"Made-in-Singapore" translation: why is the meaning of local Chinese television drama titles different in English?

• Main Author: Ching, Kimberly Yu Shi
• Other Authors: Ivan Panović
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2024
• Subjects: Arts and Humanities; Linguistics; Translation; Semantics
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/174765
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

There is a general rising interest in foreign television dramas globally. Quality English translations for local Chinese television drama titles is ever more important for dramas to extend their outreach locally and internationally. This paper aims to identify patterns of meaning change that Chinese television drama titles in Singapore adopt when they are translated to English and also to investigate the factors resulting in the difference in the semantics of local Chinese television drama titles and their official English translations. A qualitative analysis of 227 titles was carried out with five translation theories, followed by a diachronic comparison of titles across the decades. Results showed that four patterns of translating the titles from Chinese to English were found: the retention of meaning, a narrowed meaning, a relational meaning, and completely different meanings to the original title. Generally, most drama titles were translated to differ completely in meaning from its original title. Factors such as the presence of Chinese idioms, words of foreign origin and names of drama characters, also led to the difference in the meaning of Chinese television drama titles and that of their English translations. Future research should focus on titles of other language pairs in the local scene or the titles of other art forms.