elt voices india · 2014. 2. 24. · elt voices – india international journal for teachers of...

ELT VOICES – INDIA

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR TEACHERS OF ENGLISH

FEBRUARY 2014 | VOLUME 4, ISSUE 1 | ISSN 2230-9136 (PRINT) 2321-7170 (ONLINE)

A Critical Analysis of the Translated Movie Titles from English into Persian Based on Peter Newmark’s Translation Theories NIKOO RAHIMINEZHAD YAZDY (M.A.)1 English Department, East Azarbaijan Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University,Tabriz, Iran BAHRAM BEHIN (Ph.D.)2 Department of English Language and Literature, East Azarbaijan Shahid Madani University,Tabriz, Iran

ABSTRACT The present study aims to investigate the quality of the movie titles Persian translation

as well as to render the applicable strategy for their translation based on the translation

theories of Peter Newmark. According to Newmark, there are two main methods of

translation (semantic and communicative). To that end, the English titles of 100 movies

along with their Persian translation were investigated. They were chosen randomly for

the fair distribution of notice. Based on the title translation and two main translation

methods of Newmark (1988) as well as the study of many movie titles, the researcher

came to conclusion to classify the movie title as follows: the proper names, calque

words, concrete words and metaphorical words. The nature of each group was

elaborated. Newmark discusses in details about proper names, borrowing words and

metaphors. So, the critics over the titles translation have been carried out with regard to

his suggestions, the context of the story, the genre and the audience of the movie. The

plot summaries also were studied in order to fairly decide on the meaning of the title,

since the title is an abstract of the whole movie. Consequently, the made attempts led

the study towards some strategies considered to be appropriate way of the movie title

translation.

Key Words: Calque Words- Communicative Translation- Concrete Words-

Metaphorical Words- Semantic Translation- Title

ELT VOICES – INDIA February 2014 | Volume 4, Issue 1

245|ELT Voices – India International Journal|ISSN 2230-9136 (Print) 2321-7170 (Online)

1. Introduction

The present research intends to deal with the critical analysis of the translation of the movie titles. It is axiomatic

that the title of a movie may sum up the underlying theme of the movie, so, the translator should do his/her best to

transfer the meaning of it in a way that the target language receptors get the concept as the source language

receptors would understand.

Many theorists have pointed out the importance of translation, translation studies and theories since there is a

constant demand for communications around the word and information sharing. So, translation is an inevitable

task and plays a crucial role in our life. Newmark (1988, p.5) defines translation as ‘rendering the meaning of a

text into another language in the way that the author intended the text. Common sense tells us that this ought to be

simple, as one ought to be able to say something as well in one language as in another. On the other hand, you

may see it as complicated, artificial and fraudulent, since by using another language you are pretending to be

someone you are not. Hence in many types of text (legal, administrative, dialect, local, cultural) the temptation is

to transfer as many SL (Source Language) words to the TL (Target Language) as possible.

Nevertheless, the movie nature is theatrical and dramatic; it is considered as a part of the literary works,

accordingly, it is a branch of the literary translation. Accordingly, Baker states literary translation is the work of

literary translators. That is a truism which has to serve as a starting point for a description of literary translation,

an original subjective activity at the centre of a complex network of social and cultural practices. The imaginative,

intellectual and intuitive writing of the translator must not be lost to the disembodied abstraction which is often

described as ‘translation’ (Baker, 2005, p.127).

In addition, we should also take the nature of the titles into consideration; since the titles of the movies lead the

audience toward the whole message of the history, thus, the proper translation of the titles is of great importance

to make more audience for the movies, and besides translatability and cultural aspect has a crucial role in

translation of the movie titles.

2. Review of the related literature

The following chapter will review the theories of translation based on Peter Newmark’s theory. Besides, the

related theories proposed by the other theorists would be discussed. This research would study the movie titles

translation on the basis of “semantic” and “communicative” translation theory of Peter Newmark; he proposed his

theory according to Nida’s work , however, Newmark altered the term of Nida’s “formal equivalence” and

“dynamic equivalence” to “semantic translation” and “communicative translation” since he believed that making

total equivalence virtually impossible.

Therefore the debate over word-for-word versus sense-for-sense along with the theory of “literal” vs. “free”

translation, Nida’s equivalences as well as Newmark’s theory would be illustrated as follows.



2.1. Word-for-word versus sense-for-sense

In Roman times, ‘word-for-word’ translation was exactly what it said: the replacement of each individual words

of the ST (invariably Greek) with its closest grammatical equivalent in Latin. This was because the Romans would

read the TTs side by side with the Greek STs (Munday, 2008, p.20).

The sense-for-sense approach, on the other hand, allowed the sense or content of the ST to be translated. In these

poles can be seen the origin of both the ‘literal vs. free’ and ‘form vs. content’ debate that has continued until

modern times (Munday, 2008, p.20).

2. 2. Literal versus idiomatic

Because a given text has both form and meaning, there are two main kinds of translations. One is form-based and

the other is meaning-based. Form –based translations attempt to follow the form of the source language and are

known as literal translations. Meaning-based translations make every effort to communicate the meaning of the

source language text in the natural forms of the receptor language (Larson, 1984, p.15).

Most translators who tend to translate literally actually make a partially modified literal translation. They modify

the order and grammar enough to use acceptable sentence structure in the receptor language. However, the lexical

items are translated literally. Occasionally, these are also changed to avoid complete nonsense or to improve the

communication. However, the result still does not sound natural (Larson, 1984, p.16).

Idiomatic translations use the natural forms of the receptor language, both in the grammatical constructions and in

the choice of lexical items. A truly idiomatic translation does not sound like a translation. It sounds like it was

written originally in the receptor language. Therefore, a good translator will try to translate idiomatically. This is

his goal. (Larson, 1984, p.17)

2.3. Nida’s perspectives and formal equivalence vs. dynamic equivalence

Nida rejects the debate over ‘literal’ vs. ‘free’ in favour of the concept of formal and dynamic equivalence. Since

“there are, properly speaking, no such things as identical equivalents” (Belloc, 1931a and b, p.37), one must in

translating seek to find the closest possible equivalent. However, there are fundamentally two different types of

equivalence: one which may be called formal and another which is primarily dynamic (Nida 1964a, p.159).

Formal equivalence focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content. In such a translation one is

concerned with such correspondences as poetry to poetry, sentence to sentence, and concept to concept. Viewed

from this formal orientation, one is concerned that the message in the receptor language should match as closely

as possible the different elements in the source language. This means, for example, that the message in the

receptor culture is constantly compared with the message in the source culture to determine standards of accuracy

and correctness (Nida 1964a, p.159).



Dynamic equivalence is based upon “the principle of equivalent effect” (Rieu and Phillips, 1954). In such a

translation one is not so concerned with matching the receptor-language message with the source-language

message, but with the dynamic relationship, that the relationship between receptor and message should be

substantially the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message. A translation of

dynamic equivalence aims at complete naturalness of expression, and tries to relate the receptor to modes of

behavior relevant within the context of his own culture; it does not insist that he understand the cultural patterns of

the source-language context in order to comprehend the message (Nida 1964a, p. 159).

2. 4. Peter Newmark‘s perspective

Peter Newmark emphasized on “semantic translation” and “communicative translation” as two main methods and

aims of translation which are first, accuracy and second, economy. A semantic translation is more likely to be

economical than a communicative translation, unless, for the latter, the text is poorly written. In general a

semantic translation is written at the author’s linguistic level, a communicative at the readership’s. Semantic

translation is used for ‘expressive’ texts, communicative for ‘informative’ and ‘vocative’ texts (Newmark, 1988,

p.47).

Peter Newmark (1988, p.56-57) stated that the title should sound attractive, allusive, and suggestive even if it is a

proper name and usually bear some relation to the original, if only for identification. I distinguish between

‘descriptive titles’, which describe the topic of the text, and ‘allusive title’, which have some kind of referential or

figurative relationship to the topic. For serious imaginative literature, I think a descriptive title should be ‘literally’

kept and allusive title literally or where necessary imaginatively preserved.

Finally, in regarding to the research questions of this research and based on the mentioned theory the title

translation analysis would be done to see their appropriateness.

2.4.1. Translation of the proper names according to Newmark‘s theory

You have to look up all proper names you do not know. First, geographically terms. In a modern text, Beijing is

no longer Peking. Consider giving classifiers to any town, mountain or river likely to be unknown to the

readership, check the existence of any place name used in a work of fiction: Tonio Kröger’s Aarlsgaard does exist,

but not in my atlas. Bear in mind and encourage the tendency of place-names to revert to their non-naturalized

names (Braunschweig, Hessen, Hannover), but do not overdo it-let Munich remain Munich. Do not take sides on

any political disputes about place-names (Newmark, 1988, p.35).

2.4.1.1. People’s names

Normally, people’s first and surnames are transferred, thus preserving their nationality, and assuming that their

names have no connotations in the text. There are exceptions: the names of saints and monarchs are sometimes

translated, if they are ‘transparent’, but some French kings (Louis, Francois’) are transferred. The names of popes

are translated. Some prominent figures of classical Greece (Platon (F), Thucydide (F), Aeschyle (F), Sophocle (F)



and Rome ( Horace, Livy, Tile-liveCatutle) and the Renaissance (Arioste, La Tasse, Le Grec ) are naturalized in

the main European language. Romance languages often translate the first names of prominent foreigners, if these

are transparent. Some Renaissance and eighteenth-century personalities (e.g., Copernicus, Spinoza, Linnaeus

(Von Linne), Melancthon, which translates Schwarzerd, his original neme) adopted classical names which are

then sometimes naturalized- e.g., Linne, Copernic (F). In some languages, such as Hungarian, surnames precede

first names -e.g., Kadar Janos (Newmark, 1988, p.215).

2.4.1.2. Names of objects

Names of object as proper names consist of trademarks, brands or proprietaries. They are normally transferred,

often coupled with a classifier if the name is not likely to be known to the TL readership. You have to ensure you

do not become an instrument to promote the advertiser’s attempts to make an eponym out of the product’s name

(unless you are translating the advert). For drugs, you have to consult a pharmacopoeia to check whether the drug

is marketed under another name in the TL; it is prudent to add the generic name (Newmark, 1988, p.215-216).

2.4.1.3. Geographical terms

You have to be up to date in your rendering, to check all terms in the most recent atlas or gazetteer and, where

necessary, with the embassies concerned. You have to respect a country’s wish to determine its own choice of

names for its own geographical feature. Some features are sufficiently politically uncontested to remain as they

were in English: Belgrade (Beograd), Prague (Praha), Algiers (Al-Djazair), Tunis (Tunus), Tripoli (Trabulus-

Libya and London); the transliteration of many Egyptian and Middle East towns appears rather wayward and

willful (Newmark, 1988, p.216).

2.4.2. Translation of calque words

Calque words or Loanwords are words adopted by the speakers of one language (the source language). A

loanword can also be called a borrowing. Borrowing is a consequence of cultural contacts between two language

communities. Concerning borrowing, we can say that this task refers to a case where a word or an expression is

taken from the SL and used in the TL, but in a naturalized form, it is made to conform to the rules of grammar or

pronunciation of the TL. English borrows some words from other languages, e.g. résumé and café from French,

hamburger and kindergarten from German.

According to Peter Newmark (1988, p.81), transference (emprunt, loan word, transcription) is the process of

transferring a SL word to a TL text as a translation procedure. It is the same as Catford’s transference, and

includes transliteration, which relates to the conversion of different alphabets: e.g. Russian (Cyrillic), Greek,

Arabic, Chinese, etc. into English. The word then becomes a ‘loan word’. Some authorities deny that this is a

translation procedure, but no other term is appropriate if a translator decides to use an SL word for his text.

However, when the translator has to decide whether or not to transfer a word unfamiliar in the target language,

which in principal should be a SL cultural word whose referent is peculiar to the SL culture, then he usually

complements it with a second translation procedure- the two procedures in harness are referred to couplet.



Generally, only cultural ‘objects’ or concepts related to a small group or cult should be transferred; the vogue for

transferring so called “national characteristics” should be abandoned. Needless to say, in principal, the names of

SL objects, inventions, devices, process to be imported into the TL community should be creatively, preferably

‘authoritatively’, translated, if they are neologism, although brand names have to be transferred. It is not the

translator’s job to assist any SL advertiser’s financial, national or personal prestige interests. At the same time,

one cannot be rigid or dogmatic. The media, the experts, will be transferring words whether the translators like it

or not. Perhaps when the translator’s professional status is raised, they will not be transferring so many.

2.4.3. Translation of concrete words

By concrete words, the researcher means the words which have clear meanings or embrace denotative meanings.

These groups of the titles are not challenging to the translator at all. In this regards, Peter Newmark mentioned to

the “descriptive titles” which describe the title of the text, and in order to translate descriptive titles, he suggested

it should be literally kept. Literal translation method is proposed by Newmark (1988, p.46) as follow: The SL

grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest TL equivalents but the lexical words are again translated

singly, out of context. As a pre-translation process, this indicates the problems to be solved.

On the other hand, he has also mentioned that the title should sound attractive, allusive, suggestive even if it is a

proper name, and should usually bear some relation to the original (1988, p, 56). The semantic translation is

preferred over literal translation in some cases in order to preserve the aesthetic function.

2.4.4. Translation of metaphorical words

The last group of the titles is classified as metaphorical words which refer to connotative words or titles that have

idiomatic and symbolic meanings or having puns on them. They are problematic words and translating them is a

hard task, so, it is challenging work for the translators. This hard job requires that a translator of the literary works

to be a literary critic.

Newmark discusses in details about the translation of metaphors in his textbook of translation. Whilst the central

problem of translation is the overall choice of a translation method for a text, the most important particular

problem is the translation of metaphor. By metaphor, I mean any expression: the transferred sense of a physical

word; the personification of an abstraction; the application of a word or collocation to what it does not literally

denote i.e. to describe one thing in terms of another. All polysemous word (a ‘heavy’ heart) and most English

phrasal verbs are potentially metaphorical. Metaphors may be ‘single’ – viz. one-word – or ‘extended’ (a

collocation, an idiom, a sentence, a proverb, an allegory, a complete imaginative text) (Newmark, 1988, p.104).

He also distinguishes six types of metaphors in this book (p.106-113) and has a considerable discussion in relation

to their contextual factors and translation procedure. It is needed to be viewed and proposed in broad discussion in

further studies. However, the six metaphors are dead, cliché, stock, recent and original.

2.4.4.1. Puns



In relation to the translation of puns, he also notes, one makes a pun by using a word (e.g. ‘tit’), or two words with

the same sound (‘piece’/ ‘peace’), or a group of words with the same sound (perssone alitée/ personalité) in their

two possible senses, usually for the purpose of arousing laughter or amusement, and sometimes also to

concentrate meaning. Puns are most common in English and Chinese, since they are most easily made with mono

syllables (Newmark, 1988, p.217).

2.4.4.2. Idioms

If one defines idioms as phrases or word-groups whose meaning cannot be elicited from the separate meanings of

each word of which they are formed, then one first notes that these are never translated word for word; that since

idioms are either colloquial or slang, it is often difficult to find a TL equivalent with the same degree of

informality; and that idioms pass out of fashion rapidly, so that bilingual dictionaries are their ready victims. Since

translators are meant to work into their ‘language of habitual use’ (Anthony Crane), they are not usually ‘caught

out’ by idioms, unless they are mesmerized by their dictionaries. But many expatriate translators and teachers

have apathetic penchant for idioms, forgetting that they are often affected, pretentious, literary, archaic, confined

to one social class, modish, clichified or prolix – in fact as tiresome and unnecessary as most proverbs- and many

people prefer to use literal language combined with some original metaphors (Newmark, 1981, p.125).

2.5. Research questions

The following questions can be regarded for this research in order to lead the researcher to answer the questions.

1) Are movie titles translated properly from English into Persian according to Newmark's theories?

2) What are some deficiencies in the translation of the movie titles?

3) What can be done to translate movie titles properly?

3. Methodology

The present research intends to describe the quality of the translated movie titles in Persian language. This

qualitative study tries to lead to conclusion about what types of translation strategies are possible. Therefore, the

English movie titles translation in to Persian would be analyzed in order to determine which strategies are used or

which strategy may prefer over that.

3.1. Procedure

The abovementioned titles are studied as per of their form and meanings; they would be analyzed at the word or

phrase level according to the context. However, it leads the researcher to classify them to 4 groups- the proper

names, claque words, concrete words and metaphoric words. Then the applied methods for them would be

discussed and analyzed, in case of mismatches the proper strategy would be presented. Newmark refers to these 4

groups in his textbook of translation and discusses in details about the titles, the proper names, the loan words, the

metaphors as well as the appropriate approaches for their translation.



The numbers of 100 provided movie titles would be studied and analyzed in scrutiny. They would be divided

according to the 4 proposed classifications. The unit of translation would be considered at word or phrase level

based on the context. So, the meaning and connotations of each title would be look up in the monolingual and

bilingual dictionaries as well as online dictionaries. In some cases the etymology dictionary may be helpful. Then,

the plot story and some critics of the movie story from the internet sources would be extracted and studied as well.

By having such information, the meaning of each title would be judged based on the whole story or the context.

However, this conducts the study toward assessing the titles translation and their methods, to find out if they are

translated appropriately according to Newmark’s theory. In case of mismatches, the appropriate strategies

according to Peter Newmark would be proposed.

3.2. Samples

The following samples are extracted from the internet sources, the publications and the similar types. The

numbers of 100 movie titles and their Persian translations are chosen randomly and they are arranged

alphabetically, however, some samples are shown in the following table.

Table 1: Sample movie titles with Persian translations.

English movie titles Persian translation in English alphabets Translation into Persian

Casino Kazino کازینو

Dead Calm Sokoute qabrestani سکوت قبرستانی

Evil Dead Kolbe vahshat کلبه وحشت

In Her Shoes B jaye un به جای اون

Mission Impossible Mamoriate qeire momken باالتر از خطر/ ماموریت غیر ممکن

Money Poul پول

Mr. and Mrs. Smith Aqa va xanome Smit آقا و خانم اسمیت

Mr. Wood cock Aqaye Vood kak آقای وودکاک

Mrs. Doubt fire Xanome Doubt fire خانم دابتفایر

One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest Divane az qafas parid دیوانه از قفس پرید

The Pacifier Pestunak پستونک



Protagonist Zede qahreman قهرمان ضد

4. Discussions

In general, translation of the movie titles is the same as the novel titles translation. As the professional and

acknowledged translators read the whole of the novel before attempting to translate its title, the movie translator

should first watch the movie or read its script for making decision on the choice of appropriate equivalence.

Nevertheless, the translation of the movie titles is a difficult task. Not only, the movie titles are brief and convey

the message but also, they embrace the aesthetic figures to catch the audience’s eye. So, in their translation many

factors should be taken into consideration. As a whole, the faithfulness to the original titles and preserving their

aesthetic and artistic features consider as a matter of great importance. So, the commitments and creativeness of

the translators play a significant role in the translation task. However, the researcher of the present research has

tried to make a precise study on the plot summary and the current critics of the provided movies to assess the title

as per of the content, the context, the genre and the audience; accordingly, the meticulous criticize is made over

their translation quality and strategy.

Some samples for each group which has come under scrutiny are illustrated as follows. They are respectively for

the titles which classified as proper names, calque, concrete and metaphorical words.

The movies such as Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Doubt fire, Mr. Wood cock, may be classified under people’s name

group. As per of Newark’s suggestion, normally, people’s first and surnames are transferred, thus preserving their

nationality, and assuming that their names have no connotations in the text. So, for the above-mentioned titles we

transfer or transliterate them with considering the proper spelling of their original.

Casino is a facility which houses and accommodates certain types of gambling activities. Some casinos are also

known for hosting live entertainment events, such as stand-up comedy, concerts, and sporting events. The

meaning of the word does not necessarily involve gambling. The term “Casino” is of Italian origin, the root word

being “Casa” (house) and originally meant a small country villa, summerhouse or pavilion. The word changed to

refer to a building built for pleasure, usually on the grounds of a larger Italian villa or palazzo. Such buildings

were used to host civic town functions- including dancing, music listening, and gambling. However, in Persian

language we have not such a word since we have not such a place in our country and our culture. Besides, when

you look up monolingual Persian dictionary, you could find the word gambling house (قمارخانه) as equivalence. As

it was mentioned, the word Casino does not necessarily involve gambling. So, the present equivalence may not be

appropriate and there is no way unless to transfer and transliterate it.

Dead Calm, Evil Dead, Mission Impossible, Protagonist were translated freely or unduly free due to the

translators’ taste to catch the audience’s eyes. The translators have chosen the titles according to the story. They

carry the message of the story, they are not translated faithfully. The best strategy for translating such descriptive



titles according to Newmark may be semantic translation. For example, it is more appropriate and correctly to

translate ‘Dead Calm’ as ‘آرامش مرده’ rather than ‘ نیسکوت قبرستا ’.

In Her Shoes is a movie based on the novel of the same name. The film focuses between the relationship between

two sisters and their grandmothers. Maggie and Rose are sisters with nothing in common but their shoe size

(Wikipedia). However, Rose is a responsible girl and a serious lawyer while Maggie is unable to hold a steady job

due to her inability to read. Then Maggie changes to a girl, her sister whishes. However, the title is an idiom

which means to be in another person situation. It is translated in to Persian appropriately as an idiom, as Newmark

(1981, p.125) states, the idiom should not be translated word for word. Furthermore, the title also conveys the

message of the movie denotatively by using the word shoes; it reveals that the two sisters are common only in

their shoe size. Rose has a closet full of shoes and Maggie always wears them; so, they have struggle over them.

The title denotatively and idiomatically suggests the whole event whereas the Persian translation could only imply

the idiomatic sense. Rendering the same Persian equivalence to hold the both senses is somehow impossible due

to linguistic differences.

The abovementioned samples as an abstract of the whole samples reveal that on the one hand, there are some

cases which may be translated without making any trouble; however, the translator’s carelessness or their taste

made them unacceptable. On the other hand, there are some obstacles like linguistic or cultural gap, which made

their translation challengeable. With regard to the classification and the suggestion of Peter Newmark for the task

of translation and the title translation, his strategies proved to be applicable in the movie title translation.

Considering the research questions of the present research, three hypotheses have been taken into consideration.

Two hypotheses have been proved and one of them has been rejected. The followings discuss the results

respectively.

The first one assumed that the appropriate translation is rare and less than 30 percents are translated properly

according to Newmark’s theories. However, among the number of 100 movie titles, 20 of them are not translated

correctly or appropriately according to the rendered theories of Newmark. Since 80 percents of the movie titles are

translated appropriately and are followed his strategies, the first hypothesis is rejected according to the current

samples, however, it does not sound reliable and valid because the numbers of the samples are limit and they are

not a sufficient amount for a fair judgment.

The second hypothesis claimed the major problems in translation of the movie titles are due to the cultural

barriers, untranslatability, misunderstanding and the taste of the translators. This hypothesis is proved due to the

observed problems; some of the translations were done freely or unduly free based on the translators’ taste or

misunderstanding, some were somehow untranslatable due to the word play, pun, cultural or linguistic barrier.

Furthermore, the last and the main one, stating the movie titles could be divided to 4 groups in order to render

appropriate strategy. It is also proved because the samples were classified according to the four categories; then,

the appropriate and the applicable strategies for each group are provided based on Newmark’s theory and

suggestions.



Newmark (1988, p.46-47) states, I should say that only semantic and communicative translation fulfill the two

aims of translation. Semantic translation differs from ‘faithful translation’ (a faithful translation attempts to

reproduce the precise contextual meaning of the original within the constraints of the TL grammatical structure)

only in as far as it must take more account of the aesthetic value of the SL text. Communicative translation

attempts to render the exact contextual meaning of the original in such a way that both content and language are

readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership.

Besides, he suggests, I distinguish between ‘descriptive titles’ which describe the topic of the text, and ‘allusive

titles’ which have some kind of referential or figurative relationship to the topic. A descriptive title should be

literally kept and allusive title literally or where necessary, imaginatively preserved (Newmark, 1988, p.57).

According to the abovementioned theories, this research was led toward the 4 suggested categories. ‘Descriptive

titles’ is improved as proper names, calque words and the concrete words. The metaphorical words are similar to

‘allusive titles’. However, the suggested strategies are according to two main methods of ‘semantic’ and

‘communicative’ translation. By the way, it is improved as the follow strategies:

For proper names: transliteration, loan translation, calque words: transliteration, loan translation, concrete words:

literal or Semantic translation and for metaphorical words: semantic or communicative translation methods are

proposed.

The present research has been carried out to overcome the mentioned problems and also to provide the valid

strategies for the movie title translation. However, criticizing and studying many movie titles verified the validity

of the suggested strategies.

5. Conclusion

The present research has been carried out based on Peter Newmark’s theories of title translation as well as

‘semantic’ and ‘communicative’ theory to study and analyze the quality of the translated movie titles from English

into Persian. Its main aim is to provide an applicable translation strategy to overcome the current problems of the

titles translation.

The movie title is brief, concise and its goal is to sum up the theme of the movie in an aesthetic way to attract the

audience to watch the movie. It plays a significant role in the movie promotion. Therefore, the title translation is

of great importance to have the same effect on the target audience as the original title has on the source language

audience.

Based on the proposed research questions, the following tasks have been carried out.

The number of 100 English movie titles and their Persian translation are randomly chosen. Their analysis has been

done based on the researcher’s classification. As Newmark (1988, p.57) suggests, the titles are classified into two

groups, ‘descriptive titles’ and ‘allusive titles’. The former describes the topic of the text while the latter has some

kind of referential figurative relationship to the topic. Likewise, more study on the nature of the titles and their



translation leads the researcher to classify the titles according to the words’ form and meaning into four groups:

proper names, which refer to the name of people, the name of objects or the geographical terms , calque words,

which define as the words or the expressions are taken from the SL and used in the TL, but in a naturalized form,

the concrete words, the words which have clear meanings or embrace the denotative meanings, and the

metaphoric words which refer to connotative words or titles that have idiomatic and symbolic meanings or having

puns on them.

The samples of each category have been analyzed based on their meaning on the context. To that end, the plot

summary of each movie and some critics of the movie story were studied in order to find out the appropriate

meaning of the titles especially for the metaphorical words. In addition, the words dictionary meanings or

componential analysis based on monolingual and bilingual dictionaries were studied.

The classification of the titles and Newmark’s ‘semantic’ and ‘communicative’ methods along with his theories

through title translations led the researcher to render the following strategies:

1. Proper names: transliteration (transference), loan translation (through-translation)

2. Calque words: transliteration (transference), loan translation (through-translation)

3. Concrete words: literal or Semantic translation

4. Metaphorical words: semantic or communicative translation

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deepest thanks, first to my supervisor, Dr. Behin, for his patients, valuable ideas and

suggestions in this research. Special thanks also to my professor, Dr. Hamidi Bageri, for his most encouragement

and vast knowledge in this field and also his valuable paper which was of great help to me. I would also like to

express my sincere thanks t o my advisor, Dr.Kouhi, without his support, this study wouldn’t be accomplished.

Besides, I am so grateful to Dr.Salmani, whose continuous supports and immense endeavors were a great

consideration to me. I sincerely thank to my professors at East Azarbaijan Science and Research Branch for their

extensive knowledge and supports.

References

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e-Library.

[2] Bassnett, S. (2002). Translation studies. London and New York: Routledge.

[3] Crick, R. A. (2002). The big screen comedies of Mel Brooks. McFarland.

[4] Genette, G. (1997). Paratexts: Thresholds of interpretation. Cambridge: CUP.

[5] Ḥaqqʹshinās, A. M. et al. (2006). Millennium English-Persian dictionary. Tehran: Farhang Moaser.

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[6] Hatim, B. & Munday, J. (2004). Translation an advanced resource book. London & New York: Routledge.

[7] Hornby, A. S. ed. (2005). Oxford advanced learner’s dictionary. Oxford: OUP.

[8] Karimi-Hakkak, A. (1998). Routledge encyclopedia of translation studies, In M. Baker (ed.). Persian tradition.

London: Routledge.

[9] Larson, M. (1984). Meaning-based translation: A guide to cross language equivalence. New York: University

Press of America, Inc.

[10] Munday, J. (2008). Introducing translation studies. New York: Taylor & Francis.

[11] Newmark, P. (1981). Approaches to translation. New York: Prentice Hall.

[12]Newmark, P. (1988). A textbook of translation. New York: Prentice Hall.

[13]Newmark, P. (1998). More paragraphs on translation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

[14] Nida, E. A. (1964 a). Toward a science of translating. Leiden: E.J. Brill.

[15] Nida, E.A., & Taber, C.R. (1982). The theory and practice of translation. Leiden: E.J. Brill.

[16] Venuti, L. (2004). The translation studies reader. London & New York: Routledge.

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