CHAPTER 1.

FILM STUDIES
Picture motions or films have become a complex form, an industry and even a culture.
They are a hugely significant, widely profitable global industry and a modern art which is the
most popular art form, nowadays. As an art form and as a technology, the cinema has been in
existence for nearly a hundred years. The earliest cinematic devices appeared and began to be
exploited in the1890s, almost simultaneously in the United States, France, Germany, and Great
Britain. Within twenty years the cinema had reached all parts of the globe, and was on its way to
becoming a major industry, providing the most wanted form of entertainment from all the times.
[1]
The public has become interested not only in domestic but also in international provided films.
Thus appears the problem how to launch them to a larger scale so that people would give a
positive appreciation. The problem was solved when the films began to be either subtitled or
dubbed and as a result the audio-visual translator has an important role to play. Everyday
professional translators all over the world have been working hard and have accumulated
considerable experience after countless hours of subtitling and dubbing practice. Subtitling and
dubbing are the most popular techniques to make a foreign-language film available on the
domestic market.

1.1 SUBTITLING VS DUBBING

Contemporary life is unimaginable without television, cinema, home-video etc. As the
cinema world and film industry is not so long, the globalization phenomenon caused a fast
spread of audio-visual media distribution. This led to an increased demand for the television
channels programme schedules to have various foreign television programmes. There are a
considerable number of definitions of audiovisual language transfer. According to Luyken,
audio-visual language transfer denotes the process by which a film or television programme is
made understandable to audience that is unfamiliar with the originals source language. Different
researches use different terms, as screen translation, film translation, term Audio-visual
Translation (AVT) which is explanatory and comprehensive and which emphasizes the audiovisual dimensions of the communicative mode. [2]
Three main language transfer practices exist side by side for audio-visual translation:
dubbing, subtitling, and voice-over. In addition to these practices exists also self-description,
intended for visually impaired viewers, and subtitling for the hearing-impaired, which has

specific features that make it suited to the needs of this part of the population. These techniques
are used to translate foreign audio-visual works (films, documentaries, fiction and animation)
into the national language.
Among European countries many television programmes broadcast are brought from
foreign-language countries. In the Netherlands, for example, approximately one-third of the
television programmes come from abroad. Two adaptation methods are especially preferred
when foreign-language television programmes are made available to a domestic market:
subtitling and lip-sync and dubbing. [4] There are three other methods that are used, but these
methods are applied only in a limited group of specific programme types: off-screen narration in
programmes in which off-screen comments were also provided in the original language;
voiceover in news programmes; and intertitles in documentaries and educational programmes.
Typical dubbing countries are Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Spain. Typical subtitling
countries are Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Luxembourg, the Portugal, Sweden,
Netherlands and Sweden. The Ireland and UK are the only countries which cannot be applied
into one of the two groups, because the small amount of non-English-spoken films and
programmes that are broadcast in these countries are subtitled or dubbed on a fifty-fifty basis. [3]
Voice-over is practiced in four countries: Bulgaria, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania. It is practiced
to a lesser extent in Estonia as well, where one third of programmes are broadcast in voice-over
and the remainder with subtitles. Nowadays digital broadcasting is starting to change the audiovisual environment, giving viewers access to original versions with subtitles and as alternatives
dubbed versions, or subtitled in another language than the main language of broadcast. This
option is a possibility in a small number of countries, but for now it only concerns certain
channels for certain programmes, due to technological and economic barriers. However certain
groups of the European population either students in language faculties or cinema enthusiasts
have a strong desire of seeking out the original subtitled version of films in the different
languages in which they wish to improve their skills. [4]
Subtitling can be defined as the translation in a different language of verbal messages in
filmic media, in the shape of one or more lines of written text presented on the screen in sync
with the original written message. [5]
Subtitling consists of integrating on the screen a written text which is a reduced version
in the target text of what can be heard on screen. Depending on the mode of projection, subtitles

can be printed on the film itself called open subtitles, selected by the viewer from a DVD or
teletext menu called closed subtitles or projected on to the screen, although the latter type is
restricted to film festivals where subtitles are displayed in real time. Usually the written, subtitled
text should be shorter than the audio, simply because the viewer needs the necessary time to read
the captions. According to Antonini, the words from the original dialogues tend to be reduced by
between 40 and 75 per cent in order to give viewers the chance of reading the subtitles while
watching the film at the same time. Especially, where an aural text and the dialogue are thick
with information, the subtitling translator is forced to reduce and condense the original so that
viewers have the chance to read, watch and, hopefully, enjoy the film.
Antonini identifies three principal operations that the translator must carry out in order to
obtain effective subtitles: elimination, rendering and simplification. Elimination consists of
cutting out elements that do not modify the meaning of the original dialogue but only the form
(e.g. hesitations, false starts, redundancies, etc.) as well as removing any information that can be
understood from the visuals (e.g. a nod or shake of the head). Rendering refers to dealing with
(most frequently eliminating) features such as slang, dialect and taboo language, while
condensation indicates the simplification and fragmentation of the original syntax so as to obtain
comfortable reading.
The subtitling process may also involve several operators. The first stage is known as
spotting or cueing and involves marking the script or the dialogue list according to where
subtitles should start. This stage is carried out by a technician, who calculates the length of the
subtitles according to the cueing times of each frame. With the aid of the dialogue, the translator
will take over and carry out the actual translation. In addition, a third operator may be employed
to perfect the final subtitles, checking language but also technical aspects, such as ensuring that
subtitles are in sync with changes of frame. However thanks to technology it has become quite
normal nowadays for a single operator to carry out all three steps of the entire procedure.
Usually, subtitles consist of one or two lines of 30 to 40 characters plus spaces between, which
are displayed at the bottom of the picture, either centered or left-aligned. [5]
However, films for the big screen tend to have longer lines with more characters
compared to TV screens because of movie audiences greater concentration and DVDs also have
longer lines, apparently because viewers can rewind and re-read anything they may not have
read. [6] According to Diaz Cintas, such restrictions may disappear in the future as many

subtitling programmes work with pixels that are able to manage space according to the shape and
size of letters. Subtitles in languages which are read from right to left (e.g. Hebrew, Arabic) are
right-aligned, as for Japanese scripts can be placed vertically. Normally, the letters are white,
spaced proportionally with a grey-coloured shadow that darkens if the underlying picture
becomes darker. In addition nowadays it is common to find subtitles both at the top of the screen
and the bottom, (e.g. MTV television) as well as moving or crawling subtitles in the lower
screen (e.g. Taiwan). The time submitted for each subtitle should be long enough to make
possible a comfortable reading; three to five seconds for one line and four to six for two lines.
Subtitles should not remain on screen too long as the original dialogue continues and this would
lead to further reduction in the following subtitles. If they are left on the screen too long, viewers
tend to re-read them, which it does not lead to a better comprehension.
Yet different languages use varying amounts of verbal content to express the same
meaning. For example, the average German word is longer than the average English word and
the syntax of Italian is notoriously complex and hypotactic compared to English, but subtitling
conventions are the same for all. As indicated above, subtitles can also be either open, meaning
that they cannot be turned off and controlled by the viewer (i.e. at cinemas), or closed, which
means that they are optional and accessed by the user (i.e. subtitles for hard of hearing, subtitles
on pay TV channels and DVDs).
Advantages and Disadvantages of Subtitling
Generally speaking, subtitling seems to enjoy a more positive reputation than dubbing. In
fact, the type of film that is subtitled in both English-speaking countries and within the dubbing
block will tend to be associated with the lite and possibly highbrow audience. Because the
dubbing was originally introduced to meet the needs of illiteracy within the population
associated with less intellectual audience. It appears that research on subtitling has focused on
wider issues such as source language interference in naturally occurring language and reading
speeds as Gottlieb and Linde and Kay affirm. The fact that the source language is not distorted in
any way is surely the most significant benefit of subtitles.
Furthermore, an important advantage is that the original dialogue is always present and
possibly accessible. Hence audiences who are familiar with the original language of the film can
also follow the acoustics. An important argument in favour of subtitling is that it promotes the
learning of foreign languages, but whether this is really true has never been established

empirically. Certainly, a significant advantage is the potential of its use as a language-teaching

tool in the classroom. However, the fact that the original dialogues can be heard is double-edged
as this severely limits translators choices, especially when translating from English. Censorship
is a clear example of this and is exemplified in the manipulation of films during a certain
political era which may be sensitive to a certain country.
Yet, as Weissbrod highlights, on Israeli TV the subtitles in both Hebrew and Arabic retain
references to sex and the sacrilegious expressions of the original. [7] Internationally well-known
taboo swears words in English films may be reduced in foreign subtitles but they will still be
audible and therefore recognized by audiences. It appears that subtitles reduce taboo language
more than dubbing evidently because of the belief that these words in writing have a stronger
effect than speech as Roffe says. In addition, the effort of reading and listening at the same time
may be confusing for some viewers. However, Wildblood states that this challenge should not be
overstated, because firstly there is reason to believe that subtitling audiences pay less attention to
the spoken dialogue than dubbing audiences; secondly subtitles are becoming more and
morereadable and user-friendly. Apart from the greatly improved aesthetics of layout palecoloured subtitles are a thing of the past and have been widely replaced by modern black boxes
filled with bold characters. Also, Ivarsson says that simple lexis is preferred to more complex
words, punctuation is conventionalized and care is taken for the upper line in two-line subtitles to
be shorter than the lower line so as to keep eye movement to a minimum. [8] Finally, the fact that
subtitles are added to the original version, rather than substituting part of it, also called the verbal
code, renders subtitling an uncharacteristic and possibly unique type of translation. Moreover,
the translation of subtitles is diagonal as Gottlieb says in the sense that, unlike literary
translation in which transfer is written to written, or interpreting, in which transfer is spoken
to spoken, in subtitling spoken language is transformed into writing. Consequently, all the
elements that are unacceptable in standard or even informal written language (e.g. hesitations,
false starts, taboo) are omitted in the streamlining that the modality necessitates. So,
paradoxically, subtitles as a form of writing are unable to conform to real writing by the fact
that they are reflecting speech.

Dubbing is a process which involves the replacement of the original speech by a voice
track which attempts to follow as closely as possible the timing, phrasing and lip-movements of
the original dialogue.
The goal of dubbing is to make the target dialogues look as if they are being uttered by
the original actors so that viewers enjoyment of foreign products will increase.
The dubbing process
There are four basic steps involved in the process of dubbing a film from start to finish.
First, the script is translated; second, it is adapted to sound both natural in the target language and
to fit in with the lip movements of the actors on screen; third, the new, translated script is
recorded by actors; and the last step it is mixed into the original recording. The first translation is
usually word for word. Some companies employ translators to provide a literal translation of
the script, after which the adaptor or dubbing translator who subsequently adjusts the rough
translation to make it sound as natural target-language dialogue. As well as delivering natural
talk , care is taken to ensure that the dialogue fits into visual features on screen such as lip
movement, facial expressions and so on. Moreover, the new dialogue also needs to take the
emotive content of each utterance into account. However, with the awareness that a clean
understanding of the source text is an essential asset for a translator, it is becoming even more
common for the two processes (the translation itself and the adaptation) to merge and be carried
out by a single translator who is skilled in both languages. [8]
While the script is being translated and adapted, the dubbing director, who supervises the
entire dubbing process, including economic aspects such as negotiating time scales and costs
with the commissioner, will choose the dubbing actors known as voice talents that best suit the
parts. The director may choose an actor according to his or her voice quality, which may closely
match that of the original actor. However, in the case of well-known actors, it is common in
Europe for one person to dub the same actor for his or her entire career. While the dubbing
director carries out the administrative tasks, the dubbing assistant will divide up the film track
into takes and mark them with a time code at the beginning and end of each. These short tracks
of film are organized according to the combination of characters appearing in each one in order
to arrange recording shifts in the studio for the different actors involved.
Recordings are carried out with the actors watching the film and listening to the dialogues
contained in each original take through headphones while they rehearse the translation that they

read from the script. As soon as the actors utterances are in sync with the original, recording
begins. In fact, the actors often have the freedom to manipulate utterances as they think fit
according to artistic or other criteria. Finally, once recording has been completed, the dubbed
tracks are mixed with the international track and musical score so as to create a balanced effect.
Nowadays, however, digital technology is beginning to replace the traditional artisan approach,
mainly for reasons of cost-effectiveness. One of the advantages of digital technology is that it
allows actors more freedom during the recording process. It eliminates the bother of having to
continually wind reels of tape back and forth. Moreover, the dubbing assistant no longer needs to
slice up a reel into takes because there is no need to arrange actors into numerous and complex
shifts. Thanks to electronic formats, each dubbing actor can simply record their part on their
own. The complicated and time-consuming traditional artisan approach forced actors to
physically work together in all the scenes in which the original actors appeared together; hi-tech
allows each actor to perform his or her part in the film, not necessarily in the presence of other
actors. Separate pieces of footage will thus be edited into a whole by means of software and/or
computer appliances.
As well as simplifying technical and organizational aspects of the dubbing process, new
technology is also able to modify lip sync and voice quality. Software is now available that can
automatically modify footage so that an actor mouths words that he or she did not actually speak
in the original; in other words, the original sequence can be modified to sync the actors lip
motions to the new soundtrack. Other programmes allow a dubbed voice to be quickly
assimilated to that of the original actor, regardless of the source language, by recording first a
sample of the original voice and then the dubbed dialogues. The software matches the first
recording with the second, giving the impression that the original actor is speaking the target
language with its characteristic quality and intonation patterns.
Advantages and Disadvantages of Dubbing
Bollettieri Bosinelli argues that the advantages of dubbing have traditionally stressed the
association of dubbing with doubling and hence the opportunity of making films available to
larger audiences which increase the sales. Those against dubbing stress the negative meaning of
double such as ambiguous, fake, deceitful, false, other than original, phoney, artificial. It

would not be unfair to say that dubbing has a worse reputation in subtitling countries than
subtitling has in dubbing countries. Furthermore, there appears to be a certain element of
dominance attached to subtitles that escapes dubbing. Unlike subtitling, dubbing is often accused
for spoiling the original soundtrack and denying audiences the opportunity of hearing the voices
of the original actors. Yet, in a sense, dubbing is the screen translation modality which is able to
fulfil the greatest visual uniformity with the original simply by virtue of the fact that there is no
need to reduce or condense the source dialogues as in subtitling. In other words, there is less
textual reduction.
With dubbing, audiences can actually watch the film in its entirety as they are not
distracted by also having to concentrate on reading the dialogues. In fact, dubbing is a language
service that is consumed automatically and in a sense goes by unnoticed by audiences that are
used to this modality. However, subtitles too are consumed without audiences being unduly
aware of or disturbed by them. In fact, audiences get used to what they see and hear and by and
large they accept it simply because viewers are creatures of habit as Ivarsson says.
Significantly, even the issue of imperfect lip sync, which is frequently raised as one of dubbings
negative points, appears to pass unnoticed by audiences in dubbing countries, presumably
because perfect or near-perfect sync is only vital in close-up shots (Herbst 1994).
Nevertheless, dubbing is far more complex, time-consuming and, consequently, more
costly than subtitling, simply because of the number of operators involved in dubbing a film
from start to finish: dubbing director,translator, dubbing translator, actors, sound engineers, etc.
Digital technology can reduce both time and cost factors but whether it achieves the same quality
as that of artisan style dubbing still remains to be seen.
Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the dubbing countries have begun to be
swamped by cost-effective subtitled products, especially the newly invented DVD. This is
because the market is in need of very fast and cheap translations to deal with the continuous large
numbers of new productions for both cinema and TV, as well as an autonomous DVD market.
Apart from the real risk of reducing work in the dubbing there is a real danger of stamping out a
singular European craft. Ironically, while the USA filmic and television markets are extremely
protectionist, with foreign products exclusively subtitled, it is Hollywood that oversees the
dubbing rather than subtitling process of their goods in several developing countries.

1.2 CINEMATIC LANGUAGE

By cinematic language means the accepted systems, methods, or conventions by which
the movies communicate with the viewer. To fully understand cinema as a language, it should be
compared it with another, more familiar form of language the written one. The written
language is based on words. Each of those words has generally accepted meaning; but when
juxtaposed and combined with other words into a sentence and presented in a certain context,
each can convey meaning that is potentially far more subtle, precise, or expressive than that
implied by its standard dictionary definition.
In turn, the particular arrangement of multiple words into a cohesive sentence provides
greater meaning still. Instead of arranging words into sentences, cinematic language combines
and composes a variety of elementsfor example, lighting, movement, sound, acting, and a
number of camera effectsinto single shots.
But when combined with any number of other elements and presented in a particular
context, that elements standardized meaning grows more distinguished and complex. And the
integrated arrangement of all of a shots combined elements provides even greater expressive
potential. Thus, in cinema, as in the written word, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
Just as authors arrange sentences into paragraphs and chapters, filmmakers derive still more
accumulated meaning by organizing shots into a system of larger components: sequences and
scenes. Furthermore, within sequences and scenes a filmmaker can juxtapose shots to create a
more complex meaning than is usually achieved in standard prose.
The conventions that make up cinematic language are flexible, not rules; they imply a
practice that has evolved through film history, not an indisputable or correct way of doing
things. In fact, cinematic conventions represent a degree of agreement between the filmmaker
and the audience about the mediating element between them: the film itself. Although
filmmakers frequently build upon conventions with their own innovations, they nonetheless
understand and appreciate that these conventions were themselves the result of innovations. For
example, a dissolve between two shots usually indicates the passing of time but not the extent of
that duration, so in the hands of one filmmaker it might mean two minutes, and in the hands of
another, several years.

The filmmaker uses the camera as a maker of meaning, just as the painter uses the brush
or the writer uses the pen: the angles, heights, and movements of the camera function both as a
set of techniques and as expressive material, the cinematic equivalent of brushstrokes or of
nouns, verbs, and adjectives. From years of looking at movies, people are already aware of how
cinematic language creates meaning: how close-ups have the power to change our proximity to a
character or low camera angles usually suggest that the subject of the shot is superior or
threatening. Using cinematic conventions, filmmakers transform experiences into viewing
experiences that can be understood and appreciated by audiences. In addition to accept and
understand conventions the audience is looking at movies, bringing its individual experiences.
Obviously, these experiences vary widely from person to person, not only in substance but also
in the extent to which one trusts them. Personal observations of life may not be verifiable,
quantifiable, or even believable, yet they are part of the perception of the world. They may
reflect various influences, from intellectual substance to anti-intellectual prejudice; as a result,
some people may regard gladiator movies as more meaningful than scholarly books on the
subject. Thus, both cinematic conventions and individual experiences play significant roles in
shaping the reality depicted by films. For a better understanding of cinema language see the
Basic Cinema Terms Appendix 1.

CHAPTER 2. TITLE AS METATEXT

According to the Oxford dictionary the Title has its origin from Old English titul,
reinforced by Old French title, both from Latin titulus which means inscription, title. It first
appeared around 1300 c. then with the meaning of the title of a book or a play it was first
recorded in the mid-14c.
Numerous dictionaries as Webster's New World College Dictionary gives the definition
of the title as the name of a book, chapter, poem, essay, picture, statue, piece of music, play, film
etc. or The American Heritage Dictionary says that the title is an identifying name given to a
book, play, film, musical composition, or other work or a general or descriptive heading, as of a
book chapter. In other words the title may be a word or a phrase which is situated in the head of a
work and gives indications, suggestions or a summary upon the theme treated. Regarding film
titles they are written material to be read by viewers that is included in a film or television show,
which typically presents credits, narration, or dialogue.

2.1 TYPES OF FILM TITLES

Film titles may be classified taking into account its form and content. So there are name
film titles which take as titles peoples name. The hero or heroines name may serve as a title. For
example: Forrest Gump, Indiana Jones, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Robin Hood. However the
main character may not necessarily be a human being it can be as well an animal as dog, cat e.g.
Hachi: A Dog's Tale, and of course an animation figure as Stuart Little, Shrek, Mickey and
Minnie Mouse, Garfield or Scooby Doo.
Another type is when it is taken the plot or clue as a title. The story line may be reflected
by its title as the film e.g. Superman. This is a story about a man who has superhuman abilities.
He is viewed by other people as a superhero. Throughout the entire film he fights the enemies in
order to save the world, people around him. He is making the impossible- possible for the
worlds sake. That is why from the title, audiences can easily find out what the film is about.\
As a film title may serve the scenes. Using the names of the settings as the titles of films
is not unusual. This type of film title with no doubt confirms the place and circumstances the
story takes place. They may be a city, a country, a ship, an island and they are the important
scenes in the stories. Films with such titles are The Lake House, Notting Hill, Pearl Harbor, and
Titanic.

Time can also be as a film title. Time is a very important element in a film. In this type of
film the time is the basic theme of the story. For example: Back to the future, The time machine,
2012, Dj vu or Time after time.
And the last type is when the theme is taken as film title. As every film has its own
theme, some film titles are named after their themes. Compared with the above types, these are
more abstract. Only after the film is watched, the audience will know how it was named. For
example: the film Elephant, which chronicles the horrific events of a school shooting from the
points of view of the shooters, as well as a number of their victims. Knowing only the title is
much more difficult to guess the plot of the film. In the film, the proverbial "elephant" is the rage
that the shooters had before they carried out their horrific act. And everyone ignored it until it
was too late. However, even after seeing the entire film, anyone would never even once think
that the fitting title was Elephant. [9]
Vratislav Berdis explains in his work English film titles and their Czech equivalents
that according to Lev film titles may be of other types regarding its form, historical
development and function. Accordingly, there are: Descriptive title which presents the topic of
the book or film, usually by identifying its main character. Earlier, literary genre was frequently
included and titles were portraying the entire storyline in detail. Considering this type of titles
descriptive function was favoured over aesthetic function. At the present time, the trend is
contradictory.
Symbolizing title states the topic, problems or ambience of the work by compression
symbol which is not a depiction but an allegorical alternation of topic. This kind of title
should have a smooth form. Thus, the majority of titles consist of one word or two related words.
Regarding the content, expressiveness is essential.
Berdis also states that Peter Newmark distinguishes between descriptive titles and
allusive titles. Descriptive titles give the information about the topic or the action. Allusive titles
have a referential or metaphorical relationship to the story. Newmark affirms as well that
descriptive titles should be literally translated e.g. Forrest Gump might only be Forrest Gump,
and allusive titles should be literally translated as well with the condition to be imaginatively
preserved.

2.3 FUNCTIONS OF FILM TITLES

To understand better the functions of titles a simple question should be asked: What is the
function of the title? Usually the title is the first thing the audiences come to know about new
films.. The prime function is to identify the text or the film. Without this initial identification we
would not be able to talk about the film or the novel, sales promotion would be impossible, and
researchers could not analyze the text! The title makes the unit. If the text has come to us without
a title we must give it a title in order to talk about it: "Jellingestenen". King Harold did not bother
to give the inscription a title. In a computer, the file must have a title, but even before the file
gets its title it is called (in the Macintosh world) untitled 1.
Given this obvious function of the title we can indicate other (derived) functions:
The title is a sign to guide us through the television flow or the film pages of
newspapers/magazines.
The title is a means for guiding our reception and our interpretation of a text, either by
stressing a specific point of view or by giving us a rsum/ abstract of the film. Think of such
titles as "Jerusalem" or "Ordet", where one word gives you an idea of the content, a first
interpretation (Frandsen 91, 91), not to mention mysterious titles like "Et Dieu cra la femme" or
"Belle de Jour," titles where the connotative meaning plays an important role. A well-known (as
well as an unknown?) film maker may even give us an enigma: what is the sense of "North by
Northwest"?
Given the various roles the title may fulfill, the main function of the film title might seem
to be the film's promotion, in which case the title should be easy to remember because it
astonishes/provokes, etc. at first.
Film paratext and the media or communication channel involved
Given the fact that the text in a film is audiovisual and that the paratext (= title) is textual,
one might expect that film titles were different from titles of novels, short stories, dramas, etc.
But as far as I can see, there is very little original in film titles. The combination of two

media/communication channels in one global text (film + its paratexts) does not seem to have or
to have had any importance. Most film titles would work as titles of novels and vice versa.
Nor does it seem that the distinction between the heteroreferential and the
homoreferential aspects of the paratext (Frandsen 91, 83) change when we leave newspaper
paratexts to have a look at film paratext.
Frandsen distinguishes between "transmitter 1, enunciator 1" (for the proper text) and
"transmitter 2, enunciator 2" (for the paratext). This distinction works perfectly when applied to
newspaper headlines. It seems to work too within the title system of novels, as well as within the
film title system.
The only thing that should distinguish film titles from other titles is the total impossibility
of anaphoric relations between the film text and the title. The title is too far removed from the
film.
Movie is so important that it has become the first arts of the human world, pointed out
by French artist and novelist Mona (Baker, 2004, p.40).With the increase in cultural exchanges
between China and the rest of the world, especially with the Western countries, the movie has
gradually stood out as one of the important medium of communication in its own right. Movie
titles are always the first thing that the audiences come to know about new movies. Thus a right
choice of movie title translation is of great importance to the successful release of a movie. A
properly-translated English movie title should fulfill the following functions: First: Providing
information about the story for the audience by summarizing the main plot, revealing the theme,
or offering some clue. Second: Adding attraction to the movie and stimulating the audiences
interest in and desire for viewing the film. Third: Saving trouble for the cinema, the audience,
film reviewers and other research workers in their publicity, choice of viewing, comments and
studies. Like many other forms of non-literary translation, the translation of English movie titles
has not yet received due attention despite their importance. Peter Newmark has called on the
translators to bring their attention to two underplayed aspects of translation, one of which is
the approach to non-literary translation. (2001, p.135).Nida also called for more attention to
exploring new fields in translation (2004, p.17).This paper, based on the analysis of the present
situation, will introduce some principles and techniques of English movie title translation.