LOCALIZATION OF AUTOMOBILE ADVERTISING TRANSLATION 汽车广告翻译的本土化.doc

LOCALIZATION OF AUTOMOBILE ADVERTISING TRANSLATIONAbstract: Nowadays along with the globalization of economy and trade, products from all around the world spread widely. In such a globalizing tide，automobile industry also presents a similar trend. Therefore, advertising translation plays an important role in the promotion and development of automobile industry. And localization which means taking a product and making it linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target market plays the more and more essential role in the process of advertising translation. Through analyzing typical automobile advertising translation from the perspective of culture, this paper focuses on localization of automobile advertising translation. Relevant translation theories, such as Nidas Functional Equivalence and Newmarks Communicative Translation, are applied. Moreover, advice is also given for better appliance of the strategy of localization in automobile advertising translation.Key Words: automobile advertising; advertising translation; localization汽车广告翻译的本土化摘 要：当前随着经济与贸易的全球化，各国的品牌纷纷在呈现向全球蔓延的态势。在这样一个全球化的大趋势下，汽车业也呈现出一派全球化的趋势。广告翻译在汽车业发展过程中担任着一个十分重要的角色。而广告翻译的本土化，既让一个产品广告在语言和文化上更适合目标市场的习惯，在广告翻译的过程中起着越来越关键的作用。本文从文化的角度，通过分析典型的汽车广告中英互译例子，结合相关翻译理论,如奈达的功能对等理论以及纽马克的交际翻译理论来阐释汽车广告翻译的本土化这一主题。并且文章针对汽车广告翻译过程中本土化的实施及所遇到问题也提出了一些建议。关键词：汽车广告；广告翻译；本土化Introduction:11. Basic Principles and Trend of Advertising Translation11.1 Basic Principles of Advertising Translation11.1.1 Naturalness21.1.2 Accuracy21.1.3 Comprehensibility21.2 Trend of Advertising Translation under the Trend of Globalization21.2.1 Trend of Globalization21.2.2 Trend of Advertising Translation-Localization32. Function of Automobile Advertising and Characteristics of Automobile Advertising Translation42.1 Function of Automobile Advertising42.2 Characteristics of Automobile Advertising52.2.1 Using Lots of Punctuation52.2.2 Deviant Spelling and Nonstandard Spelling72.2.3 Visual Emphasis and Picture Strategies92.3 Theories to Guide Automobile Advertising Translation92.3.1 Peter Newmarks Communicative Translation92.3.2 Nidas Functional Equivalence-Cultural Aspects of Translation102.4 Short Summary103. Localization of Automobile Advertising Translation113.1 Localization-The Cultural Added-value113.2 Differences between Different Cultures123.2.1 The Social-Cultural Component:123.2.2 The Political-Legal Component:123.3 Analysis of Successful Localization of Advertising Translation123.4 Some Tips on Achieving Localization in Automobile Advertising Translation153.4.1 Culture compensation153.4.2 Being Familiar with Target-Culture154. Conclusion16Bibliography19Introduction: In China, with the development of socialist market economy since Chinas opening up to the outside world, automobile industry of China has been developing at a quick speed. In addition, with the trend of globalization, domestic automobile brands have the ambition to conquer the world market; meanwhile foreign automobile brands want to enter Chinas market. Therefore, advertising plays a very important role in the promotion and development of automobile globalization. Moreover, auto advertising translation, which is an important branch of advertising, is distinct from literary translation and other translation because of its specific commercial purpose, which determines the supreme status of the target audience and the target culture. A successful automobile brands promotion between two cultures relies on a successful auto advertising translation. To attain this aim, the translator should no longer stick to traditional views such as “be faithful to the source text” or “natural equivalence”. From this perspective, a new and more practical strategy is called for. That strategy is named localization of automobile advertising translation, which will be the focus of this paper.1. Basic Principles and Trend of Advertising Translation1.1 Basic Principles of Advertising TranslationAdvertising is a practical text style, quite different from common literary works, with a very material purpose to “address consumers buying motives and to maintain existing attitudes and change negative and neutral to positive ones”. Advertising is not only a tool of imparting information, but also an art, which is full of persuasion and impression. While in a process of advertising translation, the special function of advertisement must be considered about at first. In this respect, Skopostheorie, advocated by Reiss and Vermeer in 1984, can give the translators some clues. It views translation from a different perspective, takes translation as an action and claims that the success of a translation depends on whether it has achieved its purpose. The translators could flexibly use any translation strategy to reach the intended purpose. As advertising translation have an obvious purpose, Skopostheorie is just the right theory guiding advertising translation. With applying this translation strategy, the translation will be concise, vivid, and attractive. How could translators achieve such purpose in advertising translation? Naturalness, accuracy, and being easily understood-such are three principles must be considered and abided by while translating advertising texts. 1.1.1 NaturalnessTranslation must be easy and smooth enough so that it could be easily accepted by target audience. How could an advertising translation be figured as a good one or not? It all depends on the reaction of target audience after browsing it. Only when the reaction of the target audience after viewing the translated version is similar to the reaction of source language after viewing the source text, could the translation be defined as a successful one. Transforming naturally is the key and the first step in the process of advertising translation and even in the process of the promotion of a product.1.1.2 AccuracyThe translation must show the information that the source ads try to convey accurately. It is also the need of advertisings special functionality. If the information conveyed by source ads is changed in the process of translation, consumers will be misled. Wrong information will bring wrong advertising effects certainly. Translating accurately is the life of advertising translation.1.1.3 ComprehensibilityWhile translating, more exoteric words and short sentences should be used. As we all know, ads are created for everyone. Among ordinary people, their literacy levels vary in a large extent. There are certainly large scales of people with low literacy. Therefore, it is hard for readers to grasp the main idea of the advertising. Moreover, it is true that an elusive cannot move the readers. Otherwise, readers always read ads optionally and quickly. So the simpler the ads are, the quicker the ads can achieve their desired effects. It is true that short but impressive ads have better effects than the long and elusive.1.2 Trend of Advertising Translation under the Trend of Globalization1.2.1 Trend of GlobalizationAs known to all, worldwide economy is developing at an unbelievable pace. In addition, with China entering WTO and deepening its opening up to the outside world, the trend of globalization spread widely all over the nation. Under such a trend, a nation's unique culture can become international through worldwide economy and cultural exchanges. Because of that, every enterprise tries to take up foreign markets, which strengthen the trend of globalization. Since the trend of globalization seems increasingly irresistible, cultural communications are affirmatively needed. Local language plays a crucial role in every part of local people, and it is the most ordinary but most important and effective factor in their life. Therefore, while translating ads, localization should be considered and applied. 1.2.2 Trend of Advertising Translation-LocalizationAs has mentioned above, localization is a trend of advertising translation. As we all know, wherever the local language is an influential parameter, it is called as a decoder and mediator, sometimes even as a negotiator. As the globalization of economies and trade intensification leading companies to communicate with consumers of different languages and cultures, the translation of advertisements has evolved during the last decade towards what is now called “Advertising Localization”.The localization of advertising campaigns consists of adapting the goods promotions between different countries while taking into account the above-mentioned parameters. The relevance and influence of these parameters are certainly varied according to regions and countries but overlooking them leads undoubtedly to the failure of the campaign. The translator plays a crucial role in the adaptation of the communication campaign. Translators must make sure that the social-cultural restrictions, which could be problematic in the auto advertising transfer, are taken into consideration. The issue, which is at the heart of multilingual communication in this globalized era, is about managing cultural differences between the different hosting countries of a single automobile advertising campaign. Some problems and diverging points of view of the parties involved in this process concerning specifically the cultural issue will be explained briefly as follows.First, the sponsors of the ads (in other words the producers of goods and services) incline to use an offensive approach with a very peculiar conception of culture stating the following: culture is “global”.The point of view of communicators/advertising executives consider that communication applies for a particular public viewed as a “target” and known as the “target audience”. For them, culture is defined as the culture of a transnational group of consumers having the same life style and similar consumption habits.Finally, the point of view of the ads translators/localizers plays an important role. As linguistic and cultural go-betweens, translators are, by principle, in a mediation position that allows them to see the problems from the conciliatory and flexible angle of interculturality.The recurrent question for them is: how to convey a single message written in two different languages without losing either the spirit or the identity through localization?“The management of the other”, which is what international auto advertising is all about, will be a challenge for the translator/localizer at varying levels related to the different parts of the advertising message namely: the image on one hand, and the text on the other. Within the latter (the text of the ad), one can recognize the brand name, the slogan or the catch line and finally the caption.Every part of these could be a problem when transferring it from one language to another. In addition, every one reflects a facet of the cultural issues.All has mentioned above show that localization is important and pivotal in process of globalization, such as in promotion of automobile.2. Function of Automobile Advertising and Characteristics of Automobile Advertising Translation2.1 Function of Automobile Advertising No matter what kind of advertising, all their purpose is to promote the sale of production. Therefore, it is no exception for automobile advertising. As the primary functions of advertising are marketing, communications, education, economic, and social, so are automobile advertising.1) Marketing functionIt falls into the automobile promotion category and is part of the promotional mix along with sales promotion, and public relations all of which are used to sell or win acceptance of the automobile companys car, services, or ideas.2) Communicative functionAll forms of advertising communicate some message to a group of people, equally as the automobile advertising. Today the communication of information is still one of the basic functions of advertising. The auto ads should have communicative power to persuade potential consumer to buy the car. 3) Educational functionAutomobile Advertising, as an educator, speeds the adoption of the new and untried brands, in so doing, accelerates technological advances in industry, and hastens the realization of a fuller life for all. 4) Economic functionBy making people aware of one automobiles products, services and ideas, advertising promotes sales and thereby commerce as well. Auto advertising enables competitors to enter the marketplace. This encourages the improvement of existing products and the development of new, improved models. These actions translate into increased productivity, higher quality, and the disappearance of auto products that do not measure up. 5) Social functionAdvertising is one of the major forces that have helped improve the standard of automobile industry. By giving consumers an attractive picture of the auto products available to them, advertising motivates them to buy. Auto advertising serves social needs other than the stimulation of sales. Finally, rapid development of auto advertising has led to important social chances.2.2 Characteristics of Automobile Advertising2.2.1 Using Lots of Punctuation Punctuation in automobile advertising is used widely and emphatically. It is observed that most of the copywriters have a tendency to use very short graphic unit, with lots of punctuation. An advertisement is broken down into a series of minimal sentences, the result being that each clause stands on its own feet and is accorded equal importance with the others. Therefore, both density and weight of punctuation are signals suggesting emphasis given to each information unit. Ad writers prefer to chop sentences into short bits by using full stops where ordinary prose could use commas or no punctuation at all. The technique is used in auto advertising extensively. The following example shows one of its communicative effects:(1) We built the MAZDA MPV based on a very strong foundation. The home. (Mazda MPV) The extract contains an example of “fragmentary sentence”: “The home.” In this case an element that might have functioned as a constituent of the preceding sentence are dealt with, but has been separated from the sentence into more information units, so that the sequence of words will contain more focal elements, thus “The home” will carry the nuclear accent. Such fragmentary sentences abound in automobile advertisements. As a result, the full stop functions as a stylistic device to indicate a dramatic pause for emphasis.Apart from full stops, ad writers also use dashes and ellipsis marks to achieve emphasis and dramatic effect. This kind of emphasis is signaled by the dashed inserted in the sentence where the normal written text would have no internal punctuation or deal with it in other forms:(2) Now the st