Translation Strategies of Movie Titles

What is it about?

This article is based on the fact that the process of translating film titles does not differ much from the translation of the other language units, at least as far as mental actions in the mind of a translator. What is different is the approach of translation, with a particular emphasis on stylistic and pragmatic aspects. It is not enough to choose the syntactic and semantic equivalents because the translator must make an effort for the translation to produce and transfer an effect and an idea of origin. Translation includes many factors that are not only linguistics. Here we talk about culture, associations and sometimes the effect that the previous film of the same author did. In trying to overcome lexical obstacles, in search of the expected additional effect that would improve the advertising for the film, the need for the translation to correspond to the period in which it emerges, there are successful creative translations, translated titles that need to be refined, but also those with a noticeable error. The purpose of this article is to show what are the procedures and the purpose of a translation of a film title.

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Why is it important?

It is up to the translator to choose the translation of the title by which he is likely to be known forever. Since films are intended for the general public, special attention should be paid to the target group, the genre of the film, the intent of the director (finding out whether or not the title reveals anything about the action of the film), while respecting the rule that the translation remains consistent with the original. A translator has to come up with a compelling, easy-to-remember and sometimes intriguing title, which is a difficult task overall.

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