A comparative analysis on english translations of vietnamese songs a case study of em gai mua

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES List of figures Figure 1 The use of translation strategies in Vietnamese-English translation of cinematic hits’ titles List of tables Table 1 Description of

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ BẢN DỊCH VIỆT-ANH CỦA

TỰA ĐỀ NHỮNG BỘ PHIM ĐIỆN ẢNH THÀNH

CÔNG TỪ NĂM 2013 ĐẾN NĂM 2017

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Vương Thị Thanh

Nhàn M.A Sinh viên: Nguyễn Thị Lam Phương Khóa: QH2014.F1.E20

HÀ NỘI - 2018

ACCEPTANCE

I hereby state that I: Nguyen Thi Lam Phuong,QH2014E20 being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (English Language) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Signature

Nguyễn Thị Lam Phương

Hà Nội, 2018

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would first like to express the most sincere gratitude to my beloved supervisor, Ms Vương Thị Thanh Nhàn for her enthusiasm and dedication, encouragement, immense knowledge; her patience, understanding and support in overcoming numerous obstacles I have been facing through my research Her continuous guidance and valuable comments helped me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis I could not have imagined having a better supervisor and mentor for my thesis

I am also gratefully indebted to my dearest friends who were involved in the questionnaires of this research Without their passionate participation and input, the questionnaires could not have been successfully conducted and there could have been no data for analysis

I would also like to acknowledge the great help of the library of University

of Languages and International Studies as the source of information and references for this thesis and tremendous contribution of all teachers who taught me during

my years at the university

And finally, last but by no means least, my profound thanks also go to my parents and my brother for providing me with unfailing support and continuous encouragement throughout my years of study and through the process of researching and writing this thesis Had it not been for them, this accomplishment would not have been possible

ABSTRACT

Along with the unprecedented development of the film industry, there is a growing number of Vietnamese movies being introduced worldwide and gaining certain achievements As a result, movie title translation is receiving more and more attention, especially from scholars and researchers with quite many studies conducted in this field However, the number of researches on translation of Vietnamese titles into English remains modest, which urged the researcher to do a study into this area, more specifically into the English translation of Vietnamese cinematic hits’ titles from 2013 to 2017 The study was divided into two phases corresponding to two research questions with samples of 20 titles and 30 participants Phase 1 used qualitative approach to find out the translation techniques applied to translate ten chosen Vietnamese titles Meanwhile, in phase

2, 30 participants- 15 Vietnamese people and 15 foreigners were asked to complete questionnaires to evaluate the extent to which original titles and their translations achieved three functions of a movie – informative, vocative and aesthetic function The collected answers were converted to figures, and then presented by tables, allowing the researcher to obtain the findings and draw conclusions Results from two phases revealed that Providing a new title and Literal translation were the two most common techniques employed for translating ten Vietnamese titles Moreover, while there were two Vietnamese titles achieving all three functions, none of the translated titles could do it In other words, all the English translated titles failed to achieve three assigned functions, as evaluated by target audience Given the small population of the study, the researcher recommends further studies should be conducted with larger samples Investigations into problems discussed in the study such as cultural elements in translation or the failure to fulfill three functions of translated titles should be encouraged

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES vi

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 Statement of research problem & questions 2

1.3 Scope of research 4

1.4 Significance 5

1.5 Organization 5

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Translation 7

2.2 Movie title translation 8

2.2.1 A brief on movie title translation 8

2.2.2 Principles of movie title translation 9

2.2.3 Movie title translation strategies 11

2.3 Cinematic hits 12

2.4 Movie title 13

2.4.1 Characteristics 13

2.4.2 Functions 15

2.4.3 Skopos theory 16

2.5 Target audience 17

2.6 Conclusion 20

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 22

3.1 Subjects of the study 22

3.1.1 Titles of cinematic hits 22

3.1.2 Target audience 27

3.2 Data collection 28

3.2.1 Instruments 28

3.2.2 Procedures 29

3.3 Data analysis 30

3.4 Conclusion 31

CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 32

4.1 Findings 32

4.1.1 Translation strategies 32

4.1.2 Function fulfillment of Vietnamese cinematic hits’ titles 37

4.1.3 Function fulfillment of English titles of Vietnamese cinematic hits 40

4.1.4 Comparison between the function fulfillment of Vietnamese cinematic hits’ titles and their English translated titles 42

4.2 Discussion 44

4.2.1 Translation strategies 44

4.2.2 Function fulfillment of Vietnamese cinematic hits’ titles 46

4.2.3 Function fulfillment of English titles of Vietnamese cinematic hits 47

4.2.4 Comparison between the function fulfillment of Vietnamese cinematic hits’ titles and their English translated titles 49

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION 51

5.1 Summary 51

5.2 Limitations and suggestions 52

REFERENCES 54

APPENDICES 60

LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES

List of figures

Figure 1 The use of translation strategies in Vietnamese-English translation of

cinematic hits’ titles

List of tables

Table 1 Description of ten chosen movie titles

Table 2 Original titles, translated titles, back translation and applied strategies Table 3 The use of translation strategies in Vietnamese-English translation of

cinematic hits’ titles Table 4 Titles translated by “Providing a new title”

Table 5 Titles translated by “Literal translation”

Table 6 Informative function fulfilled by Vietnamese cinematic hits’ titles Table 7 Vocative and aesthetic function fulfilled by Vietnamese cinematic hits’

titles Table 8 Informative function fulfilled by English translated titles

Table 9 Vocative and aesthetic function fulfilled by English titles of Vietnamese

cinematic hits

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

In this initial part, the problem and the rationale, the scope, and the significance of this study are presented Above all, this part also identifies two research questions, which will direct the whole research

1.1 Background

Movie is one of the most significant art forms that can reflect life, culture,

or thought of a society and present it to other societies, as the French artist and novelist, Baker (2004, p.40) said: “Movie is so important that it has become the first arts of human world” It serves as a medium for the cultural communication between countries For movie to fulfill its duty as a cultural bridge, one could not deny the utmost importance of movie translation As a result, numerous studies on movies translation have been conducted by researchers around the world, covering many aspects of movie translation such as translating film scripts, translating slang

or cultural terms or movie dubbing Many Vietnamese researchers also show interest in this field and “A Study on Film Translation” by Van L.T.H (1999), “A Study on the Translation of Film scripts in English to Vietnamese” by Thanh (2001), “The Study on the Translation of Movie Script” (2001) and “A study of Translation of English-Vietnamese Subtitles in Selected English Films from the Website kst.net.vn” by Ha (2012) are some examples These studies focus on the translation of foreign movies from English into Vietnamese

Meanwhile, in Vietnam, throughout the years, movie industry has witnessed waves of changes and transformations, turning it into a fast-growing sector According to Thu (cited in Điện ảnh Việt và cuộc chiến giành miếng bánh trăm triệu USD, 2016), over the past 4-5 years, the growth rate of Vietnam’s movie market “has reached 35-40%” and “the gross box office revenue rises from approximately 83 million dollars in 2014 to 105 million dollars in 2015” Vietnamese film community has forged a strong brand and unique voice within the global cinema community with a great number of movies gaining remarkable

success and international recognition “Mùa len trâu” (2003), “Đập cánh giữa không trung” (2014) and “Tôi thấy hoa vàng trên cỏ xanh” (2015) are just three examples of Vietnamese cinematic hits that won several awards at renowned international film festivals such as Amiens International Film Festival, Chicago International Film Festival, Venice International Film Festival, London International Film Festival, etc “Mùa len trâu” (2003) and “Tôi thấy hoa vàng trên

cỏ xanh” (2015) were even nominated for Academy Awards- the most prestigious award for artistic and technical merit in the world film industry However, it seems that the translation of Vietnamese movies’ titles into English has not yet received the appropriate amount of scholarly attention as there are just few studies conducted in this field

1.2 Statement of research problem & questions

Among various factors contributing to the success of a movie, the translation of movie titles is of undeniable importance as title reflects the main ideas of a movie and plays a role in arousing the audience’s eager for watching this movie (Nida, 2001) A good movie title can benefit the movie and a bad one can ruin it The same goes to movie title translation As the first outlet of a movie

to its audience, along with posters and advertisements, movie title often determines the chance of success of the whole movie Therefore, it is important to conduct a study on the translation of movies titles, especially in the case of Vietnamese movies The reason is that high quality translation will make Vietnamese movies more accessible to foreign audience and boost their competitiveness in the international market

However, although there have been some meager academic attention on movie title translation, most of them are concentrated on the translation from English to Vietnamese, not the other way around In more details, Duong (2006) conducted a study on “Translation of English Movie Titles into Vietnamese” while Dung (2010) and Minh (2014) explored the principles in translating movie titles

from English into Vietnamese Most recently, Minh (2016) researched about the quality assessment of the translation of English movie titles into Vietnamese In contrast, the number of scientific work on the translation of Vietnamese movie titles into English remains modest, with only a study named “An insight into the translation strategies employed in the translation of movies titles from Vietnamese

to English” by Ngon (2012) However, as the name of the study suggests, though

it helps discover the strategies and principles in translating titles, it has not investigated the translation quality assessment – an important aspect and one of the main concerns of translation theorists This study intends to take the first step

in filling this gap

As mentioned above, the translation of movie titles is no less important than the original titles themselves, which can influence audience's interest to the film and determine its success Since the titles serve many functions such as the logo, the identity or the promotion, the “bait” of movies, to name but a few, there are also certain corresponding functions that the title translation has to fulfill This also results from the Skopos theory and the Skopos rule on which this study is theoretically based The theory and the rule emphasize that the prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose (Skopos) of the overall translational action and any translation product should serve the purpose(s) it is given Therefore, although there are various aspects of translation assessment, this study will only focus on evaluating the quality of movie title translation by checking whether the translated titles fulfill the purposes or functions they are

given Three functions employed in this study are: informational function,

advertising function and aesthetic function All of these terms will be clarified

in the Literature review chapter Hence, it can be said that it is crucial to conduct a study to assess the quality of translated titles and discover whether they successfully perform these functions

In addition, the quality of translated titles of Vietnamese movies has caused heated debates among scholars and critics Andersen (2010) states that translation

“causes misunderstandings in relation to the movie and its audience.” For example, in his article discussing the problems of the translated titles of Vietnamese movies, Ruelle (2010) mentioned the ridiculous title translation - “The Floating Lives” of the Vietnamese famous movie “Cánh đồng bất tận”, which was awarded 5 prizes in Canh Dieu Vang Awards and nominated for Academy Awards He argued that it made the film sound more like a documentary about the life of a duck

Therefore, given the need to have a research into the translation of Vietnamese movies’ titles and the remaining problems in the quality of translated titles, this research was undertaken, focusing on answering these two main following questions:

1 What are the strategies applied to translate titles of Vietnamese cinematic hits into English?

2 To what extent do the translated versions fulfill the three functions of movie title translation as perceived by the target audience?

1.3 Scope of research

As stated in the research title, this study will focus on the translation of movie titles from Vietnamese to English only The scope of the study does not limit itself to a specific film genre It covers a broad range of films representative

of different genres (action, comedy, drama, and horror) However, bound by time limitation, it will be restricted to successful movies in the period from 2013 to

2017

The samples of the study will be confined to titles of Vietnamese cinematic hits The reason is that successful movies are often the ones that are introduced to other countries, screened at international film festivals and nominated for international awards Therefore, it means that these movies already have their English translated titles officially approved At the same time, these are the titles that need proper assessment because these movies represent the Vietnamese film

industry and carry the desire for international recognition and the titles shoulder significant responsibility

of translation

Second, as the study is expected to reveal the most common translation techniques for movie titles, translators can consider applying the most appropriate one to produce the best translation product Criteria and assessment investigated in this study may also help them to know how to self-assess their translation and avoid making mistakes

Last but not least, it may serve as a preliminary for further studies on this topic and others related to the field of movie translation

1.5 Organization

The research consists of three main sections:

Section 1 included the introduction chapter, which mentioned the problem and the rationale, the scope, and the significance of this study Two research questions are also listed

Section 2 was the main part of the research paper covering three chapters Chapter 1 provided a literature review clarifying many terms and theories related

to movie title translation, a set of criteria of a cinematic hit and classification of movie audience Chapter 2 was Methodology offering description of the samples, the instruments and the procedures used to collect and analyze data In chapter 3, the findings and discussion were presented in the order of two phases corresponding to two research questions

Section 3 concluded the research with a short summary of the whole paper and pointed out the remaining limitations and recommendations for further studies

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides an overview of translation in general and movie title translation in specific as well as key information on such aspects of movie title translation as principles and strategies Also, criteria determining a cinematic hit, characteristics and functions of a movie title and classification of target audience all will be discussed in order to offer a theoretical ground for data collection process

It can be seen from this definition that, first, translation can be viewed as a product, which consists of many sub-types ranging from traditional subtypes such

as “literary translation, technical translation” to up-to-date ones such as “subtitling and machine translation” Wassety (cited in Ghadi, 2010) shares the same viewpoint when he also regards translation as “a legitimate offspring of the phenomenon of language”

On the other hand, translation is also considered a “process”, referring to the activity of translating Banja (2009) stated: “A translation may be understood

as the process whereby a message which is expressed in a particular source language is linguistically transformed in order to be understood by readers of the target language Actually, the translator is conveying the meaning expressed by the original writer so the end reader gets a translated text that is faithful to the source text in meaning.” Newmark (1981) asserted the same definition:

“Translation is a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language”

In this study, translation is viewed as a process of conveying the message and meaning of ST into TT in written form while preserving semantic and stylistic effects

2.2 Movie title translation

2.2.1 A brief on movie title translation

As mentioned above in the background, many studies on movie translation have been conducted, covering different facets from subtitling to dubbing, from translation of cultural equivalents or slangs to translation techniques, etc However, the translation of movie titles, like many other forms of non-literary translation, has not yet received due attention in spite of its undeniable importance Therefore, Newmark has encouraged the translators to shift part of their attention

to “two underplayed aspects of translation”, one of which is “the approach to literary translation.” (2001, p.135).Nida also called for “more attention to exploring new fields in translation” (2004, p.17)

non-One of the earliest work on movie title translation was from Peter Newmark

in 1988 when he tackled the translation of titles by distinguishing between descriptive and allusive titles, with the former describing the topic of the text while the latter dictating referential or figurative relationship to the topic He suggested that both types of titles should be literally kept and that the translated title “should usually bear some relation to the original, if only for identification”, but it should also “sound attractive, allusive, suggestive” to attract the target language reader (1988, p 57)

More recent studies investigated other aspects of movie title translation Kelan & Xiang (2006) and Yin (2009) emphasized the role of cultural factors in

procedures employed in translating movie titles Marti & Zapter (1993) looked at the translation of film titles from English into Spanish and found that literal translation is the most preferable procedure when the target language and culture accept the original title Yin (2009) assessed the translation of English film titles into Chinese and listed common procedures for film title translation including literal translation, explication, transliteration, adaptation and the use of new titles

Overall, although movie title translation is being discussed more and more widely in the world, the number of studies and materials found in Vietnam still remains limited, particularly ones relating to the translation of Vietnamese movie titles into English

2.2.2 Principles of movie title translation

A number of researchers have attempted to put forward their ideas of principles in translating film titles Wang (2007) suggested four principles including:

- Faithfulness: the translators have to invest time and effort to preserve the conciseness of the script and show the connotation of the movie

- Cultural awareness: the translators have to be aware of and fully understand cultural components and properly deliver them to the target audience

- Combination of commercial and aesthetic effects: A well-translated title has

to well combine attractiveness and quaintness, and can achieve both commercial and aesthetic effects

- Artistic quality: A good translation of movie title must be an artistic work Although these 4 principles try to cover different aspects of movie title translation, they seem to be a little bit overlapped, specifically the vague gap between

“aesthetic effect” and “artistic quality”

Most recently, Minh (2014) proposed three main principles that she thought translators of movie titles should meet after conducting a research into the principles in translating movie titles in Vietnam:

- Being faithful to the originals: The translation should be loyal to the original title or accurately reflect the content of the movie It also should consider functions of the title

- Fulfilling commercial purpose: translators must be able to get the titles across to the audience and make them attractive Besides, the translated titles should be concise and succinct

- Being aware of cultural differences: Sensitive words such as sex-related words, political words, violence-related words, religious words should be avoided

in the translation given cultural differences between Vietnamese and English This suggestion has bridged the gap in four principles of Wang (2007) but revealed inadequacy in the third principle of cultural differences The problem here is that the explanation Minh gave constrained the principle itself to only sensitive words, which are just a small part of cultural differences

Meanwhile, Duong (2006) put forward four standards as follows:

- Faithfulness to the context: The faithfulness is shown in the way that the title should be in either direct or indirect connection with the movie itself or in other words, it should suggest one of the followings: event, plot, main actor/actress, theme, place, spirit, etc which are mentioned in the movie

- Consideration of movie genres: the translators need to take the genre into account while translating the title The translated title is produced in a way that can convey the movie genre

- Cultural awareness: translation is acculturation and negotiation between two cultures and translation is now culturally oriented Therefore, translators should be well aware and knowledgeable to avoid mistranslation

- Combination of commercial and aesthetic effects: a well-translated title will

be characterized by two vital ingredients of commercial and aesthetic effects Translators are expected to polish the titles so that they can bring aesthetic feeling and call attention to as many moviegoers as possible

In the researcher’s own opinion, these four principles of Duong (2006) are the most comprehensive as they discuss the most facets of movie title translation, especially with the addition of consideration of movie genres, which is an important element worth taking into consideration in the process of translating a movie title Compared to the principles suggested by Wang (2007) and Minh (2014), the explanation that Duong gave for each principle is clearer and more convincing

2.2.3 Movie title translation strategies

Translation strategies are a field of study that has attracted attention of numerous theorists and researchers However, what stands out and receives wide recognition for its significant influence is Newmark’s theory of translation methods, which consists of eight methods: word for word translation, literal translation, faithful translation, semantic translation, communicative translation, idiomatic translation, free translation and adaptation However, this theory still exposes some problems The eight methods seem to overlap each other since the border among methods such as between literal translation and faithful translation

is not clear The classification into eight types appears to be a little bit too detailed and trivial

Meanwhile, in her study, Duong (2006) introduced five translation strategies that are specifically used for title rendering:

- Keeping the original title: The easiest way to translate a film title, clearly,

is not to translate it (Steinsaltz, 2001) This kind of strategy is often employed when movie titles are proper nouns such as names of characters and places (settings), especially ones that most of the audience can understand without further explanation

- Literal translation: With this technique, both the form and the content of

the original title will be preserved at the maximum level and “lexical words” are

translated singly, out of context (Newmark, 1988, p.46) Translators often use this strategy when titles are simply nouns and noun phrases

- Explication: Explication means to embellish some more details to the title

so that it is understandable and clear It is a translation technique of clarification, explanation or interpretation, under which additional details must be taken from the movie

- Adaptation: Adaptation is to change, to adjust or to modify some unique

factors to the source-language so that they are understandable to the readers of target language

- Providing a new title: It is the freest technique of movie title translation,

for translators are not bound by linguistic hindrances and their creativeness as well

as imagination can work the best They are free to select a new title that fits the movie plot, which depends on their taste and style

In general, as the subjects of the study are movie titles, the five strategies mentioned above are more appropriate than Newmark’s methods Additionally, they will also clarify and strengthen the four principles of movie title translation discussed earlier

2.3 Cinematic hits

Given the precarious nature of the film industry, just a few researches have been conducted in an attempt to figure out criteria for a successful film but have failed to provide sufficiently consistent and precise answers After specifying some methodological caveats, Simonton (2009) proposed three main criteria or success triad by which a film’s success can be evaluated namely critical evaluations, financial performance, and movie awards Each criterion will be discussed in turn as follows:

- Critical evaluations: judgment made by critics in the form of “stars” or

numerical scales, either at the beginning of a film’s theatrical run or after its

publication when theatrical run is completed The star or score may range from zero for a box office flop to five stars for an unquestioned masterpiece These informed evaluations will appear in various media, such as newspapers, radio, television, and the Internet However, this criterion is not common in Vietnam Although there are certain kinds of film reviews on the newspaper and on the Internet, they are not from professional critics or specialists and not officially certified Additionally, the evaluations often do not come along with stars or scores Therefore, in this study, since the subjects are Vietnamese movies, this factor will not be employed to evaluate the success of a film

- Financial performance: gross box office earnings, it can be confined to

the earnings in any given week, most commonly the film’s first weekend gross (e.g., Basuroy, Chatterjee, & Ravid, 2003; Simonton, 2005b) The financial performance can be assessed by either domestic or world financial figures but in the case of Vietnamese movies, only domestic performance counts The reason is that Vietnamese movies are seldom screened at foreign cinemas and even if they are, the earnings are insignificant

- Movie awards: the number of nominations and awards received from

different organizations, including dramatic, visual, technical, and music categories

In this study, the researcher will base on this success triad to select the subjects and modify it to fit the context of Vietnamese film industry

2.4 Movie title

2.4.1 Characteristics

Different scholars and researchers have provided different characteristics of movie titles According to Wang (2007), movie titles have four main characteristics, which include being “brief and concentrated”, having “heroes’ and heroines’ names as titles”, having “settings as titles” and being “attractive”

However, Wang’s opinion reveals some shortcomings The characteristic of having heroes or heroines’ names as titles is inadequate since not every movie has hero or heroine characters Moreover, “being attractive” appears to be rather vague

as it is hard to determine whether a movie is attractive or not, which varies depending on each viewer’s perception

Meanwhile, Newmark (1988, p.57) suggested that titles can be

“descriptive” or “allusive” Descriptive titles “describe the topic of the text” directly while allusive titles “have some kind of referential or figurative relationship to the topic” (Feng, 2005)

Duong (2006) proposed three main characteristics of movie titles, which seemed to be the combination and revision of ideas of both Wang and Newmark They are being “brief and concise”, being “descriptive” and “containing proper names” However, she appears to miss “allusive” characteristic of movie titles

In conclusion, in this paper, the three characteristics that the researcher considers most appropriate and comprehensive are being brief and concise, being descriptive or allusive and containing proper names Each characteristic is further explained as follows:

- Being brief and concise: Movie titles are usually concise and straight to

the point Many of them just contain one to three words including lexical words The main components are nouns with different types such as concrete noun, abstract noun, common noun, uncountable noun, etc.(as in foreign movies such as

The Lion King (1994), The Notebook (2004), Wonder (2017) or Vietnamese

movies such as Mùa len trâu(2004), Lô Tô (2017), Xích lô (1995), etc.); different formations such as compound, abbreviation (as in Spiderman (2002), The

Godfather (1972) or Mỹ nhân kế (2013), Oan hồn (2004),etc.)

Even in forms of a sentence, they are also succinct and simple in structure

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Everybody wants some!! (2016) or Cha cõng con (2017) and Bạn gái tôi là sếp (2017) are some examples

- Being descriptive or allusive: A descriptive title can “provide the audience

with a general idea of a story” (Duong, 2006) “Chicken-run”, which tells the humorous story of a herd of chickens seeking escape from their evil owners by learning how to fly, is such a title Meanwhile, “an allusive title cannot tell the

main plot of the movie, but it really relates to the story.” Nụ hôn thần chết (2008),

Cánh đồng bất tận (2010), Quả tim máu (2014) are some allusive titles of

Vietnamese movies

- Containing proper names: Many movies have proper names as their titles,

which is not only concise but also related to the content While “in Vietnamese movies, usually only famous people or well-known characters in novels adapted

for the movie can have their names as movie titles”, for example Nguyễn Ái Quốc

ở Hồng Kông (2003), Chị Dậu (1981), Chị Tư Hậu (1963), in foreign movies,

“even ordinary people’s names can have privilege to be present in the titles”

(Duong, 2006) such as John Wick (2014), Finding Dory (2016), Alice in

Wonderland (2010), etc Besides, a lot of titles include names of the setting in the

movie, often of the places that are popular to the majority of the audience such as

Pearl Harbor (2001), Madagascar (2005), Hà Nội 12 ngày đêm (2002), Cô ba Sài Gòn (2017), etc

2.4.2 Functions

Kolstrup (1996) stated in his article The Film Title and its Historical Ancestors: “The prime function [of a movie title] 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.”

Turgut (2012) shared quite the same opinion when he claimed that movie title is a powerful designed element that not only can allude to the story of the movie but also to the genre and the general atmosphere of the movie

These two viewpoints are right but remain limited as they have not covered the artistic aspect of movie titles Given this, Wang (2007) and Sun (2007) agreed

on three main functions of movie titles including “informative function”,

“aesthetic function” and “vocative function”

- Informative function: Title helps the audience to access the idea and story

of the movie better The informative function of movie titles means providing the

“potential audience” some “relevant information” about the movies (Wang, 2007) The “relevant information” may include the genre, the main characters, the plot or setting, etc of the movie

- Vocative function: Title stimulates the audience’s curiosity and interest

The vocative function of language aims at the “readership”, “addressee” and calls upon them to “act, think or feel”, which means to “react” in the way “intended by the text” (Newmark, 1988, p.41) Therefore, the titles function as a way to “draw attention of audience” and “make them psychologically interested” in watching the movies (Sun, 2007)

- Aesthetic function: Title brings a sense of aesthetic beauty to the movie A

good title “has obvious aesthetic quality and can give audience beautiful art enjoyment” (Shi, 2014) This function also allows audience to gain sensory

“enjoyment” by using “delicate language” which may contain “vivid images, musical words or various rhetorical devices” (Sun, 2007) This function can be achieved by “the choice of both the beautiful words and vivid expression And the meaning must be creative.” (Zhihong, 2018)

2.4.3 Skopos theory

Skopos theory was introduced into translation theory in the 1970s as a technical term for the purpose of a translation and of the action of translating by Hans J Vermeer, who believes that the purpose of a text determines the translation strategies Meanwhile, Christiane (2001) claims in her book “Translating as a Purposeful Activity-Functionalist Approaches Explained” that the prime principle

determining any translation process is the purpose (Skopos) of the overall translational action

Skopos theory focuses on the purpose of the target text, which determines the translation methods and strategies that are to be employed in order to produce

a functionally adequate result It includes three principal rules: namely, the Skopos rule, the coherence rule (intratextual coherence) and fidelity rule (intertextual coherence) The top-ranking rule for any translation is the “Skopos rule”, which reads as follows: translate/interpret/speak/write in a way that enables your text/translation to function in the situation in which it is used and with the people who want to use it and precisely in the way they want it to function

Skopos theory enables the same text to be possibly translated in different ways depending on the purpose of the target text It allows the acceptance of multiple versions and the evaluation of individual versions according to the purpose for which each version is intended However, it fails to pay enough attention neither to the linguistic nature of the source text nor to the reproduction

of micro level features in the target text as even if the Skopos is adequately fulfilled, it still may be inadequate at the stylistic or semantic levels of individual segments

In this study, Skopos theory is mentioned as it serves as a theoretical basis

in the process of information analysis to answer the first research question The researcher will base on this theory to explain the choice of translation technique made by translator to apply to each title

2.5 Target audience

In advertising and marketing, Kotler, Philip; Armstrong and Gary (2005) defined target audience as “a particular group of consumers within the predetermined target market, identified as the targets or recipients for a particular advertisement or message” Lake (2017) gave a simpler definition of target

audience, which is “the demographic of people most likely to be interested in” a product or service

In the case of movies, the general audience is almost unlimited, regardless

of ages, occupations or genders However, the target audience of each category of movie may vary depending on the rating system The cinema industry categorizes audiences in many different ways and one such example is by attitude This kind

of classification divides audiences into Cinema enthusiasts / regulars, Socialites, Reluctants and Non-attenders Nevertheless, audiences are often categorized based

on an age-related scheme, which is in line with the classification of films regarding their suitability for audiences in terms of issues such as sex, violence, substance abuse, profanity, impudence or other types of mature content This content rating system varies from country to country depending on each country’s perception of the influence of specific factors

In the United Kingdom, an independent non-governmental body, The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is in charge of classifying films to be publicly exhibited in the United Kingdom, which provides the following system:

- U (Universal): Suitable for all A U-rated film should be suitable for audiences aged four years and over

- PG (Parental Guidance): General viewing, but some scenes may be unsuitable for young children A PG-rated film should not unsettle a child aged around eight or older

- 12A: Cinema release suitable for 12 years and over No one younger than

12 may see a 12A-rated film in a cinema unless accompanied by an adult

- 12: Video release suitable for 12 years and over Video recordings with this rating are not to be supplied to anyone below that age

- 15: Suitable only for 15 years and older No-one under 15 is allowed to see

a 15-rated film at the cinema or buy/rent a 15-rated video

- 18: Suitable only for adults No-one under 18 is allowed to see an 18-rated film at the cinema or buy/rent an 18-rated video

- R18 (Restricted 18): Adult works for licensed premises only The R18 category is a special and legally restricted classification primarily for explicit works of consenting sex or strong fetish material involving adults Films may only

be shown to adults in specially licensed cinemas, and video works may be supplied to adults only in licensed sex shops R18-rated video works may not be supplied by mail order

Meanwhile, in the United States of America, the content rating system applied for all of the movies published in this country is issued by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) This system divides films into five main categories:

- G (General Audiences): All Ages Are Admitted Nothing that would offend parents for viewing by children

- PG (Parental Guidance Suggested): Some Material May Not Be Suitable For Children Parents urged to give "parental guidance" May contain some material parents might not like for their young children

- PG-13 (Parents Strongly Cautioned): Some Material May Be Inappropriate For Children Under 13 Parents are urged to be cautious Some material may be inappropriate for pre-teenagers

- R (Restricted): Under 17 Requires Accompanying Parent Or Adult Guardian Contains some adult material Parents are urged to learn more about the film before taking their young children with them

- NC-17 (Adults Only): No One 17 and Under Admitted Clearly adult Children are not admitted

In Vietnam, all theatrical releases are managed by the Cinema Department

of the Ministry of Culture, Sport and Travel of Vietnam to ensure suitability for public viewing Vietnam’s previous rating system included just two ratings: G for general audiences and NC16 for films suitable for viewers 16 and up After January 1, 2017, a new film rating system is applied including four classifications:

- P: Suitable for all ages

- C13: Persons under age 13 not admitted

- C16: Persons under age 16 not admitted

- C18: Persons under age 18 not admitted

In this study, since all the chosen movies are Vietnamese ones so all of them are classified according to the rating system of Vietnam The above discussion of the rating systems will serve as a criterion for the researcher to collect the samples- the target audience of movies for the questionnaire Detailed information about the type of each chosen movie and their corresponding target audience will be revealed in the Methodology chapter

2.6 Conclusion

In this chapter, overviews of translation in general, movie title translation including principles and strategies, criteria for a cinematic hit, characteristics and functions of movie titles and target audience have been provided In brief, in this study, translation is regarded as a process of rendering the message and meaning

of ST into TT in written form while preserving semantic and stylistic effects Different sets of principles of movie title translation have been discussed The principles introduced by Duong (2006) are the most comprehensive, which are

Faithfulness to the context, Consideration of movie genres, Cultural awareness

and Combination of commercial and aesthetic effects In terms of movie title

translation strategies, the study will adopt five strategies proposed by Duong

(2006) including Keeping the original title, Literal translation, Explication,

Adaptation and Providing a new title

Furthermore, a general description of cinematic hits, movie titles and target audience has been presented The paper employs the success triad proposed by

Simonton (2009) which consists of Critical evaluation, Financial performance and Movie awards Regarding characteristics of movie titles, there are three main characteristics namely Being brief and concise, Being descriptive or allusive and

Containing proper names Informative, aesthetic and vocative are three major

functions of movie titles

Last but not least, the chapter has discussed target audience and the film content ratings systems of three different countries namely the UK, the US and Vietnam All the systems are issued based on the age-related scheme, which rates the suitability of films’ content for public release including various factors such as adult content, violence, substance abuse, profanity, etc

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY

In order to answer two research questions, the study was divided into two phases Phase 1 was designed to seek the answer to the first research question concerning the techniques applied to translate movie titles Therefore,

in this phase, titles of successful movies released from 2013 to 2017 were collected and analyzed

Phase 2 was conducted to answer the second research question of the function fulfillment of the translated movie titles In this phase, a questionnaire was carried out

3.1 Subjects of the study

3.1.1 Titles of cinematic hits

Sampling

To collect samples, the study used 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 mentioned in the scope, the study only concerns cinematic hits from 2013 to 2017 so the samples were chosen based on certain criteria purposively Because the samples are movie titles, which are available on the Internet, the researcher used electronic tools to collect them After going to the websites such as chieuphimquocgia.com, Wikipedia, imdb.com, etc and retrieving titles (both original and translated) of Vietnamese movies that were released in the period from 2013 to 2017, research about the information of every retrieved film was conducted Movies that did not meet the criteria of a cinematic hit were filtered out The sample size was 20 in total

Description of the sample

The samples have to meet these two following criteria First, they are the titles of successful movies, which base on three factors: critical evaluation,

financial performance and movie awards (Simonton, 2009) These factors have

been clarified in the literature review Second, their release time must range from

2013 to 2017 due to the time constraint of the research as indicated in the part

Scope of research Moreover, this also can be regarded as the period of time when

more and more Vietnamese movies began to be introduced worldwide and gain

certain international recognition

After carrying out purposive sampling, ten movie titles have been selected,

meeting all the set criteria All the detailed description of each title concerning

mentioned criteria is revealed in the table 1 below:

16 days of nationwide

screening (VNS, 2017)

- Golden Lotus Prize for the best feature film and best actress for Kaity Nguyen in the 20th Vietnamese Film Festival (VNS, 2017)

- Best feature film and best actress for Kaity Nguyen in Ngôi sao xanh 2017 Awards (Thao, 2017)

- Silver Lotus prize at the

20th Vietnamese Film Festival (VNS, 2017)

- Best Narrative Feature Film

at the 17th DC Asian Pacific

promoting at local cinemas

American Film Festival

- Best Cinematography award at the 17th Milano International Film Festival (MIFF)

- Best Foreign Feature and Special Jury Award for Outstanding Cinematography

at the 26th Arizona International Film Festival

- Indie Spirit Best Storyline award at the 15th Boston International Film Festival (VNS, 2017)

2017 C18 No information - Best Film, Best Actor for

Pham Hong Phuoc and Best Director of Photography in ASEAN International Films Festival & Awards (AIFFA)

2017

- The Special Jury Prize at the Eurasia International Film Festival 2017 (Hoa, 2017)

- Silver Kite Award for the category of feature film and Best Music at the 2016 Golden Kite Award

with VNĐ46 billion (US$2.02 million) following

10 days of nationwide

screening (Khue, 2016)

- Rising Star for Issac at

2016 Asia Star Awards (Nhat, 2016)

- A number of nominations

at Ngôi sao xanh 2016 Awards: Best Feature Film, Best Visual Effect, Best Actor and Best Director (Tram, 2016)

of nationwide screening (Thien, 2016)

- Promising Actor for Huynh Lap in Ngôi Sao Xanh 2016 Awards (VNS, 2016)

- Nomination for Best Actress for Diem My at the

2016 Golden Kite Award

2015 P The third biggest

local opening ever

in Vietnam with VNĐ23 billion (US$1 million) following 7 days

of nationwide screening (antt, 2015)

- Best Film at the TIFF Kids International Film Festival

2016

- The Golden Lotus award at the 19th Việt Nam Film Festival

- The Golden Kite award at the Việt Nam Film Festival

2015

- Best Film at the second Silk Road International Film

Festival in 2015 in China (VNS, 2016)

at the Vietnamese box office until

2016 with the gross revenue of VNĐ102 billion (US$4.75

million) (Tuan, 2016)

- Vietnam Film Festival Award for Best Feature Film

by Viewers' Choice from Overall view

- Best actress for Miu Le in Ngôi sao xanh 2016 Awards (Vu, 2017)

in 2014 with the gross revenue of VNĐ91 billion (US$4.3 million)

(Le, 2014)

- Best supporting actress for actress Kim Xuan and a certificate of merit for feature film at the 2014 Golden Kite Award (Tien, 2015)

- Nomination for Best Feature Film at the 2014 Golden Kite Award

Đoạt Hồn Hollow 2014 C16 Impressive

opening with VNĐ12 billion (US$0.55 million) following 4 days

of nationwide

- Best Sound Effect at the

2014 Golden Kite Award

- Best Foreign Horror Trailer award at the 16th annual Golden Trailer Awards (VNS, 2015)

screening (Nhi, 2014)

4 days of nationwide

screening (Anh, 2013)

- Silver Kite Award for the category of feature film and Best Actress for Kathy Uyen

at the 2013 Golden Kite Award

Table 1 Description of ten chosen movie titles

3.1.2 Target audience

Sampling

To answer the second research question, the researcher employed

convenience sampling strategy, which means that participants in the questionnaire

are chosen because they are readily available As the purpose of the study is to

evaluate whether the translated titles fulfill the three functions of movie titles, the

subjects of the study in phase 2 include two different groups of target audience

The first group is 15 Vietnamese people and the second one is 15 native speakers

in order to make comparisons and thereby assessing whether the translations

accomplish what original titles can do Given that requirements and time

limitation, it is difficult to opt for probability sampling strategy, which requires a

wide population Therefore, convenience sampling is the most ideal strategy In

general, the sample size was 30 in total, including 15 Vietnamese people and 15

foreigners

Vietnamese participants are all classmates and friends of the researcher so they were contacted and invited directly to do the questionnaires Meanwhile, it took more time and effort to approach foreigners because in addition to respondents who are friends and co-workers of the researcher, many were referred

to the researcher by her friends, which was fairly complicated and cost a considerable amount of time for communication All of them were contacted and invited to participate in the questionnaires via Facebook or email

Description of the sample

Corresponding to the age rating of ten chosen films and nature of assessing functions of translated titles, the samples of the study must meet certain criteria First, the samples in both groups have to be above 18 years old because there is one film rated C18 (Island Of Aliens), which does not allow any person under age

18 Therefore, this criterion helps ensure the age rating set for target audience and the authenticity of the study Second, all the participants must never watch 10 chosen films before, so that they can fairly assess the vocative functions of the movie titles Moreover, the second group has to be English native speakers The reason is that one of the functions of movie title translation is the aesthetic function, which requires the assessors to have a good command of English to give proper evaluation on the aesthetic of language Thus, the researcher chose native speakers to guarantee the accuracy of the assessment and minimize the chances of distortion in finding due to the participants’ poor English proficiency Foreign participants come from countries where English is their mother tongue such as England, America, Scotland and Australia

3.2 Data collection

3.2.1 Instruments

Phase 1 used document observation as the method of data collection while phase 2 employed standardized self-completion questionnaire The instruments

and their English translated versions For phase 2, both closed and open-ended questions were included in the questionnaire Since the study aims at investigating participants’ assessment of translations, precise statistical data from questionnaire would efficiently demonstrate a general overview of their quality evaluation

3.2.2 Procedures

Phase 1

After collecting 20 titles, the researcher established database of original and translated movie titles: Forming a database will make it easier and more convenient to investigate the samples in order to analyze and compare them The original titles and their translated versions were compared, along with back translation to demonstrate the applied translation strategies

similarly-First part included subject descriptors, which covered some personal information

of the participants including full name, age and nationality

Second part was comprised of open-ended questions where participants were asked to guess the plots, main characters and genres of chosen movies based on their titles alone in the form of short answers

Third and fourth part consisted of close-ended questions in the form of numerical rating scales Given the translated titles of ten chosen movies, the participants had

to rate them by giving marks from 1 to 5 in terms of their curiosity and interest in watching those movies and the aesthetics of the titles

The full versions of questionnaires can be found in the Appendix 1 and 2

Then the questionnaire template was converted to a survey on Google Forms to make it easy and convenient for participants to do online

3.3 Data analysis

Phase 1: The strategies for translating ten Vietnamese movie titles were

analyzed They were divided into different units of translation depending on the translation procedures which were applied to them The number of times that a technique was employed was converted to percentage to reveal the use frequency

of that technique Based on the percentages, the analysis and answer for the first research question were pointed out

Phase 2: The researcher first classified the answers from the questionnaires

according to two types of audience- Vietnamese and foreigners In each part, evaluations of all three functions were presented The responses for the questionnaires were aggregated directly by Google Survey and automatically converted to the figures, which were then converted to graphs and charts by the researcher by means of Excel tool Unlike results of part 3 and 4 of the questionnaires which were in number, responses of part 2 were short answers Compared to the exact information about the plot, the main characters and genre

of each movie, the researcher determined whether each response was right or wrong This enabled the researcher to see how many out of 15 answers were right,