翻译美学视角下国外化妆品的广告翻译

论文总字数：38626字

摘 要

广告的最终目的在于销售商品。要想在众多的国外化妆品广告中脱颖而出，成功的汉译广告文本必不可少，需同时兼顾形式美，内容美，以及内容与形式相统一的和谐美三大美学特征。因而，国外化妆品广告的翻译需要尽量多的再现这些美学特征。本文将列举多个广告实例，分析国外化妆品广告的汉译文本如何再现了这些美学特征，以达成化妆品广告的翻译文本被目的语消费者广泛接受，刺激其购买并促成消费的最终目的。

关键词：翻译美学；化妆品广告；翻译；汉译文本

Contents

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Background 1

1.2 The Significance of the Research 1

1.3 The Structure of the Thesis 2

2. Literature Review 3

2.1 Overview on Development of Translation Aesthetics 3

2.2 Overview on Advertisement Translation 5

2.3 Cosmetic Advertisement Translation under the Perspective of Translation Aesthetics 6

3. Survey on Foreign Cosmetic Advertisement Translation 7

3.1 Definition of Advertisements and Types of Advertisements 7

3.2 Cosmetic Advertisement and Its Functions 8

3.3 Foreign Cosmetic Advertisement Translation and Its Features 9

3.4 Inadequacy of Previous Studies on Foreign Cosmetic Advertisement Translation 10

4. Translation of Foreign Cosmetic Advertisement: Aesthetic Perspective 10

4.1 Embodiment of the Beauty of Content in Foreign Cosmetic Advertisements Translation 10

4.2 Embodiment of the Beauty of Form in Foreign Cosmetic Advertisements Translation 11

4.3 Embodiment of the Harmonious Beauty of Unity of Form and Content in Foreign Cosmetic Advertisements Translation 13

5. Conclusion 13

Works Cited 16

1. Introduction

1.1 Background

The China Spice and Cosmetics Industry Association reported that the sales volume of cosmetics was 46 billion yuan in 2002, while the sales volume of cosmetics reached 432 billion yuan in 2018. What people can"t believe is that the sales volume of cosmetics has nearly increased tenfold in just 16 years. The sales volume of cosmetics in 2018 has ranked the second in the world, but foreign cosmetics brands account for 90% of the sales volume. With the vigorous development of the cosmetics market, a large number of foreign cosmetic advertisements have begun to appear in people"s vision. However, due to the large differences in Chinese and Western cultures, aesthetics and so on, effective translation strategies and methods have improved the translation quality of cosmetic advertisements a lot. Therefore, the research of this topic is of great significance, because the current research on cosmetic advertisement translation lacks systematic and theoretical guidance.

Over the years, most scholars have studied cosmetic advertisement translation guided by Functional Theory, Relevance Theory and Skopos Theory, having left behind many valuable literature, but only a few literature specifically studies the cosmetic advertisement translation, most of which mainly study the translation strategy and methods of cosmetic advertisement under the Chinese and western different cultural backgrounds. Among the numerous literature on cosmetic advertisement translation, only negligible quantity study the translation aesthetics. However, they are so dispersed that they cannot form a complete system.

1.2 The Significance of the Research

With the rapid development of China"s economy and society, people"s living standards are constantly improving, and on the basis of material life satisfaction, more and more people are beginning to pursue spiritual enjoyment. Everyone has a heart for beauty. As products that enhance personal image, cosmetics are receiving great attention. In daily life, we can see cosmetic advertisements with different characteristics, but how to judge the success of cosmetic advertisements? In fact, the advertisement text is crucial to any kinds of advertisement. Superior advertisement text makes people happy, and slightly inferior advertisement text is unpleasant. Only advertisement language that conforms the public"s aesthetics can get the best market effect, catch the public"s eyes, and make the public have the willingness to buy products. How to make advertisement language catch the public"s eyes and seize the market, it needs to embody the beauty of advertisement language. Although translation theories such as Functional Equivalence Theory and Skopos Theory are often used to guide cosmetic advertisement translation, translation aesthetics can better reflect the meaning of the original cosmetic advertisement language and make the advertisement language more aesthetic. Therefore, this article will analyze in depth through a number of cosmetic advertisement examples, how to reproduce the beauty of content, form and the harmony of content and form in cosmetic advertisements translation.

1.3 The Structure of the Thesis

This paper is divided into five chapters.

The first one is the foreword. The background, significance and framework of this paper will be briefly discussed in this chapter.

The second chapter is the literature review. This part will provide some information about the translation theories and their research progress and achievements in the west and in China.

The third chapter is the general discussion on advertisement. Firstly, it explains the definition and classification of advertisements. Secondly, it tries to explain the definition and functions of cosmetic advertisement and then briefly expounds the origin and development process of cosmetics advertisement translation at home and abroad. Finally, it briefly explains the status and shortcomings of cosmetic advertisements translation at the present stage.

The fourth chapter is to discuss how to reproduce the beauty of the form, content and the harmony of content and form, through analyzing multiple instances. 

The fifth chapter of this paper is the conclusion, mainly including the research results, the deficiencies of the study as well as the author"s expectations for future research on this topic.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Overview on Development of Translation Aesthetics

Translation aesthetics is a discipline composed of aesthetics and modern linguistics. It utilizes the excellent results of modern linguistics to explore how to express beauty in the translation process. In other words, studying the aesthetic problems in the process of interlingual translation enables translators to improve their cognitive, interlingual and aesthetic abilities in translation. Being able to faithfully reproduce the aesthetic characteristics of the original advertisement text is a criterion for judging whether the translator is based on translation aesthetics theory, so that the aesthetic characteristics of the translated text are consistent with the aesthetic characteristics of the original text.

In the Western translation aesthetics theory, it is widely accepted that two people"s translation propositions are called "light in the morning"; one is Cicero, who is famous for his identity as an ancient Rome philosopher; the other is Horace, an ancient Rome lyric poet and satirical master. Cicero pursued the natural beauty and imposing beauty of translation. Horace talked about translation from the basic point of view of art and advocated the beauty of indifference and nature.

Later, Jerome, as the successor of translation aesthetics theory, thought that translators should pay more attention on natural express like the original text in their translation process, and the aesthetic translated text should be as simple as the town talk (Mao Ronggui, 2005: 13). Another representative is Augustine, who believed that translators should pay more attention on the three styles of simplicity, elegance, and solemnity. He also creatively put forward that choosing translation styles depended on target language audience" requirements. 

In the 14th century, the translator of Wyeth Bible, Wycliffe advocated that the translated text should be easy to read, and at the same time he raised doubts about translation and constantly verified them. His spirit of verification is quite crucial in the improvement of translation quality. Martin Luther was known as the most influential Bible translator in the 16th century. He believed people should think highly of the aesthetic value of the translated text. He suggested that although the grammar is important, the meaning and content of the language should not be limited in grammatical level. You can clearly see the aesthetic thought in Martin Luther"s translation view.

The greatest translator of the 17th century, John Dryden, as a promoter of Cicero’s translation aesthetic view, he clearly pointed out that translation is an art. He believed that translators must have superb artistic appreciation and expressive power. Under the premise of retaining the original author"s characteristics without being distorted, translators should try their best to make the translated text fascinating and as aesthetic as the original one.

By the 18th century, aesthetics finally changed from an art to an independent discipline. Alexander Gottilieb Baumgarten (1714~1762), who is a German enlightenment thinker, philosopher and esthetician, proposed to establish a new discipline "Aesthetics" for the first time. He himself was also known as "the father of aesthetics." (Mao Ronggui, 2005: 1). In 1790, in the book "On the Principles of Translation", Tettler put forward the "three principles of translation", emphasizing the importance of being faithful to the original text and appreciation of the beauty of the original one.

The 19th-century translator Arnold emphasized that translators should preserve the pristine beauty of the original text instead of using redundant modifiers. Villeri, an outstanding translator in the 20th century, advocated that translated text should maintain the radiance of the original work, and the skill of translation depended on the translator"s aesthetic perception of the original text"s "true value". In modern and contemporary, Sligo, Matthew, Richards and other people"s translation principles have a relatively distinct aesthetics color.

Obviously, viewed from Western aesthetics, Western translation theories have a profound and inseparable relationship with aesthetics. In the middle of the 20th century, Western translation theories changed the main theory from the aesthetics to the modern linguistics, which was one of the prominent features of Western translation theories.

In China, the combination of translation and aesthetics can be said to run through the Chinese translation history, dating back to the translation of Buddhist scriptures more than 1,700 years ago. In 224 AD, the Buddhist translator Zhi Qian mentioned the literary aesthetics of "Lao Tzu said that honest words are not necessarily pleasant, but pleasant words are not necessarily honest.", which could be said to be the bud of the translation aesthetics.

Ma Jianzhong mentioned the theory “good translation” in 1894. He believed that the translator should imitate the expression and mood on the basis of thorough research, so that the target language audience looked like being reading the original text. Ma Jianzhong"s aesthetic description of translation, which was based on truth, goodness and beauty, was very in line with people"s aesthetic interest in the so-called "where to come" of translation at that time.

In 1898, Yan Fu put forward the theory that there were three difficulties in translation, including faithfulness, expressiveness, elegance in translation on evolution. Yan Fu borrowed these three aesthetic terms to inherit Chinese traditional aesthetic thoughts, which had a profound influence on Chinese translation.

In 1912, for the first time, MaoDun explicitly proposed that translation should not lose the translated text"s charm, and then Fu Lei made an important exposition of this theory. In the 1950s, Fu Lei put forward the concept of "emphasizing the spirit rather than the shape", requiring that translation should have a "transcendental spiritual temperament". Qian Zhongshu put forward "realm of transformation" in 1964. He believed that the highest standard of literary translation was to enter the realm of "realm of transformation", emphasizing that translation should embody the realm of deification.

2.2 Overview on Advertisement Translation

Thanks to economic globalization, trade between countries is quite frequent. Advertisement plays a vital role in trade, so advertisement translation has gradually become one of the hot topics in the field of translation. In 1972, in the paper "Can One Translate the Advertising of Advertising?", Pierre Herbin mentioned the term "advertisement translation" for the first time. In addition, Herbin suggested creating advertisement vocabulary to help translators quickly master many fixed collocations and frequently-used information, which had made significant contributions to advertisement translation research. (Hurbin, P, 1972: 24). So far, the only book devoted to advertisement translation is the International Advertisement Translation Practice by Mathieu Guidere (2001). This book focuses on various aspects of international advertisement translation, involving global advertisements of multinational corporations. The author shows readers some basic questions in current translation thought through studying some examples of advertisement translation. This book also shows the public the interaction between advertisement and translation under globalism.

In China, since the 1980s, advertisement translation research has passed three stages: emergence, development and in-depth research.(Li Wei, Ma Caimei, 2005: 37). As early as the 1980s, in the beginning of advertisement translation, some important publications published some articles about the translation of advertisement, such as Xue Zhihu"s Translation of Advertisement Style (1989), Zhou Jinwen"s Translation of Export Commodity Advertisements (1984) and so on. These researches focused on rhetorical techniques, emotional factors transmission, brand image reproduction and other perspectives on advertisement translation. But unfortunately, no monographs on advertisement translation existed in that stage. In recent years, scholars have studied advertisement translation under different theories and different perspectives. Some of them consider cultural, pragmatic and moral values and the theories mainly include: Relevance Theory, Functional Equivalence Theory and Functional Teleology.

2.3 Cosmetic Advertisement Translation under the Perspective of Translation Aesthetics

Although cosmetic advertisement translation is a small part of advertisement translation, it can be seen from the data of CNKI that cosmetic advertisement translation has not received enough attention. Searching for the keyword "advertisement translation" on CNKI, there are 2729 theses. However, when searching for "cosmetic advertisement translation", only 26 theses are searched, including 22 theses on Skopos Theory, Functional Theory and translation methods and strategies. Only 4 theses study cosmetic advertisement translation from the perspective of aesthetics, including 2 theses study cosmetic advertisement translation from the perspective of reception aesthetics. Reception aesthetics emphasizes the aesthetic level and acceptance ability of the target language audience. The remaining two theses study cosmetic advertisement translation from the perspective of translation aesthetics, emphasizing the reproduction of aesthetics features, the beauty of content and form of the original cosmetic advertisement.

3. Survey on Foreign Cosmetic Advertisement Translation

3.1 Definition of Advertisements and Types of Advertisements

The word "Advertisement", derived from the word "Advetere" in Latin, means attracting public eyes and making it well known. People have different opinions on the definition of advertisement. Several definitions will be mentioned below.

The National Association of Advertisers (ANA) defines advertisement as delivering information to the public in a paid way, changing the public"s attitudes towards advertising products, so as to achieve the ultimate goal of buying products for the public and earning profits for advertisers.

Advertisement is a paid, public exchange of information, usually by specific sponsors through the various media to provide persuasive products, services or ideas. (ZhaoJing,1997:1)

Of the above definitions, the last one is the most widely-accepted and authoritative one among all definitions of advertisements, and it includes and emphasizes that sponsors pay to persuade customers to buy through various information media.

Advertisements can be categorized according to different criteria. However, the widely accepted advertisement classification is commercial advertisement and non-commercial advertisement, which is mentioned by Tobin Westgard Kim Schroder (1985) in his book advertisement language. Because of the big difference between them, it is important to understand the category of advertisements before translating them.

According to Baidu encyclopedia entry, non-commercial advertisements refer to advertisements made in order to achieve certain propaganda purposes, without profit. such as political advertisements, public service advertisements and personal advertisements.

Political advertisements are made for political activities, such as publishing government policies and decrees, and disseminating various announcements of government departments at all levels.

Public service advertisements refer to advertisements issued to safeguard social morality and help to improve and solve social public problems. As we all know, public service advertisements are not for money, but for the common benefits of society.

Personal advertisements are published by the media to meet the needs of individuals, such as personal statements, marriage invitations, or search for someone, and so on.

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