In 2001, on the basis of the Theory of Functional Equivalence, He Ying put forward four principles to guide the translation of the film title. They are principle of information value, principle of cultural value, principle of aesthetic value and principle of commercial value.

Also in 2001, Bao Huinan said that the translation of western film title should be in accordance with the language specification and be full of artistic charm; the translation should not only be faithful to the original text, but also reflect the linguistic features of the original title in order to strive to achieve the artistic recreation.

In 2012, Hu Jingyi said that in order to correspond to the popular aesthetic standards, the key of English film title translation is to achieve “short and pithy, rhyme and beauty”. In Hu Jingyi’s opinion, English film title translation has four translation skills, namely literal translation, literal translation with annotation, free translation and the combination of literal translation and free translation.

In 2014, Yang Xuan said that film title translation has two principles. One is that film title should be a concise summary. The other is that it should be a good commercial advertisement.

Many papers compare the differences between Mainland China and Hong Kong in English film title translation from the perspective of Skopos Theory and Functional Translation Theory, but there is few paper about domestication and foreignization. This paper will make a contrastive study of translation in Mainland China and Hong Kong from the perspective of domestication and foreignization. 文献综述

2.2 Introduction to Domestication and Foreignization

Domestication and foreignization in translation are proposed by Lawrence Venuti, a famous translation theorist in America, in 1995. Foreignization is an approach that the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as possible, and moves the readers towards him while the domestication is one that the translator leaves the readers in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him (Venuti, 2004:19-20). From the perspective of history, domestication and foreignization can be regarded as the extension of free translation and literal translation. However, they are not exactly the same as literal translation and free translation. Domestication and foreignization are more inclined to culture. However, free translation and literal translation tend to be linguistic. The critical issue of literal translation and free translation is concerned with how to deal with the linguistic form and meaning, while foreignization and domestication will break through the limitations of language, expand the field of vision to language, culture and aesthetic factors. Two strategies of foreignization are transliteration and literal translation. For example, “to grow like mushrooms” is translated into“雨后春笋”; “it rains cats and dogs” is translated into “倾盆大雨”. The key factor influencing domestication and foreignization is the motivation of translation. If a translator’s aim is to keep the style of the original language, he may choose foreignization. Otherwise, if a translator wants to please the reader of the target language, he will choose domestication. In translation practice, both domestication and foreignization have their functions which cannot be substituted. Domestication and foreignization are not opposite, but should complement each other. 

3. Differences between Mainland China and Hong Kong in English Film Title Translation

With the progress of the times, people’s requirements for movie get higher and higher. Thus the title also puts forward higher requirements. Because a great number of western films have been emerging in the mainland China and Hong Kong, most translators pay much attention to film title translation. On account of the cause of different history, economy and linguistic, translations of English film title have many differences in Mainland China and Hong Kong. 来.自/优尔论|文-网www.youerw.com/ 大陆与香港英文电影片名翻译对比研究(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_73868.html