The fate of movie titles in translation - A comparative analysis of translation strategies in title translation
Mia Vestergaard Andersen My exam no. 287746 BA project English S10
The fate of movie titles in translation
A comparative analysis of translation strategies in title translation
Table of contents
1. Introduction and problem statement p. 1
2. Theory and method p. 3
3. The purpose of movie titles p. 5
3.1 Function and effect p. 5
3.2 The movie genres and the expectations to a title of a certain genre p. 5
4. English as a global cinematic language p. 7
5. Translation strategies p. 9
5.1 The Three-method-model with macrostrategies by Cordero (1987) p. 9
5.2 Microstrategies by Schjoldager (2008) p. 10
5.3 Elaboration of the Three-method-model p. 11
6. Analysis of the source texts and target texts p.13
6.1 Frequently used translation strategies p. 13
6.1.2 Patterns in the genre of romance p. 13
6.1.3 Patterns in the genre of comedy p. 16
6.1.4 Patterns in the genre of children’s movies p. 20
7. The effect of the target texts p. 23
8. The prominent patterns of each movie genre p. 25
9. Conclusion p. 28
10. Abstract p. 30
11. List of references p. 32
12. Appendices p. 34
The fate of movie titles in translation - A comparative analysis of translation strategies in title translation
Mia Vestergaard Andersen My exam no. 287746 BA project English S10
The fate of movie titles in translation - A comparative analysis of translation strategies in title translation
Mia Vestergaard Andersen My exam no. 287746 BA project English S10
1. Introduction and problem statement
The title of a movie is an essential first impression determining whether or not the receiver decides to view the movie. The goal of a title is to give an impression of the action of the movie while attracting as many viewers as possible. Therefore, it is important that the translation of a movie title, distributed in a foreign country, has the same effect as the original title and corresponds with the action of the movie. This is not the case of every translation though, and this causes misunderstandings in relation to the movie and its audience.
The inspiration to this thesis originates in movie titles that I have been startled with; In these cases I did not think that the translation of the title corresponded with the effect or meaning of the original title. By discussing title translations with my friends and people in discussion forums on the internet, it became clear that some people are dissatisfied with the startling translations. Some translations seem to be working while others do not, and I am going to endeavour to find out why that is so.
Furthermore, since the titles that will be analysed, are movie titles from three different genres, I am also going to look into possible translation patterns within the different genres, and find out what the cause of the patterns is.
Thus this is going to be an empirical analysis of the different translation strategies used when translating English movie titles into Danish. Furthermore, the aim of the thesis is to find out, why the translator chose the translation strategies in question, and if the effects of the source texts are maintained or lost in the translations. However, I cannot determine this by analysing the translations, but only by giving my own opinion about the effect of the TTs in connection with the expectations the target audience is assumed to have.
In continuation of this introduction, the questions I am going to answer are the following:
1 – What happens with the title of an English/American movie when distributed in Denmark?
2 –Are there any translation patterns within each of the different genres and if so, then why?
3 - Is the effect of the source text lost in the translation, in what cases and why?
To be able to answer these questions I am going to study the chosen movie titles based on a comparative analysis between source text and target text in relation to the theory of Anne Cordero’s (1987) Three-method-model and theory on title translation by Christane Nord (1993).
I will use Anne Cordero’s model to simplify and explain the different ways in which a title can be translated in general, and I will use theory of Anne Schjoldager to elaborate on Cordero’s Three-method-model to explain translation strategies of the titles in greater detail.
Practical remarks
Throughout the thesis, I will refer to English as well as German sources. In relation to the German sources I will use the German phrases if a proper translation in English is not applicable. By using the phrases in the source language I avoid making my own translation, which enables me to focus on the original meaning of the phrase. This is done to report the statements of the sources with fidelity. The German phrases in question will be written in clams and followed by the source e.g. (Akzeptabilität by Nord, 1993: 248).
Furthermore, examples of titles in relation to translation strategies will appear in my theory section in chapter 5, but they are not considered to be a part of the study. The examples of titles in the theory are only meant to exemplify the different translation processes concerned. My study is based on the titles in appendix 1, which is the focus of my thesis.
Moreover, I will be using the abbreviations ST and TT which stands for source text and target text respectively.
2. Theory and method
My intention with this project is to make a comparative analysis between the STs and the TTs to study the translation strategies used in title translation. The source text data is 30 English movie titles collected from the Internet Movie Database, imdb.com. For the study I have chosen titles from three genres, romance, comedy, and children’s movies, to be able to investigate the translator’s task when translating movie titles of certain movie genres. The information sources of IMDB are on-screen-credits, interviews, press kits, official bios and autobiographies. Moreover, 70% of the database’s staff is dedicated to check and process the gathered information and its liability. The database contains 2.3 millions of titles and names of the movie industry, which makes it one of the largest movie databases on the internet. IMDB has a function that categorises movies into different genres and with this function I searched for movies listed within the categories in question. Within each genre I selected ten movie titles that represent the time frame of distribution 1937-2008 evenly, so that I am able to see if there are changes in the translators’ translation strategies during this period of time.The target text data is 30 Danish translated versions of the titles in question, collected from a Danish online DVD database, dvdoo.dk. This Danish database is actually an online movie shop gathering its information from movie companies and imdb.com, which is why the title information, found on this site, is reliable. The shop has over 8.500 movies on disposal, with additional information about the genres of the movies and their original titles.The chosen movie titles have been distributed in a time period from 1937 to 2008 for the reason that it would be interesting to see if there are differences between how older and newer movie titles are translated. The STs and TTs are to be found in a table in the appendix 1.To be able to make the comparison between the STs and TTs in the first place, I will need to define the purpose and function of a movie title. In relation to the purpose of a movie title I will also investigate the target audience’s expectations to a title, to study whether or not the titles in question live up to these expectations. This is related to what an audience is expecting from a certain movie genre, which is why a definition of the genres, I will work with, is needed. For the study I have chosen three different genres to be able to investigate the task of the translator when translating movie titles of certain movie genres. The theoretical tool I aim to use in identifying and discussing the differences and similarities of the STs and TTs, is Anne Cordero’s (1987) model dividing movie title translation in three different groups. The aim of this tool is to create an overview over the chosen macrostrategies of the title translations, which enables me to see whether there are patterns in the translation strategies within the genres. Furthermore, I will utilise Anne Schjoldager’s (2008) translation strategies by applying them to the titles translated with Cordero’s translation method no. 3, enabling me to define and study the used strategies in greater detail. In my analysis I aim to present and evaluate the patterns that may appear and discuss the effect of the target texts. Finally, the analysis will also present the reasons for the choice of translation strategies, concluding in an estimation of the patterns, translation strategies, and the effect of the target texts in relation to the problem statement in chapter 1.
3. The purpose of movie titles
3.1 Function and effect
The placement of movie titles is privileged and prioritised as the title of a movie is the most visual of a movie’s promotional features; it is displayed on posters, in announcements, and commercials a long time before the movie runs in the cinema. To conclude on the above, the function of a film title is to attract the audience intended for the movie (Cordero, 1987, in Kummer: 228). This entails that a translated title is allowed to differ completely from the original title, as long as it stays true to the plot and themes of the movie and meets the expectations of the recipient (Nord, 1991: 55), who, in this case, is the target audience.
The focus of a title is represented in a wide range of features such as descriptions of the protagonist or references to the movie’s core situation. However, there are some titles that deviate from these conventional title features e.g. by only referring to an unknown line of the movie or to a person other than the protagonist of the story (Bordwell, 2008:1). In relation to the translation of titles, such ‘creative’ titles are naturally accepted as purposeful titles, on the condition that they live up to the expectations of the audience and stay loyal to the intensions of the creator of the movie. In other words, the translator is expected to render the relevant features of the source text faithfully (Loyalität by Nord, 1993:17), and create an effect equivalent to that of the original title. The new title is also expected to be as functional for the target culture as the source text is for the source culture (Funktionsgerechtigkeit by Nord, 1993:17).
3.2 The movie genres and the expectations to a title of a certain genre
The target audience’s expectations to a movie title are rooted in the genre of the movie. Due to this, a definition of the three movie genres, studied in this thesis, will be given to estimate which characteristics a title of a certain genre is expected to contain.
Romance: The genre of romance is very broad and cannot easily be defined, since almost every movie contains some sort of love story or romantic undertone. But the genre of romance, I will be working with, can be defined and referred to as the way a movie revolves around the concept of love between two protagonists of the movie. The movies of this genre are chosen for the reason that love and affection for another human being is the general theme of the story. The romantic theme establishes some requirements for the title to enable it to appeal to its target audience, who are mostly people wanting to be enchanted and swept away by a beautiful love story. The age group of the target audience is roughly 18-50, since love is something a person of every age can relate to. However, the majority of the target audience is expected to be women, as emotional love stories are more appealing to them than to men, who find action and humour more alluring. This is why a title in this genre should be able to enchant the audience and establish curiosity towards the main characters of the movie. This is frequently done by creating a title the women surely will be able to relate to e.g. the title Kate and Leopold. This creates the impression that this is a story based on a relationship between the two people in question. The target audience would want to know who these people are, and which obstacles they must go through to be together.
Comedy is a genre of movies that are created to amuse and elicit laughter from the audience (Simpson, 1998). In this thesis, the genre of comedy represents light-hearted dramas with focus on humour in form of sarcasm, representations of highly unlikely situations, and exaggeration of characters and situations representing the common everyday life and its frustrations. The genre deals with ordinary human failures, but usually has a happy ending for the protagonists of the movies. Some of the chosen titles in comedy are based on romantic comedies (e.g. Knocked Up and Juno) but I have chosen these movie titles because of the sense of humour in the story and not because of the romantic undertone.
The comedies’ focus is on the humorous aspects of the story, and the main purpose of the comedy genre is to entertain and amuse the audience while telling a humorous story (Simpson, 1998), resulting in the other themes of the stories to only become secondary of importance. In relations to this, it might be expected that the title of a comedy contains references to a humoristic situation or person of the movie, since the humour reflected in the title is meant to be the feature that attracts the audience the most.