From Script to Screen: The Role of Transcreation in Movie Titles
Keywords:
Transcreation, Movie titles, Cultural localization, Translation strategies, Chesterman's theory, Syntactic strategies , Pragmatic translationAbstract
Films are a beloved and globally recognized form of media. Movie titles are integral yet understanding them can be challenging if they are not in the local language. Interdisciplinary process of transcreating is used to translate movie titles from English to Urdu or Hindi, showcasing linguistic and cultural variations with a touch of humor. This method creatively reinterprets titles, offering an alternative to literal translation. By using qualitative methods, 15 movie titles were purposively sampled and analyzed within the framework of Chesterman’s (2016) translation strategies, encompassing syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic dimensions transcreating patterns of variance highlight transcreation's distinct aspects. Beyond linguistic accuracy, this process ensures cultural localization, maintaining the original style and visual impact. The primary aim is to investigate the translational strategy called transcreation with cultural references in mind, bridging cultural gaps innovatively while preserving original meanings. Chesterman’s (2016) translation strategy theory, which categorizes strategies into syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic, is applied to explore transcreation's depth. This article emphasizes that transcreating movie titles is interdisciplinary, fully reflecting the linguistic and cultural dimensions of the source text.
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