1.2 Purpose and Significance of the Study
In recent years, researches on film title translation are increasing. Most of them explore this issue from the perspective of functionalist translation theory, and the rest from relevance theory or norms. They are fruitful to some extent and indeed have achieved their purposes. However, only a few of researches resort cognitive schema to the cross-cultural field, let alone bringing the translation of films titles into this theory. There is much room to do the research on film title translation from the perspective of cognitive schema theory. In order to compensate for the deviation of the film title translation in the context of cross-cultural communication, the paper adopts cognitive schemata theory in film title translation for the purpose of working out specific methods for film title translation. The film title is the packaging of film. A good film title is the icing on the cake, but an inferior one will cause film to be buried in the film desert. Therefore, to do some researches in this area have certain significance.
1.3 Research Methodology and Layout of This Paper
The paper adopts the cognitive schemata theory and endeavors to do analytical research.
Chapter one deals with the purpose and significance of the paper so as to have a brief introduction of the article.
Chapter two is a summary of current studies on cognitive schemata theory and translation strategies of film titles.
Chapter three mainly describes the origin, definition and characteristics of the cognitive schemata theory.
Chapter four is about the basic rules and characteristics in naming films.
Chapter five is the main part of this paper. It contains discussion about the applications of cognitive schemata theory in film titles translation.
The last part serves as a conclusion of the whole study.
 2. Literature Review
The cognitive schemata theory is first applied to the translation of cultural vocabulary, for example Xu Hui (2007:104-105) has explained the theory’s use in the understanding of culture vocabularies and uses the theory to find ways to solve obstacles to the translation of cultural words. She mainly describes three situations in the understanding of culture vocabularies—coincidence or consistent with cognitive schemata, different from or vacancy of cognitive schemata. Accordingly, she raises three ways to handle the situations—adjust, abandon or make up new schema. Similarly, Xia Yan (2010:17-18) uses the theory to the translation of cultural-loaded terms. She discusses three cases in her article. The first is coincidence. In this situation, the original language’s cultural-loaded terms are easily to be translated to the target, for example, in both English and Chinese culture, bees represent hardworking while fox stands for tricky. The second is confliction which means the target language’s cognitive schemata is not the same with or conflict with the original’s, such as the peacock. In Chinese culture, peacock is deeply favored by people while in western people’s mind peacock means arrogance and vanity. The third is the lack of schemata. It means the schemata concerned in the original language do not exist or incomplete in the target language reader’s mind.
Some scholars apply the theory to the translation of phrases and idioms, for example: Wang Xin (2007:111-112) has used the theory to the translation of idioms. In his paper, he researches different English versions of A Dream in Red Mansions and compares the difference between two translation strategies—literal translation and paraphrase. Qiao Yan (2005) uses it to the translation of Chinese-English allusions. She raises three methods to solve the problem of culture default—keep visual paraphrase and annotation, refer to free translation or abandon the original meaning. Huang Yali (2006(9):84-95) has applied it to the translation of idioms concerning with chickens. There are a large number of idioms related to animals both in Chinese and English. However, resulting from the different background, it is by far an easy task to translate them for readers will hold different schema knowledge associated with the same animal. Huang proposes that in order to transfer the meaning of Chinese idioms as entirely as possible, various methods should be adopted in translation, such as schema corresponding, schema non-corresponding, schema expanding and schema integrating. For example, “鸡飞蛋打” can be translated into “The hen has flown away and the eggs in the coop are broken—all is lost, come out empty-handed, dead loss”. However, few scholars have used it to the translation of film titles. 认知图式理论关照下影视片名的翻译策略研究(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_7617.html