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In Vietnam, together with the rapid development of the movie industry, movie translation has become a dominant aspect of translation. Aware of the importance of movie translation, quite a few international and domestic researches have investigated the issue. However, so far, movie title translation has received little attention of Vietnamese researchers. Hence, in an attempt to gain more insights into movie title translation, this research investigates the strategies and techniques that are employed in translating film titles from English into Vietnamese in Megastar Cineplex, which is regarded as the leading company in theatre business in Vietnam. This goal was achieved by both quantitative and qualitative approaches. They were respectively applied in the two phases of the study. In the first phase, document analysis method with movie titles serving as instrument was utilized to examine the strategies in translating English movie titles. In the second phase, three translators having experience of working for Megastar Cineplex were requested to participate in the facetoface semistructured interviews in order to investigate the process of releasing movie titles as well as the principles and techniques utilized by the participants in translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese in Megastar Cineplex. The results from both phases show that (1) seven procedures and one method were applied for translating movie titles in Megastar Cineplex from 2011 to 2012; (2) a translated title must undergo certain phases of internal and external examinations before being released in Vietnam; (3) there are five major principles to be followed the participants when translating movie titles; and (4) each translator has their own techniques to deal with movie title translation. The findings from the study hopefully will benefit not only translators who work with movie title translation but also researchers and people interested in the issue.
ABSTRACT In Vietnam, together with the rapid development of the movie industry, movie translation has become a dominant aspect of translation. Aware of the importance of movie translation, quite a few international and domestic researches have investigated the issue. However, so far, movie title translation has received little attention of Vietnamese researchers. Hence, in an attempt to gain more insights into movie title translation, this research investigates the strategies and techniques that are employed in translating film titles from English into Vietnamese in Megastar Cineplex, which is regarded as the leading company in theatre business in Vietnam. This goal was achieved by both quantitative and qualitative approaches. They were respectively applied in the two phases of the study. In the first phase, document analysis method with movie titles serving as instrument was utilized to examine the strategies in translating English movie titles. In the second phase, three translators having experience of working for Megastar Cineplex were requested to participate in the face-to-face semi-structured interviews in order to investigate the process of releasing movie titles as well as the principles and techniques utilized by the participants in translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese in Megastar Cineplex. The results from both phases show that (1) seven procedures and one method were applied for translating movie titles in Megastar Cineplex from 2011 to 2012; (2) a translated title must undergo certain phases of internal and external examinations before being released in Vietnam; (3) there are five major principles to be followed the participants when translating movie titles; and (4) each translator has their own techniques to deal with movie title translation. The findings from the study hopefully will benefit not only translators who work with movie title translation but also researchers and people interested in the issue. i Table of Contents ABSTRACT i Table of Contents ii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6 2.1.2.1. Methods of translaon 7 2.1.2.2. Procedures of translaon 9 2.2.2.1. Funcons of movie tles in English 13 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18 4.1. Phase one 25 REFERENCES 45 APPENDIX 1: ENGLISH MOVIE TITLES AND THEIR VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION IN MEGASTAR CINEPLEX (2011 – 2012) 51 APPENDIX 2: ALLUSIVE ENGLISH MOVIE TITLES AND THEIR TRANSLATIONS IN MEGASTAR CINEPLEX (2011 – 2012) 56 APPENDIX 3: ENGLISH MOVIE TITLES CONTAINING PROPER NAMES AND THEIR TRANSLATIONS IN MEGASTAR CINEPLEX (2011 – 2012) 57 APPENDIX 4: TRANSCRIPTION OF THE INTERVIEW WITH MR.QUANG (in Vietnamese) 60 APPENDIX 5: TRANSCRIPTION OF THE INTERVIEW WITH MR.THANH (in Vietnamese) 68 APPENDIX 6: TRANSCRIPTION OF THE INTERVIEW WITH MS.SOPHIE (in Vietnamese) 73 LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES List of figures Figure 3.1. Ratio of movie titles with and without proper names Figure 4.1. Movie titles without proper names translated by different strategies ii Figure 4.2. Distribution of strategies applied for translating movie titles without proper names Figure 4.3. Process of releasing a local movie title in Megastar Cineplex List of tables Table 4.1. Allusive movie titles translated by adaptation Table 4.2. Movie titles without proper names translated by through translation Table 4.3. Titles of movie sequels translated by transference Table 4.4 Titles without proper names of movies shown in the U.S before released in Vietnam translated by transference Table 4.5 Movie titles without proper names translated by shift Table 4.6 Movie titles without proper names translated by expansion Table 4.7 Movie titles containing proper names translated by adaptation Table 4.8 Movie titles containing proper names translated by transference Table 4.9 Frequency of couplet strategies iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS OALD Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary SL Source language ST Source text TL Target language TT Target text iv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This initial chapter presents the problem and the rationale, the aims and objectives, the scope, and the significance of the whole paper. Most importantly, the research questions are identified to serve as a guideline for the whole research. 1.1. Statement of the problem and the rationale of the study The French artist and novelist, Baker (2004, p.40) believes that “Movie is so important that it has become the first arts of human world. In Vietnam, despite being a fledgling industry, motion pictures have been rapidly developed and widely loved by Vietnamese people, young and old alike. According to Trinh (cited in Megastar Hé Lộ Doanh Số, 2012), film industry “has maintained significant growth” in the past few years and “the box office revenue of Megastar alone rises from $13.8 million in 2009 to $47.8 million in 2012”. In 2012, Hollywood’s films occupied up to “80% of the movies screened in Megastar Cineplex alone” (Thị Trường Điện Ảnh, 2012). As a result, movie translation, apart from book translation or news translation, has become a dominant aspect of translation in the country. Aware of this trend, quite a lot of dedicated Vietnamese researchers have conducted studies on movie translation. “A Study on Film Translation” by Le (1999) and “A Study on the Translation of Filmscripts in English to Vietnamese” by Le (2001) are some examples to name, just a few. The studies cover many facets of movie translation such as translating film scripts, translating idioms in movies. However, translating film titles has remained undiscovered in those researches. Then, in an attempt to discover the translation of movie titles, in 2006, Tran conducted a study on “Translation of English Movie Titles into Vietnamese”. This research, which may be regarded as the initial discussion about movie title translation in Vietnam, covers many aspects of movie titles translation like functions and features of movie titles, and assumptions about principles in translating movie titles. Although it is a thorough and admirable research project, the study still exposes some inadequacies. First, the movie titles and the translators serving as the samples for the research were selected from VTVs, HTV and Q.net. It should have been noticed that films screened by those entities were already released by a large number of cinemas. Hence, employing those sources might lead to inaccuracy as the translated titles might be borrowed or taken from the previous screened ones. Moreover, the study was asserted to be concerned with the translation of English movie titles into Vietnamese, the researcher, 1 however, also provided English movie titles, which were translated into other languages including Russia, Germany, Japanese, etc. without properly reasoning as well as analyzing. This might lead to questions about the role of those examples as well as the confusion among readers. However, in Vietnam, little to no research has been conducted to provide a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding about film title translation since Tran’s work was released in 2006. Furthermore, Lu (2009) states that “the translation of English movie titles” has not “received due attention” despite “their importance”. Discussing the importance of the titles to the success of movies, Prendergast (n.d.), a famous screenwriter, short film- maker, novelist and teacher at the University of Sydney and TropNest, says in her article that “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” is not true in the case of film title. She also states that a title can help movie-makers “market” their products and “the title of a film or a book or even a TV show plays a critical role in its success”. This opinion is widely shared by many other researchers and translators such as Patterson (2008), May (2010), etc. Furthermore, Mei (2010) emphasizes the role of translation of movie titles in his journal: “A good film title can arouse the readers’ interest to see a movie. So, the translation of film title is of importance”. Nevertheless, quite a lot of controversies have emerged over translating movie title. Hawley (2008) remarks that the translation of movie titles can “lead to the loss” of cultural and aesthetic features of the original titles. On the other hand, Andersen (2010) states that translation “causes misunderstandings in relation to the movie and its audience.” In addition, Kelan and Wei (2006) also points out the existing problems in translating English movie titles, including “the messy and low-quality” and “alienation and assimilation”. Back to the situation of movie translation in Vietnam, translating movie titles has perplexed not only translators but also many others including film critics, moviegoers, etc. Thus, in his article discussing inadequacies of translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese, Kha (2012) describes this issue as a “war”. Meanwhile, Ruelle (2010) also lists out several problems including the lack of feeling and original meaning faced by many Vietnamese translators when translating movie titles. Nowadays, the quality of film title translation is considered more significant as more movies are “released internationally” under the “effect of globalization” (Translation of Film Titles, n.d.). How to translate the film titles and how to make the translation attractive to the audience, therefore, become questions 2 that the translators should consider during translation. Hence, it will be useful and essential to figure out strategies as well as techniques in translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese in order to rectify the situation. Moreover, according to Hong (2010), regarding the “quality and quantity of movies shown in Vietnam”, Megastar “has advantage over other cinemas”. In the annual report from HSC (2011), Megastar is also regarded as the “leading company in theatre business” in Vietnam. Hence, it will be a wise choice to utilize film title resources and translators from Megastar Cineplex as the samples in order to fulfill the aims and objectives of the research. This will probably confirm the validity and assure the reliability of the paper. All the above reasons have inspired the researcher to conduct a study on “Strategies and Techniques in Translating Movie Titles from English into Vietnamese in Megastar Cineplex”. 1.2. Aims and objectives of the study First of all, the research paper is expected to determine the translation strategies, including methods and procedures which were employed to translate film titles in Megastar Cineplex from 2011 to 2012. Then, by investigating the translators who have the experience of working for the Cineplex, the process of releasing a Vietnamese title for an English one, the principles and the techniques in translating movie titles are unveiled. Hopefully, helpful implications may be made in order to ease the task of translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese in cinemas. In order to gain the objectives, the research attempts to seek the answers to the following research questions: 1. What translation strategies were employed to translate titles of films screened in Megastar Cineplex from 2011 to 2012? 2. What is the process of releasing Vietnamese titles for English movie titles in Megastar Cineplex? 3. What are the principles in translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese, as perceived by the participants? 4. What are the techniques adopted by those translators in translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese? 1.3. Significance of the study The paper will be particularly helpful for students and translators who have to work with movie titles. Besides, it can be of some service to researchers who happen to have an interest in the topic. 3 First and foremost, the study is expected to be beneficial for students and translators who have to translate movie titles. They will, to a certain extent, be aware of translation methods and procedures that can be applied in translating movie titles. Then, based on the real context, they may be able to apply the most appropriate one in order to produce the best translated titles. In addition, the paper also offers a closer look at the job of translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese by examining translators working for Megastar Cineplex. Thence, students and other translators can gain and use some experiences from the studied participants to deal with their own situation in translating movie titles. As a result, this will, to some extent, help to ease movie title translation. Secondly, the study is also expected to serve as a preliminary for further investigation on the issue. The study has no ambition of forming any universal laws or generalizations. Rather, it is meant to provide an in-depth understanding on the complexities of the issue. Thence, it is hoped to establish the foundation for future further investigation on movie title translation in particular, on title translation in general. In a nutshell, the study may act as the first step towards that end. 1.4. Scope of the study It is known that translation is complicated and involves a lot of theory. Meanwhile, the timeframe and the researcher’s expertise are limited. Therefore, as it is indicated in the title “Strategies and Techniques in Translating Movie Titles from English into Vietnamese in Megastar Cineplex”, this study is not expected to cover all related themes of translation theory, but just focused on translation strategies employed in translating movie titles in Megastar Cineplex and techniques suggested by the movie title translators. Besides, it is noteworthy that the samples of the study are confined to the titles of films that were shown in Megastar Cineplex from 2011 to 2012. The researcher did acknowledge that the study would be much more trustworthy and efficient if she could investigate all the titles of movies shown in Megastar Cineplex since 2006 (when the Cineplex opened its first cinema in Vietnam). Despite her repeated attempts, the researcher could not find any database containing such a huge number of movie titles. Hence, it was impossible to fulfill the ambition. Moreover, because of their up- datedness, titles of movie shown in Megastar Cineplex from 2011 to 2012 were examined instead. 4 In addition, the translators acting as the participants in this research all have experience of working for Megastar Cineplex. They were deliberately selected so that they could be available for the study and able to provide highly in-depth information of their situations, which might be helpful in understanding the complexities of the studied issue. 1.5. Organization of the paper The rest of the paper includes following chapters: Chapter 2 (Literature Review) provides the theoretical background of the study, including the overview of translation in general, a closer look on translation strategies including methods and procedures in particular, and a discussion of the findings and assumptions related to movie titles. Chapter 3 (Research Methodology) describes the participants, the instruments as well as the procedures that were employed to conduct the study. Chapter 4 (Results and Discussion) answers the research questions with data presentation, data analysis and the comparison among the findings themselves and offers some implications. Chapter 5 (Conclusion) summarizes the main issues discussed in the paper, the limitations of the research and some suggestions for further investigation. After chapter 5 are the references and appendices. 5 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW This second chapter presents the literature review of the study, specifically the background of translation, strategies of translation, movie and movie titles. To begin with, translation’s definition and translation strategies including translation methods and procedures are provided. Next, the chapter also introduces an overview on movie titles, which comprises of definition of movie and the background of movie titles with the characteristics and functions of movie titles. Finally, the chapter ends with a brief review of the assumptions related to principles in translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese, which discloses the research gap for the current study. 2.1. An overview on translation strategies 2.1.1. Definition of translation In order to establish the theoretical foundation for the study, it is necessary to explain the term “translation” first. Translation may be defined differently. Wassety (cited in Ghadi, 2010) regards translation as “a legitimate offspring of the phenomenon of language”. Also, Ghadi (2010) states “Translation is actually an activity performed by human beings in order to convey ideas and thoughts despite different languages”. These points of view provide general understanding about translation. Besides, from a specific perspective, Le and Nguyen (2008, p.3) say that translation can be considered either as “a product” or “a process”. On the one hand, being regarded as “a product”, translation may be seen as the text that has been translated. On the other hand, translation means “a process” when it refers to the activity of translating. Moreover, translation scholars also introduce various opinions about translation as a process. Banja (2009) regards a translator as a “message conveyor”; hence, a translation may be understood as “the process”. In 1972, Harmant and Stork states that translation aims to render as close as possible all grammatical and lexical features of the “source language” by finding equivalents in the “target language”. Dubois (1973) shares the same viewpoint: “Translation is the expression in another language (or target language) of what has been expressed in another, source language, preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences.” Newmark (1982, p.7) describes translation as “a craft consisting in an attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language.” In his “A Textbook of Translation” 6 [...]... shown in Megastar since 2006 Thence, movie titles were selected based on the following criteria First, the titles must belong to movies that were released by Megastar Cineplex In addition, all of the titles must be original in English Besides, movie titles must be up-to-date so that they would be accessible and reliable to serve as the samples for the research Finally, 146 titles of movies shown by Megastar. .. in Megastar in 2011 was available on the official website of the Cineplex This forced the researcher to find the 2011 session times on the third-party website, 24h.com.vn However, there were only Vietnamese titles of the movies shown in Megastar in 2011 on the website Hence, an attempt to find the English original names of the movies was made by typing the Vietnamese translated titles adding with Megastar. .. from English into Vietnamese in Megastar Cineplex First, an analysis of three cases with emerging themes would be presented Then, a summary of findings would be provided in response to the research questions 4.2.1 Case analysis 4.2.1.1 Case 1: Quang − Background information Quang is a professional movie translator He worked for Megastar Cineplex from 2009 to middle 2012 In Megastar, he translated both... or so for Megastar Now, he works for Platinum Media Company Limited and occupies the position of Film Marketing Manager Among the three participants, Quang appears to be the most experienced movie translator − The process of releasing a movie title in Megastar According to Quang, before being released in Vietnam, one translated title has to undergo certain phases First, marketing staffs in Megastar. .. strategies employed in translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese in Megastar Cineplex from 2011 to 2012 4.1.1.1 Strategies applied for translating 105 movie titles without proper names Data analysis revealed that six procedures and one method were employed in translating English movie titles into Vietnamese in Megastar Cineplex from 2011 to 2012 The number of titles translated by each strategy... in Megastar Cineplex from 2011 to 2012? 3.3.1 Sampling The study took advantage of purposive sampling, in which samples are “selected because it serves the real purpose and objectives of the researcher of discovering, gaining insight and understanding into a particular chosen phenomenon” (Burns, 2000, p.465) As it was indicated in the title, the study only concerns the translated movie titles in Megastar. .. Megastar Cineplex? 3 What are the principles in translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese, as perceived by the selected translators? 4 What are the techniques adopted by those translators in translating movie titles from English into Vietnamese? 3.4.1 Sampling In order to answer the three last research questions, it was necessary to ask for the participation of translators working for Megastar. .. Megastar If the title is not approved at this stage, the group will have to re-translate it After being approved by the distribution 30 manager, the title will then be submitted to the original studio producing and distributing the movie Here, the Vietnamese title is termed “local title” If the local title is approved by the original studio, it will be released; otherwise, it will be sent back to Megastar. .. conclusions, Tran’s appears to be the better for some reasons Firstly, Wang’s ideas about characteristics of movie titles are presented based on the researcher’s assumptions without evidence while Tran’s are strongly supported with various samples Moreover, Tran groups names of hero and heroine, and settings into “proper names”, which appears to be more concise Besides, the word “attractive” may be vague because... “most common meanings” despite other factors which may exert influences on the translation such as cultural differences, context, etc This is illustrated with the following instance: He is a big liar Anh ta là một lớn người nói dối (Le & Nguyen, 2008, p.22) Literal translation Similar to word-for-word translation, in literal translation, Newmark (1988, p.46) states that “lexical words” are translated . According to Trinh (cited in Megastar Hé Lộ Doanh Số, 2012), film industry “has maintained significant growth” in the past few years and “the box office revenue of Megastar alone rises from $13.8. MOVIE TITLES AND THEIR VIETNAMESE TRANSLATION IN MEGASTAR CINEPLEX (2011 – 2012) 51 APPENDIX 2: ALLUSIVE ENGLISH MOVIE TITLES AND THEIR TRANSLATIONS IN MEGASTAR CINEPLEX (2011 – 2012) 56 APPENDIX. TRANSLATIONS IN MEGASTAR CINEPLEX (2011 – 2012) 57 APPENDIX 4: TRANSCRIPTION OF THE INTERVIEW WITH MR.QUANG (in Vietnamese) 60 APPENDIX 5: TRANSCRIPTION OF THE INTERVIEW WITH MR.THANH (in Vietnamese)