Peculiarities of film titles translation from Korean and Japanese: lexical-semantic and structural aspects

Background. In today’s world, intercultural dialogue with other countries is actively developing and being realized through many forms of art. These include various literary works, multi-genre music, and a huge amount of audiovisual material, among which movies and TV series occupy an honorable place. Asian TV series (“doramas”) are one of the most popular in the world nowadays. Having started their journey in Korea, Japan, and China, they have spread throughout Asia, the United States, Europe, and even Africa over the past decade. Eastern cinema has not bypassed Ukraine either. Nowadays, many people in Ukraine enjoy watching Korean and Japanese films and TV series, learning about the mysterious culture of the East through them, and fan-sub groups are actively developing, translating and posting Asian films and TV series on thematic pages. In this regard, the issue of high-quality translation and adaptation of oriental films and TV series into Ukrainian is seen as an important aspect of further development of Oriental studies in Ukraine, popularization of the above-mentioned Far-Eastern cultures in Ukraine, and will also contribute to the deepening of intercultural exchange between our countries. Methods. The following methods were used in the course of the research: search, analytical, classification, and generalization. Results. The article examines the specifics of translating titles of films and TV series from Korean and Japanese on the basis of film titles selected from Ukrainian websites and other streaming platforms. The article discusses and traces the classification of different types of titles by structure, strategies and methods of their translation. The most common mistakes in the translation of titles and the reasons for their occurrence are analyzed. The author concludes that an accurate, complete translation of the title of a film product involves preserving all the functional and pragmatic features of the original in the language of the potential audience. However, more often than not, retaining an attractive title is a priority for distribution. Accordingly, the final title of a project does not always depend on the translator and can be reworked by distributors for the sake of marketing. Conclusions. It was found that the main approaches to translating film and TV series titles are the following strategies: descriptive translation, literal or direct translation, transcoding, transformation, genre translation, and semantic translation. The most common mistakes in the translation of film titles from Korean and Japanese into Ukrainian are due to the translator’s lack of background knowledge, ignoring allusions and other hidden elements in the original text, due to the inability to identify the stylistic features of the original title, violation of the norms of phonetics and readability, and mistakes when the title of a film or series does not correspond to its content.