, which follows the'skopes rule'. for example, liu (2019) studies the methods of movietitle translation from the perspective of skopostheorie. throughthe analysis of specific cases, he pointed out three methods of movie titletranslation (literal translation, free translation and transliteration) andthree principles to be followed (information principle, aesthetic principle andcommercial principle). additionally, memetics developed by richard dawkins in1986 pointing out a basic unit of cultural imitation and evolution named “meme”has been applied in translation. for instance, ning (2020) proves thatefficiently applying memetics can not only remove cultural barriers but also canrealize business value by analysis of e-c movie title translation examples. what’smore, relevance theory proposed by sperber and wilson has also been used in thefield of movie title translation, which includes the cognition andcommunication principles. for example, luo (2020) takes the english translationof farewell my concubine as the object of study, and proposes an optimalscheme for the english translation of movie titles from this theory. nefverschueren’s adaptation theory is also an important translation theory which pointsout that the use of human language should be viewed from a cognitive, social,and cultural perspective. take yang (2015) as an instance, she explores specificstrategies for the english translation of chinese movie titles under theadaptation theory. moreover, relatively new theory of reception aesthetics proposedby jauss and ethel is often used in movie title translation too. take zeng (2019)’sanalysis of movie title translation as an example, he pointed out somestrategies based on reception aesthetics and puts forward the viewpoint of strivingto achieve the perfect combination of the content and the form of the titletranslation. besides, in china, the eco-translatology proposed in the 21^st century by domestic professor hu gengshen thrives rapidly. for example, li(2018) proposes that the translator should realize the adaptive transformationflexibly from the three dimensions of the theory, namely language, culture andcommunication. however, it is not difficult to find that in the field of movietitle translation, chinese translation is the main research part, while englishtranslation is seriously inadequate.

4. 计划与进度安排

november, 2022——the end of december,2022: consult relevant literature,materials, and books to decide the paper title and compile the basic outline；

january, 2022——the end of march,2022: begin to write the paperand then complete the first, two and three drafts under the guidance of theinstructor to revise,

april,2022——the end of may,2022: refine and rectify thepaper in details; complete the final text and prepare for the thesis oral defense.

5. 参考文献

[1] jauss, h.r. (2006). aesthetic experience andliterary hermeneutics. shanghai: shanghai century press

[2] jauss, h.r. amp; holub, r.c. (1987). receptiontheory: a critical introduction. shenyang: liaoning people’s publishing house.

[3] pinkham, j. (2000). the translator’s guide to chinglish. beijing: foreign language teaching and research press.