Abstract

With the development of globalization and foreign communication, films are becoming an indispensable part of entertainment of modern life. A good film can reflect social reality and convey abundant cultural information. As an eye-catcher, film title not only offers a brief introduction of the film but also attracts audience to watch it.
However, the research on the translation of film titles is still immature and many researches lack theoretical guidance. Therefore, this essay discusses different translation methods under the guidance of Skopos theory with the films directed by Zhang Yimou as the example. Four practical translation methods for Chinese film titles are proposed in this paper, which are literal translation, free translation, combination of literal translation and free translation, and transliteration, with the hope to give some references to future research.

Keywords:  Skopos theory  film titles  Zhang Yimou  translation methods

摘要

随着全球化的不断加深和对外交流的不断发展，电影如今已经成为了现代生活一种必不可少的娱乐方式。一部优秀的电影能够反映社会现实，传递丰富的文化信息。电影片名就如同电影的门楣，不仅能够传递影片信息，娱乐大众，还能诱导观众去观看影片。
但是，目前对电影片名的翻译研究还不够完善，多数研究缺乏系统的理论指导。因此本文以张艺谋导演的电影为例，探讨了在功能目的论指导下中文电影片名的翻译，提出四种可行的翻译方法：直译；意译；直意结合和音译，希望能为以后的研究提供一些参考。

关键词: 功能目的论；电影片名；张艺谋；翻译方法

Chapter One Introduction
1.1    Background and Significance of the Thesis
As we all know that film is playing a more and more important role in our daily life as time goes by. It has many functions such as for entertainment or culture communication. With the development of globalization, films from different countries can be enjoyed all over the world. So the translation of films is becoming more significant than ever before. However, there are only a handful of professional film and television translation agencies in China. The lack of systematic theoretical guidance and translation skills result in uneven level of translation, and even cause some outstanding films can’t be fully appreciated. Under this situation, the studies of film translation are not only of theoretical significance but also of practical significance.
Film title, as an important part of a film, is the trademark of film. Bao Huinan, in his book Cultural Context and Linguistic Translation, puts forward that film title is the brand of a film. As far as film is concerned, what catches people’ eyes first is the film title. Therefore the translation of film title is of great significance.