On The Translation of Advertising English英语专业毕业论文.doc

On The Translation of Advertising English一、 课题(论文)提纲0 引言1 广告和广告英语的定义1.1 广告的定义1.2 广告英语的信息2 广告英语的特征2.1 词汇的特征2.2 语句的特征2.3 修辞的特征3 广告英语翻译的原则3.1 准确性3.2 吸引性3.3 可接受性4 广告英语的主要方法4.1 直译4.2意译4.3 直译和意译的结合5 总结二、内容摘要在现代社会中，被喻为商业化身的广告己渗透到社会的各个角落，逐渐成为人们日常生活中的一个重要组成部分。随着我国社会经济的迅速发展，改革开放的进一步深化，以及加入世界贸易组织已成为事实，中国产品进入到国际市场的机会大大增加了，与此同时也将会有大量的外国产品涌入中国市场，各种产品在市场上的竞争越演越烈，而广告在促进产品销售和繁荣市场经济等方面的作用也越来越明显，广告翻译的地位也随之显得越来越重要。自然的，广告英语已成为一种重要的交际方式和现代社会中的独立部分。本文分析了广告英语的语言特点，阐述了广告英语的翻译原则，着重在广告英语的翻译方法及其应用，期望本文能对我们以后翻译广告有所帮助。三、 参考文献1 Mueller.B International Advertising Communicating Across Culture, London: Wadsworth2 Net.1. XuShanwen, Functional Analysis and Translation， index.him3 Net.2. Su Yu & Yang Liu, An Analytic Study of Advertising English And Its Translation，4 Theodore Savory (1957), The Art of Translation, London: Jonathan Cape5 赵静. 广告英语M. 北京:外语教学与研究出版社,1992.1On The Translation of Advertising English Abstract：In modem society，advertisement，the embodiment of commerce，is becoming an important part in our daily lives. The intensified international exchanges and severe competition involve a growing need for advertisement and thus the translation of it. However, the study of advertising translation is far from satisfactory to its need and the traditional translation theories seem increasingly inadequate. That is because advertisements are of a very practical type of writing with high commercial value, and the ultimate purpose of all advertisements is the sameto promote sales.Naturally, English advertisement has become an important way to communicate ideas, and it also becomes indispensable in the modern world.In this thesis, I will analyze the features of English advertisement, the translation principles of it and the ways in translating it. It is hoped that we can get some useful information when translating the advertisement.Key Words: advertisement；English advertisement；translation principles；translation ways0 . IntroductionIn the era of information, advertisements have infiltrated into all walks of life and become an important source of information as well as an indispensable part in our life. With Chinas entry into the World Trade Organization, more and more multinationals are doing business in China. And the local people get to know more about foreign products through advertisements, which appear almost everywhere, on TV, in newspapers and in the street. So there seems to be an increasing need for translation of English advertisements. Studies in this field will also be of great significance.Many studies on advertisements made by various scholars both at home and abroad have enabled people to have understanding of advertising.Advertising English is a practical style, it has its own features, and its translation is provided with unique ways and principles. And in this thesis there are four chapters. In chapter one, I talked about the definition of advertisements and advertising English, and in chapter two I mentioned the features of advertising English, in chapter three and four I have talked the principles and ways of advertising English translation.1. Definition of Advertising and Advertising English1.1 Definition of AdvertisingBefore exploring the present topic, we need to find out what advertising is. In other words, well clarify the definition of advertising. The word “advertise” originated from the Latin word “advertere”, which means “to inform somebody of something” or “to make known to the public” (Mueller, 1996:55). There are different kinds of definitions for advertising. Advertising is defined as “a method of delivering a message from a sponsor though an impersonal medium, to many people”; as “the use of mass media to carry paid message for a commercial purpose or to advance a cause, institution, or political candidate” and as “any paid from of non-personal presentation and promotion of idea, goods or services by an identified sponsor” (Mueller, 1996:55). Owing to the limit of space, many more definitions are not listed here. But it should be noted that the definition by American Marketing Association (AMA) is the most popular and is most widely quoted as a relatively standard and precise definition of advertising. It defined advertising as “The non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, service or ideas by identified sponsor through the various media” (Zhao Jing, 1992:1).From the above definitions, we can understand that advertising takes the following meanings at least:1) It aims at groups of people rather than individuals. Advertising is non-personal; it is directed toward the masses of anonymous people.2) Most advertisements are paid by specific sponsor expect a few unpaid ones like public service announcements.3) Advertising should be persuasive, for the fundamental role of advertising is enhancing brand awareness and urging people to purchase. The message has the explicit purpose of increasing sales through persuasion. (Zhao Jing, 1992:3).1.2 Information of Advertising EnglishEnglish in advertising refers to the English specially used in all kinds of advertisement. Advertising English as a practical style with high commercial value involves selling power and memory value, thereby it impresses the audience deeply. Advertisements must be eye-catching and possess attention value and readability.2. Features of Advertising EnglishAs a kind of mass media, advertising plays a very important role in modern society and permeates every aspect of social life. The advertising language has caused more and more attentions. As a kind of linguistic art, advertising has aroused attention to its language features. It is a sort of practical style, which has high commercial values. The language in English advertisement belongs to “loaded language”, which has a high “persuasive power”. It aims at inspiring people's imagination, stimulating their emotion, and persuading them to purchase certain commodities. It transfers the least information about commodity and service, and accelerates and promotes the sales of commodity, and consequently furthers the development of modern society. In this chapter, we focus on the features of advertising English: its lexical features, syntactical features and rhetorical features.2.1Lexical FeaturesFirstly, English advertisements usually involve many words; we call them as coinage and anagrammatic spelling, in order that it can draw attention of the people and covey the information of products effectively. Although these words are different from their original form, they are more vivid and interesting than the formers.Secondly, advertising usually use concise and an accurate words and expression. “Copywriting will directly influence purchasing motivation and is closely related to the benefit of the public”.(Net,1)2.2 Syntactical FeaturesThe purpose of all advertisings is to familiarize consumers with or remind them of the benefits of particular products in the hope of increasing sales, and the techniques used by advertisers do not vary markedly. An advertisement is often merely glimpsed in passing and so, to be effective, its message must be colorful, legible, understandable, and memorable.Firstly, the simple sentences are wildly needed in advertising English instead of complex ones, because the simple ones are easy to understand and memorable by consumers. They are concise in reading, lively and beautiful by hearing. Secondly, the interrogative sentences are frequently used in advertisements. There are two reasons to use interrogative sentences. Viewing from the angle of psychology, it divided the process of information receiving into two phases by first raising a question and then answering it. Thus it turns the passive receiving into active understanding. From the linguistic angle, interrogative sentences decrease the grammatical difficulty, because they are usually short in advertisements. Thirdly, the imperative sentences are used in advertising English. 2.3 Rhetorical FeaturesRhetoric is widely employed in advertising English. Advertisers have made good use of them to give beauty, and force of advertising, and the creative use of them results in advertisements which are emotionally alive, intellectually appealing and memorable.In advertising English language, a lot of rhetoric are used, the top five frequently used are: analogy, personification, repetition, pun parody, and rhyming.Perhaps, analogy is the most widely in advertising English. It can be divided into two kind simile and metaphor. Simile is to compare one thing to another one, and in advertisement, the businessmen usually use it to make the abstract thing into the concrete one or familiar one to consumers. In this way, it can attract the consumers interests and love ness to the goods.3 . Principles of Advertising English translationPrinciples for advertising translation discussed and illustrated in this chapter are based on and derived from the generally accepted translation standards. As advertising texts display so many distinct characteristics and play various exclusive functions. Three principles for advertising translation are introduced in the following.3.1 FaithfulnessOne of the main functions of advertising is to provide product information, including information about the brand name, price, size, performance, and characteristics of the product. Then it becomes extremely important for consumers to be able to understand all the information. The translated copy should provide as much necessary information as possible. Theoretically speaking, the product information in the source text should be reproduced in the target text completely and thoroughly, but it is impossible for some reasons. In other words, understandability occurs when absolute equivalence instead of relative equivalence is required. So, the first translation principle, faithfulness, proposed from the angle of advertising content, aims to maintain a high degree of fidelity to the source advert, first the content, then the form, if possible. Of course, if both of them can be kept in the target text, thats perfect. Now, lets look at the following examples.E.g. 3.1.1Fresh food and fresh air. The perfect recipe for a healthy life.Ive chosen. Its Candy. 新鲜食物+新鲜空气，健康生活的绝妙处方。我选定了，Candy冰箱。 (ad for Candy fridge) (Li Haibin, 2003:100)The perfect way for people to live a healthy life is to eat fresh food and breathe fresh air, both of which Candy fridge can provide. The ST (source text) presents completely the high quality of Candy fridge to readers while the TT (translated text) also transmits the original meaning faithfully. With regard to the form, the TT (translated text) keeps it well. “Fresh” is repeated twice in source text, translator also adopt the repetition,“新鲜”. Adding a“+” between“新鲜食物”and“新鲜空气”,makes the advert exactly like a recipe. Moreover, metaphor is employed in both versions.3.2 AttractivenessThis principle for translating English advertising texts is suggested from perspective of advertising form. Consumers dont pick up a magazine or newspaper and say, “I cant wait to see the adverts.” In fact, they probably just skim the adverts unless something stands out and captures their attention. It is a hard job of the advertiser to turn an advertising text into something very charming or as attractive as a magnet, in order to turn skimmers into earnest readers. As a special pragmatic text with obvious communicative functions, advertising, to a great extent, depends on idiomatic, smooth, novel and appealing language for its success. Therefore, how to make an advertising appear enchanting is not only the advertisers task, but also the translators task. English is an objective and rational language with plain words. Abuse of florid language is forbidden in good English, for it is considered illogical and may harm the original meaning. So it is not desirable to employ ostentatious words in English (Zhang Peiji, 2001).Chinese language always manifests abundant use of modifiers, contributing to the whole rhyming structure. Moreover, Chinese employs many refine words to describe images and set off atmosphere, thus sounding elegant. Zhang Peiji(2001) also noticed that Chinese language often resorts to tautology in order to achieve rhyming, emphasis or neat structure. When translating English advertising into China, translators should sometimes reproduce the original by means of reduplication and tautology, or by choosing parallel four-character phrases, thus rendering the target text attractive to Chinese consumers. English sentences are clear in meaning and tight in structure. They always display partial arrangement with the verb as the center. Then flexible changes of the verbs contains of the functional, structural and even semantic information. Unlike English, sentences, Chinese sentences usually comprise several clauses and extend them in a linear way without a focus. Connecting clauses according to the chronological or logical order and without any semantic markers, Chinese sentences seem to be loosely structured.3.3 Acceptability“This principle of acceptability is proposed from the angle of trans-cultural communication. Advertising is not only an economic activity, but also a kind of cultural communication, which influences peoples life style and consumption patterns”(Net.2). Advertising language conveys to the audience not only the information of the commodity or service, but also the unique ideas, values and other cultural messages, for different cultures tend to have very different value systems and they are manifested in communication as different communication styles. A Good mastery of the pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary of a language is far from enough. This is because people with that knowledge may still be extremely unsuccessful in their interaction with native speakers of that language if they do not have some understanding of the cultural conventions of the native speakers.4 . Ways and Methods of Advertising English TranslationTheodore Savory (1957:77) thought it impossible to create a translation theory acceptable to all, nor was it possible to create a concise translation theory. And for the sake of convenience and plainness, he put forward a translation in six pairs. They are:“A translation must give the words of the original.待添加的隐藏文字内容1A translation must give the ideas of the original.A translation should read like an original work.A translation should read like a translation.A translation of verse should be in prose.A translation of verse should be in verse”(Theodore Savory 1957:77).Translators put forward their own theories through the ages. They offered different translation types at the same time. Through the analys