A Report On The Translation Of Translation Howlers: A Night At The Opera To Borat(chapter 3) Excerpted From Translation Goes To The Movies

This is a translation report, and its source text is excerpted from the third chapter of Translation Goes to the Movies written by Michael Cronin. This chapter mainly analyzes the illustration of translation behaviors in comic movies. A Night at the Opera delivers us a story that several Italian opera tenors come from the Old World to the New to seek for development. Although they encounter many kinds of embarrassing moments, they overcome these difficulties with their wisdom. The movie not only reflects the conflicts on the concept between the Old World and the New, but also the cultural conflicts and language dilemma the America facing with as a multinational country. The Great Dictator is a comic film directed and starred by Charlie Chaplin who uses a kind of pseudo-language to make comic capital. This movie shows a lot of intentional mistranslation. For example, Hitler’s warlike speech is translated into a moving speech calling for world peace, which is intended to serve as an irony for Hitler. Borat is a comic mockumentary in which the protagonist, who is delegated by the government of Kazakhstan, coming to America to bankroll a road movie to introduce the most developed country. A lot of jokes are made due to the ignorance to American culture and the stunning differences between two different countries. Michael Cronin tries to use a better way to call for people to pay attention to the easily ignored elements related to translation in the movie.The source text is an informative text according to Peter Newmark’s text typology, with the principle of faithfulness and accuracy, the author should lay emphasis on the Chinese readers to make the translation readable. And the author adopts the following methods in the process of translation to solve specific problems, for example, extension and conversion, amplification and omission and so on. Through this translation practice, the author deeply feels that translation is anything but easy, therefore, skilled bilingual competence, extensive knowledge as well as a comprehensive guidance of theory are all necessary.