Unlocking Symbolism: A Multimodal Analysis of Title Translation in Wu Sha
The Chinese crime film Wu Sha (Manslaughter), released on 13 December 2019 and directed by Sam Quah, explores the story of a father protecting his daughter after she accidentally kills the son of the mayor and police chief. Despite receiving a 7.5 rating on Douban, the film generated significant discussion, particularly around its dialogues. However, this paper argues that understanding the film’s message requires considering multiple modes beyond dialogue. Through a multimodal analysis, this study investigates how visual and acoustic modes influence the translation of film titles, using Wu Sha as a case study. Multimodality, the integration of different communication modes, is extended to translation theory in this paper. Previous research on film title translation has often neglected multimodal elements, focusing primarily on the text itself. This paper addresses this gap by examining how visual and acoustic modes impact the translation process.
