论翻译规范如何影响电影名称的翻 译：以电影名中英翻译为例 = HOW TRANSLATION NORMS INFLUENCE TRANSLATION STRATEGIES: A CASE STUDY OF ENGLISH–CHINESE TRANSLATIONS OF FILM TITLES

Abstract

Audio-visual translation (AVT) has been a growing strand in translation studies for the past two decades. Given its polysemiotic nature, the sub- discipline has dedicated itself to the many theories, methods and issues of AVT, paying special attention to subtitling and dubbing (Chiaro, 2009; Pérez-González, 2014). Scholars have also moved to delimit their studies in different ways by tapping into the importance of audience and culture in screen translation (Gambier & Giovanni, 2018; Cronin, 2009), highlighting that, rather than a solitary experience, media involvement is ultimately a social one. In translation studies, some scholars (Toury, 1995; Chesterman, 2016) have focussed on the notion of norms pertaining to translation as a social practice.

While much recent work in translation studies has been concerned with the sociological frameworks introduced in AVT, less emphasis has been placed on translators as objects of representation. That is to say, observing how social context affects translation positions translators within the social norms where the translation is grounded. This paper highlights the importance of norms on the actions and decisions made by translators in the process of translation – in particular, film title translation.

For this research paper, I adopt a descriptive approach to explore the translation strategies of English film titles in the Chinese market, paying attention to the commonalities in the translation of film titles and examining how the choice of translation strategies reflects translation norms. This is followed by a discussion analysing the factors that have shaped the norms of Chinese society. The paper then explores how film title translations take on these norms and their subsequent impact on later translations. Toury’s (1995) definition of norms and Chesterman’s (2016) classification of norms serve as the theoretical frameworks for the study.

This study concludes that when translating English film titles to Chinese, translators tend to adopt target-oriented strategies, such as using the Chinese four-word structure, highlighting genre-specific words and explicitating culture-specific phrases. These strategies ultimately conform to the Chinese language and target-culture translation norms. It is also found that expectancy norms have significant influence on translators. In other words, translated film titles are adapted to meet the expectations of Chinese audiences. As such, these translation products are assumed to be better accepted by the target audiences, which is considered culturally and financially important.