文化差异对英文广告翻译的影响

论文总字数：25860字

摘 要

随着经济全球化步伐的加快和中国经济的发展，越来越多的外国商品涌入了中国市场。消费者能够接触到种类繁多的外国商品，各种各样的商品令人眼花缭乱，外国厂商们也投入了大量的广告来吸引消费者的眼球。但由于语言和文化的差异，广告翻译成为了一个看似简单但却棘手的问题。广告的效果直接影响着消费者对于商品的印象和认识，因此广告翻译的质量对商品知名度和形象的提升起着至关重要的作用。

本文首先对外国商品广告翻译的特点进行研究，之后将通过实证探讨中西方文化的差异怎样影响广告文本的翻译，归纳中西方文化中影响广告翻译的因素，包括宗教信仰，社会风俗，价值观念和思维方式。随后，对如何处理中西方文化差异对翻译的影响提出一些建议并总结。

关键词：文化差异 翻译 英文广告

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i

Abstract ii

摘要 iii

Table of Contents iv

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the Study 1

1.2 Significance and Purpose of the Study 2

1.3 Layout of the Thesis 3

Chapter Two  Literature Review................................................................................4

Studies about Commercial Advertisement Translation........................................4

Chapter Three Cultural Factors in Commercial Advertisement Translation.....6

3.1 Religious Belief....................................................................................................6

3.2 Social Customs.....................................................................................................7

3.3 Concept of Value..................................................................................................7

3.4 Thinking Mode.....................................................................................................8

Chapter Four Strategies To Deal With Cultural Differences................................9

4.1 Improve the Understanding of Cultural Differences............................................9

4.2 Improve Comprehensive Ability of Translators...................................................9

4.3 Master the Principle of Commercial Advertisement Translation.......................10

Chapter Five Conclusion........................................................................................12

References...................................................................................................................13

Chapter One Introduction

• 1. Background of the study

With the increasingly rapid economic globalization and development of Chinese economy, more and more foreign companies enter the Chinese market to earn more profits. In order to promote their products and lure more consumers to buy their products, foreign companies are particularly active in mass media advertising to establish its brand in China. It is the message delivered through commercial advertisements that plays a crucial role in improving the popularity and opening Chinese market. The activity of translating commercial advertisement into Chinese is endowed with cultural-related features. Thus, whether the English advertisements are translated successfully or not would influence consumers’ identification and acceptance of the foreign products.

Commercial advertisement translation could be regarded as an art. Due to the different customs, faith, religious belief and thinking modes, when interpreting English advertisements into Chinese, the translators must obey the translation theories and meanwhile they have to do some adjustments to suit the ideology of the targeted culture.

The translation of advertisement aims to convey the exact message to the targeted consumers so as to persuade them to buy the products. So the success of opening Chinese market depends on whether the readers could comprehend the advertisements or not. If the translation isn’t suitable to the targeted culture, the advertisement may have an adverse effect -- consumers would disgust the brand. The advertisements that can’t be understood by the consumers or repel the readers would damage the image of brand, make the company become less and less competitive and finally lead to the failure of opening the Chinese market.

With the development of technology, people are surrounded by the mass media and exposed to the advertisement every day. People come across all kinds of advertisements all the day when we turn on the TV, Internet, magazine, newspaper and so on. A large number of ads are exerting great influence on people’s lives and affect their choices. Commercial advertisement is playing a more and more significant role in our daily life, the study of commercial advertisement translation is increasingly emphasized and can’t be ignored by scholars.

• 1. Significance and purpose of study

For the foreign companies that newly enter Chinese market, targeted consumers in China know little about them and do not know which product to choose. Commercial advertisement is the first image of the company that comes into consumers’ view. And it is also the most effective way to present the commodity to the targeted consumers. The foreign firms are very active in TV, newspaper and magazines in order to let more people know their commodities and hope to expand sales. The advertising effect could determine whether consumers would buy the products or not. An efficient advertisement could enhance brand awareness and increase the sales volume in a short time. However, a bad advertisement not only couldn’t help boost sales, but also would cause the boredom of the audience.

In recent years, translating English commercial advertisement into Chinese is gaining more and more attention from both translators and scholars. Translating advertisements itself is a cross-cultural activity. Because of the differences between Chinese and western culture, what suits western consumers may don’t suit Chinese people. So it is necessary for translators to make some adjustments to cater to Chinese culture and make Chinese consumers comprehend advertisement better. Due to the problems that cultural differences caused in the process of translating, how cultural differences influence English advertisements translation is worthy of study.

This thesis aims to analyze how cultural differences influence the translation of commercial advertisement and provide some suggestions about how to deal with the problems. This study is expected to help translators work more efficiently on translating English commercial advertisements.

• 1. Layout of the thesis

This thesis is composed of four parts. Chapter one is the introduction part. It discusses the background, significance and purpose of the study and the structure of the study as well. Chapter two mainly gives a literature review of translation of commercial advertisements. The third chapter deals with the factors that influence the translation of English commercial advertisements. It will focus on four factors including religious belief, social customs, concept of value and thinking mode. The fourth chapter offers some suggestions on how to deal with the problems. There are three ways of improving the quality of commercial advertisements translation: improving the understanding of cultural differences, improving comprehensive ability of translators and mastering the principles of commercial advertisements translation. At the end, the author draws a conclusion, points out the limitations and gives suggestions for further study.

Chapter Two Literature Review

Since translation of commercial advertisements is gaining more and more attention, the number of studies about commercial advertisement translation increases rapidly. Many western translation theories are applied in the study of commercial advertisements translation, such as relevance theory, translation theories of culture studies and so on. The researchers and scholars use different theories to interpret advertisements from different points of view.

The most popular theory of commercial advertisement translation is AIDA law. It was proposed by American scholar E.S Lewis in 1898. It is also regarded as one of the laws of measuring the standard of the advertisement translation. With the deepening of the research, the following researchers develop the AIDA law. Today, the AIDA law is still applied in the advertising translation.

Commercial advertisement is a process of “AIDA”, that is “Attention”, “Interest”, “Desire”, “Action”. “AIDA” accurately reveals how consumers accept the information delivered by the advertisements. The first purpose of advertisement is to attract consumers’ attention. Only when people’s attention is captured, they may have interest to know more about the products. So advertisements also have to arouse people’s interest. Then advertisements need to develop potential consumers’ desire to urge them to buy the products. Finally, the most important step is to transfer the desire to action. That is to say the commercial advertisements must convey the concise and core content of the products in order to convince consumers that the advertised products have the best quality compared with other similar goods. (Liu Fang, 2008)

Cultural translation theories clearly point out that translating advertisement is indeed a cross-cultured activity. Taking differences between cultures into account is crucial to complete the translating activity. Professor Hu proposed that the essence of translating advertisement is to pass the life of advertisement, help the advertisement grow to maturity in the new culture and achieve popularity so that consumers would take actions to buy the products. He deemed that translators must realize the different psychological expectations of the different cultures and choose the correct language to pass the information effectively. (Hu Zuoyou, 2007 )

In recent years, more and more scholars are engaged in studying the advertisement translation. They provide lots of information about translating advertisements from the aspects of theoretical basis and practical experience. However, these studies are more focused on the application of theories.

Chapter Three Cultural Factors in Commercial Advertisement Translation

Language is the symbol of the culture and it spreads the culture to the whole world. Translation is the bridge of cultural communication. Without translation, people couldn’t communicate with other cultures. Translation plays a significant rule in cross cultural communication. Language and culture can’t separate from each other. Thus, when translating commercial advertisements, translators must take cultural features into consideration. There are many cultural factors involved in translating commercial advertisements: religious belief, social customs, concept of value, and thinking mode.

3.1 Religious belief

Every nation has its own religious belief. The religious belief exerts great influence on people’s life styles and thoughts. Therefore, translators must pay attention to the religion in the process of translation and don’t violate the taboo of different religions.

Chinese people believe in Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. These religions affect Chinese people’s life in nearly every aspect. When people encounter difficulties in daily life, people usually pray to Confucius, Buddha or Bodhisattva for good luck. They hope ancient heroes and leaders in legend or mythical stories would give them good luck. However, in western countries, western people believe in Christianism. They believe in God and Jesus. Western people have faith in that everything is created by the God. Their life, their destiny and their desire all are decided by the God. The God arranges everything in their life.

So when translating advertisements, there should be no words or phrases that might against target consumers’ religious belief, otherwise they would feel offended.

For example: We take costumers as our Gods. The version of this advertisement may be“顾客是我们的上帝”. The literal translation“上帝”is the faith of western people, however, it isn’t adapted to Chinese culture. Hence, the translators translate the “God” into “皇帝”. By doing this, it could be more appropriate and cater to Chinese values.

3.2 Social Customs

Different societies have their own unique customs. People take some unwritten rules for granted and they follow these conventional rules in their life. These customs affect their choices deeply. People who live in different society hold different opinions about the same object, make different decisions in the same situation and view things from different perspectives.

There are many differences in terms of social customs because of the different history and civilization. In western countries, “13” contains an unlucky meaning because in the Bible Jesus was killed by the thirteenth disciple, so western people usually avoid using “13” in daily life. However, the number “13” contains no special meaning in China. Chinese people often use “666” to express somebody is very powerful, show something is very incredible and “6” means success. However, “666” in Bible represents devil. Thus, when translating number, interpreters must be cautious, lest the translation might violate targeted consumers’ taboo.

Take the credit card issued by China Construction Bank as an example. Dragon is regarded as power and prosperity. But in western culture, dragon has been seen as the monster that could spit fire and hurt humans. CCB issues the bank card named “龙卡” and the slogan is “衣食住行，有龙则灵”. However, considering the different meanings of dragon in China and western countries, translators translate “龙” into “Long” instead of dragon and translate “衣食住行，有龙则灵” into “Your everyday life is very busy, our Long card make it easy.” The translators translate the original advertisement in such a flexible way. It not only could avoid the conflicts between different cultures, but also adapt to western aesthetic orientation.

3.3 Concept of Value

The difference between western and Chinese concept of value is one of the reasons why cultures affect translation of commercial advertisement. The differences of value determine which words and phrases could be accepted by the target customers.

In China, under the influence of Confucianism, people tend to be faithful, benevolent, filial and righteous. Chinese people are self-disciplined and introverted. They value collectivism more western people. In the process of creating and exploring the world, there is a popular belief in China that general public interest must prevail over individual or sectional interests. Compared with Chinese, western people are more outgoing and worship individualistic heroism. In the translation of advertisement slogans, translators should pay attention to language effect and make it adapt to Chinese concept of value.

Take Nescafe’s advertisement as an example, Nescafe translates the advertisement “ Coffee’s perfect mate” into “雀巢咖啡伴侣，默默奉献，为香浓加分”. The phrase“奉献”shows that Chinese people are deeply influenced by the traditional ideas and represents the collectivism of Chinese value.

3.4 Thinking model

Western people and Chinese people have diverse thinking modes. The thinking mode of the Chinese is a curve, while the western thinking mode is linear. Chinese writings and conversations are full of turns and twists, while western people just come straight to the point without setting the stage for the following development. At the beginning of the English articles, there is always a topic sentence and followings are the details that support the main ideas, whereas Chinese articles usually set the stage first and move on to the main ideas slowly.

For example: “This word processor plays a tune of deep feeling whenever you are typing”. It is translated into “输入前言万语，奏出一片深情”. This advertisement fully shows that the English vision points out the processor directly, whereas the Chinese version doesn’t mention the processor explicitly. The example perfectly illustrates the differences between western and Chinese concept of value.

In a word, besides the factors mentioned above, there are many factors that could affect the translation of commercial advertisements. Different cultural values create the obstacles in the process of translation. The translation of advertisement needs to send the essence information and cater to the targeted culture at the same time.

Chapter Four Strategies To Deal With Cultural Differences

Since the differences of cultures may cause difficulties, translators pay more attention to how to avoid the conflicts of cultural differences and adjust the translation to cater to target culture. Since the translation of commercial advertisements could decide the fate of the company, translators must work hard to sharpen the skills to improve the quality of advertisement and make sure that the translation could assimilate the new culture so as to persuade consumers to buy the goods.

4.1 Improve the Understanding of Cultural Differences

Since the problems are caused by the cultural differences, it is important for translators to know about the cultural differences and understand them. Commercial advertisement translation plays a crucial role in commercial activities, for it is an intermediary of cultural transmission. The differences of culture make the advertisement translation a more complicated task.

As for the translators of commercial advertisements, they have to raise the awareness of cultural differences and try their best to learn about cultural differences. Being sensitive to cultural differences is the prerequisite of being a qualified and excellent translator. Only if the translators gain the knowledge of cultural differences, could the translators translate accurately, fluently and correctly. When translators take the training courses, trainers must cultivate their awareness of cultural differences and help them understand the differences of cultures. Before translating advertisements, translators have to make fully preparations to make sure that the translation wouldn’t cause offenses to people from other cultures. Translators should always keep in the mind that the translation must respect other cultures and other cultural values.

4.2 Improve Comprehensive Ability of Translators

As a cross-cultural and commercial activity, the translation of commercial advertisements requires translators to master both cultural knowledge and business accomplishments. It is far from enough for translators to master the cultural knowledge only. It is necessary for translators to learn other knowledge involved in translating of commercial advertisements.

Besides studying the differences of culture, there is a need for translators to learn relevant knowledge such as business culture and language knowledge. These kinds of knowledge would improve their comprehensive ability. The translators of commercial advertisements should grasp the knowledge at the same time to become a more versatile translator. The more relevant knowledge they grasp, the better they translate the advertisements.

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