从目的论角度看中英文广告翻译

论文总字数：30520字

摘 要

随着中国经济的飞速发展和全球化的不断加快，中国广告业发展势头十分迅猛并逐渐成为了一名广告巨人,因此广告翻译得到了前所未有的重视。广告有一个非常实际的目的，就是刺激消费者的购买欲望并且尽可能的促销商品。广告翻译也是如此，一则好的广告翻译一定是能够有效促销商品的，还能够推广品牌和消费理念。目的论认为一则成功的广告翻译一定要实现原广告所要传达的目的。本篇文章将主要讨论广告翻译的目的和广告翻译的原则，以及在目的论指导下广告翻译究竟应该采用哪些策略。

关键词：广告翻译；目的论；翻译策略

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. Advertising Translation and Skopostheorie 4

3.1 The purpose of advertising translation 4

3.2 The principle of advertising translation 5

3.3 Skopostheorie 7

4. Strategies Used in Advertising English 8

4.1 Literal translation 8

4.2 Free translation 9

4.3 Creative translation 10

4.4 Overstatement 10

4.5 Adaptation 11

5. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 13

1. Introduction

With the rapid development of technology and globalization of economy, there is a growing demand for enterprises to expand international market and activate their business. In order to promote their products, a company has to attract more potential customers with an interesting advertisement, which makes the advertising translation a very important thing. We live in a world full of advertisements. There was an American writer who wrote that advertisement of all kinds could be found in everywhere, such as varicolored pictures on buses, glittering neon signs, pamphlets which were sent to each house, advertisement between TV programs and radio broadcast etc. (Wang 英 32) Good advertising translations play an essential role in the promotion of products. Therefore, an appropriate ad translation will be of incomparable meaning to a company. There are many theories about translation and every theory has its own emphasis. Among these theories, there exists consistent dispute about whether translating should be “literal” or not. However, as the distinct purpose of the advertising translation which is to promote purchasing, Skopostheorie is the best guideline for a translator to translate in a proper way. The Skopostheorie holds the opinion that translation has to be performed with specific purpose.

This paper has five chapters. The first chapter is the introduction about this assay. The second chapter is the literature review. The third chapter will talk about the purpose and principles of the advertising translation. And it will also discuss the skopos theory. The fourth chapter will discuss the strategies used in advertising translation. The final chapter will make a conclusion of the whole essay.

1. Literature Review

2.1 The study abroad

The history of translation is overwhelmingly long while the history of advertising translation not. Geoffrey N. Leech is the first scholar who studied the language of advertising systematically. His book English in Advertising: a Linguistic Study of Advertising in Great Britain combined the linguistics with advertising and discussed the grammar, vocabulary and semantics of the advertisements severely (Leech 125).

Different scholars studied advertising from different perspectives. Hurbin is the first person who proposed the term -- advertising translation. In his article, he probed into the translation of advertisements from the perspective of linguistics and illustrated the value of the research on advertising translation. Then, Geis connected the advertising with pragmatics and he focused on the practical value of advertising study. What’s more, Vestergaard and Schroder studied the advertising language mainly from the angle of sociolinguistics in their book. Different from others, they study the advertising in the discourse level and they emphasized the cohesion, coherence and information structure of the advertisement. They also mentioned about the explicit message of advertisements and the social motivation implied in advertisements.

There are also some scholars study advertising translation from distinctive angles. Smith and Klein-Barley proposed five problems which often appear in the way of advertising translation: 1) Don’t change advertisements; 2) Export advertisements; 3) Straight translation; 4) Adaptation; 5) Revision. Methieu Guidere explored the interactions between advertising and translation in his book. He concentrated on the international advertisement under the background of globalization. In his book, he discussed the “effective text” for the primary aim of the advertising is to sell goods to the target readers. Guy Cook held the opinion that commercial advertising always exists in the specific context, such as movie, music and picture and he found the pop advertisements will influence the consumers’ value orientation. Karen Smith argued that a translator should take into account culture, history, economic and any other elements when they perform an advertising translating activity.

2.2 The study at home

Different from western countries, the research on advertising translation developed slowly in China. It was not until late 1980s that our scholars began to study the advertising translation. However, as the fast development of the globalization and the desire for transnational business, the advertising translation became more and more important to the commercial field or the translation research. In this case, more scholars start to study the advertising translation from the 20 century.

Most scholars insist that advertising translation must be succinct. Ding Shude indicated the principle of concision in his essay On the Concision of the Translation of Product Advertising. He put forward the KISS principle which is “keep it short and sweet”. He stated that a good advertisement should be short but impressible (Ding 45). Cao Shunfa demonstrated that the advertising translation should use the least word and convey the most information. A famous scholar Zhang Jipei had the same view that Chinese contains many rhetorical devices while English not, so the advertising translation should center on the main idea.

Culture is also an important element in advertising translation that many people study advertising English from this perspective. Jiang Lei denoted that the culture distinction between Chinese and Western nations is the main cause of the pragmatic failure when translating an advertising in his article Cultural Differences between English and Chinese and Pragmatic Translation of Advertisements (Jiang 74). San You and Li Jing indicated that instead of an economic phenomenon, advertising is more than a cultural phenomenon. Thus advertising translation is a comprehensive cross-cultural communication activity and it has a great influence on the traditional habits, psychology and beliefs of the target consumer (Sanamp;Li 47). Hu Zuoyou studied the advertising translation from the cross-cultural angle and he put forward that the essence of advertising translation is to transmit the life of advertisement, so that it can take root, sprout and grow in the new culture, win the love of the target readers, and then promote purchasing (Hu 224).

Besides, there also some scholars emphasize the beauty of language. Wang Wenge gave priority to the esthetic factor of advertising translation. He indicated that advertising should reproduce the original beauty and have the same effect on the target readers as the original text (Wang 谈 87). Tang Yanfang argued that when the literal meaning of the advertisement contradicts with beauty, the translator should abandon the form and reproduce the beauty to enhance the attraction and temptation of the advertisement (Tang 114).

There are some people who research advertising translation in other angles. Jia Wenbo stated that the advertising translation is different from other translation for they must serve their purpose which is to stimulate the readers’ purchasing desire. Liu Fang explored the advertising translation from the perspective of the relevance theory in 2008 and she denoted that the advertising translation is to acquire an optimal relevance between the communicators. She also thought that advertising translation is an inference process and readers should deduce the potential implication behind the words so that they can achieve the communication goal.

After analyzing the previous study of translation, we can find that the advertising translation is not be investigated enough and there are also many other areas of expertise can be explored. There is no systematical investigation about the advertising translation and there is no criterion for translators to abide by. What’s more, most scholars’ explorations of the advertising translation are limited to the translation instances and the theoretical study is inadequate.

3. Advertising Translation and Skopostheorie

The word “advertise” derives from a Latin word “advertere” which means a tool used to draw public attention to something and lead to their purchasing. With the ever rapid development of the economical globalization, advertising translation can never be ignored by common people or scholars for advertisements infiltrate through every field of our modern society. Advertising is a practical style which has its own stylistic feature, so it is necessary to research the purpose and the principle of the advertising translation.

3.1 The purpose of advertising translation

The ancient sage Aristotle finds that every behavior has its own purpose which means that all human behavior pursues its goal or consequence. Different literary forms have diverse purposes and functions, so they have diverse demands of translation and strategies. Advertising English is a kind of applied language which has strong utility function. The purpose of advertising is to promote production as much as possible. American Marketing Manager"s Handbook indicated that an advertisement should have four functions: “AIDA”, which represents four words---Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.

Advertising translation must achieve the expected function in the target language culture, namely, it must reproduce in a new cultural environment the various advertising functions that the original text has in the source culture. This determined that the goal of advertising translation is the realization of advertising functions, that is to say, to effectively introduce products to consumer and then spur consumers to accept and purchase their products. Beside this, an excellent advertising translation can also help to promote the brand and even can promote its consumption concept which can gradually influence consumers’ consuming behavior. The ultimate aim of an advertising translation is definitely not merely people’s appreciation of its language or grammar but the effective sales. If one advertising translation can attract the attention of potential customers, arouse their interest, stimulate their buying desire and finally make them buy its product, then it could be seen as an outstanding advertising translation.

3.2 The principle of advertising translation

Translation is a practical activity and a relatively personal thing and each translator should have his or her own principle and standard. A translator who try to translate something could have no systematic theory but he could not have no feasible principle. The principle couldn’t be too particular but a general guide.

3.2.1 The principle of flexibility

Due to the difference between the Chinese culture and western culture and the difference between Chinese and English, it can hardly translate an advertisement into another language in a complete equivalent way. All scholars hope to translate an advertising literally and preserve the original functions of the text. Nevertheless, this is just an ideal condition. If an advertisement be translated literally into another language, the translation may lose the function of the advertisement and cannot achieve the expected effect. Therefore, advertising translation should be flexible.

People from different places have their own language, cultural background and model of thinking. Thus, when translating an advertising, we cannot be limited to the original form of the text but should pursue the same effect of the text to make the translation concise, accurate and readable. It will be better if the advertising translation is in lined with the original writing style. Furthermore, translators ought to use flexible methods to translate advertisements and the translations must conform to the culture and convention of the target readers and provide an impetus for them to buy their goods or services. Here are some examples:

Your lips will know it. But your hips won’t show it. 好吃看不见

This advertisement is about chocolate. The original text is metrical but a little long while the target text is short but precisely show the chocolate’s feature---delicious but no fat.

Buy a Diamond Brand watch, if every second counts for you. 出手不凡钻石表

Chinese people lay more emphasis on the individual image and always dress well in public places. Meanwhile, western countries emphasize on time management and that’s why the translator substitute the “出手不凡” with “every second counts”.

3.2.2 The principle of creativity

To be a sort of practical style with high commercial value, an advertisement should be persuasive and memorable. People of different ages have different ideas and the different consumption concepts. Therefore, to attract consumers’ attention, an advertising must be creative and original and interesting, and it should fully understand the mentality of the audience. In order to achieve this particular purpose, advertising translation must also be creative. An excellent advertising translation ought to be ingenious thus it could attract readers and make them buy their products.

Nevertheless, the good idea of the original advertisement can hardly be translated into another language for quite different cultural background. At this time, one must abandon the equivalence principle but adopt the different strategies flexibly and make his or her translation creative and effective. Facing the people who come from different cultures, the translator must adequately learn about their concepts of life and give full use of his or her imagination to find a different way to translate the advertisement. To achieve a wonderful effect, one can even under-translate or over-translate to get a good translation which is vivid and interesting and can satisfy the different cultural requirements. For example:

Time is what you make of it. 天长地久

The original text shows consumers about the value of the time. But when it is translated literally, the Chinese consumers would just feel misunderstanding. The translator use another Chinese idiom to translate the advertisement which takes into account the Chinese traditional idea that they wish everything can last long and forever.

Good to the last drop! 滴滴香浓，意犹未尽！

The original advertisement is prevalent in the western countries for it is short and effective. The literal translation is long and lack of the aesthetic flavor of Chinese. In order to achieve the beauty of language and attract consumers, the translator use two four-character phrases which show the feature of the product vividly.

3.3 Skopostheorie

Skopotheorie proposed by the German functionalist translation theorist Reiss and Vermeer is based on the behavioral theory and the cross-cultural communication theory. Vermeer expounded his theory in his book coauthored with Reiss in 1984 and they said that this theory is a general translation theory that can be used in any text. In his opinion, every action has its purpose and translation is also an action with its own purpose which is to realize the functions that the original text has. Vermeer denoted that each text has its distinct aim and translators should use flexible strategies to realize the goal. He also pointed out that the purpose of translation is not to achieve total equivalence with the original text but to realize the communicative function (Reissamp;Vermeer 58).

Vermeer proposed three rules of translation in his Skopotheorie.

1. Skopos rule

Skopos rule is the principle rule of the theory. Vermeer interprets it as follows:

"Each text is produced for a given purpose and should serve this purpose. The Skopos rule thus reads as follows: translate…in a way that enables your text/translation to function in the situation it is used and with the people who want to use it and precisely in the way they want it to function." (Nord 29)

Skopostheorie focus on the purpose of the translation. Besides, it indicates that the translation strategies and methods are decided by the purpose of the translation activity. Thus, it doesn"t distinguish between literal translation and liberal translation, or dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence, or good interpreters and slavish translators.

1. Coherence rule

Vermeer believes that the translation should conform to the standard of “intra-textual coherence”, that is, the target text should be in line with the cultural situation of the original readers, thus to make target readers easily understand the translation. Therefore, the translator must take into account the culture in which the target readers live.

1. Fidelity rule

Vermeer holds there ought to be an inter-textual coherence between the original text and the translated version for translating is to show the source text in another language. However, the degree of the fidelity differs by the distinct comprehension of the translator.

Among the three rules, skopos rule is the central rule and fidelity rule is considered subjected to not only skopos rule but also coherence rule.

Advertising translation is a practical style and it has a specific purpose that it must attract readers, describe the products and promote sales with all methods. No doubt that one translation which reaches its target is a good advertising translation. Under this theory, one can use any translation strategy to get a satisfied translation. It thus appears that Skopostheorie has high abstraction, comprehensiveness and flexibility and it is the best theory for advertising translation.

4. Strategies Used in Advertising English

According to Skopostheorie, translation is directed at an intended audience since to translate means “to produce a text in a target setting for a target purpose and target addressees in target circumstances” (Vermeer 29). Hence, it is no matters what kind of the target text is but whether it achieve the target purpose. That is to say, one can choose any strategies to make his or her translation effective. Here are some strategies which are very useful in the translating activity.

4.1 Literal translation

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