Translation and the Movies Challenges And Difficulties During Movie Translation, Especially Movie Titles

Abstract

The birth of cinema was seen as an important step and a universal way of communication. This was partly true at a time when movies were silent and there was no need for translation. Images shown could contain cultural details typical of a certain country or culture and consequently were somewhat incomprehensible to foreign audiences. In the absence of linguistic interference the audience had the opportunity to identify characters based on their appearance; this was made easier if it was known which the source culture was. Although early silent films treated topics that needed no translation, that were considered as cross-cultural. Just after the start of sound movies began the need for movie translators and were presented the first challenges in this area.

Keywords: Film translation, subtitling, foreignisation, localization, target culture, source culture.