An Analysis of “Three Beauties” Principle in the Title Translation of the Foreign Film Waterloo Bridge

An Analysis of “Three Beauties” Principle in the Title Translation of the Foreign Film Waterloo Bridge
Abstract

    With the continued opening up of the film industry in China, an increasing number of foreign films have been introduced into China. Along with the development of the television and other entertainment media, the Chinese audience has already begun to select the good movies which will makes their lives more interesting. As the first vision for the audience, the film title has become the first threshold which would make the audience decide whether they would enjoy the film. Therefore, it has become an important topic for the film distributor and researchers on translation to successfully translate the foreign film title and to seize the Chinese audience’s eyes.
    Professor Xu Yuanchong, a well-known translator in China has put forward the ‘Three Beauties’ principle of translation, which is ‘the beauty in meaning’, ‘the beauty in sound’, and ‘the beauty in form’. With the development of the Chinese translation system, the ‘Three Beauties’ principle has been considered as the highest standards of literary translation, and has gained more and more recognition from the translation scholars. It has been proved that a large number of classic films have been translated following the “Three Beauties” principles, thus to make the original film gain a new vitality.
    The film has been considered as an integrated art, and the quality of the translation of the film title is essential. This paper is designed to discuss the application of the ‘Three Beauties’ Principle in the translation of the foreign film title by analyzing the translation of the title of a classic foreign film Waterloo Bridge.

    Key Words: Translation, Principles of “Three Beauty”, the title of foreign film, Waterloo Bridge