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* L ii ~~ 00 iI ?Jft. liJi ± ?Jft m it 3C rt, :~ (r]f) ~'l ~ ~ * # J1-l'.t -t ~A~jj::1K4 -:. AU ~Jl M: .s ~ dj:. t1v"---__ (J (J -* gifi M:~ a JfY-~ &f;:.. $ fit EJ 0 '*- !r~1il JtfJ Iii!. /.).. 7 qlfCJo"r.r ;t;f~ EJ~ 191Y f /In EJ 011 Translation of Advertising in English A Thesis Presented to The College of English language and Literature of Shanghai International Studies University In Partial Fulfillment of The Requirements for The Degree of Master of Arts By Qiu Chunyan Under the Supervision of Prof. Zhang Yonghua November 1999 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 Some Basics of Advertising •...•.•....•...•...... 5 1.1 The Definition of Advertising 5 1.2 The Functions of Advertising ....•....•......•.•.••••••.•.• 9 1. 3 The Style of English Advertising •..•.•......•.......••.. 11 1.3.1. The Structure of English Advertising......•.•... 11 1.3.2 The Language of English Advertising.........•..16 CHAPTER 2 Principles in Translating English Advertising ...•...........•..•.•...•.•. 25 2. 1 The Theory of Functional Equivalence •........•... 25 2. 2 Application of The Theory of Functional Equivalence to the Translation of English Advertising ..•....•.•........•..•...•....•...•.33 CHAPTER3 Cultural Distinctions and Translation of English Brand Names.........•............ 48 3. 1 The Characteristics of Brand Names •................ 49 3. 2 Cultural Meanings of Words .....••.................... 51 3.3 Translation of English Brand Names ..•..........•... 54 CONCLUSION...•......................••.•.................' 62 BIBLIOGRAPHy 64 -! / ABSTRACT Nowadays, advertising which has become an important part of our daily life is exerting its influence on everyone of us living in this society. With China's ongoing reform and opening to the outside world and with the sustained development of national economy, more and more English advertisements have appeared in our life. These advertisements cannot work to the desired effect unless they are properly translated for the Chinese public. Thus the translation of English advertising is of great practical significance to us and has attracted more and more attention. Because of the creative and diversified use of the English language in advertising, translation of advertising faces many difficulties. How to make a translation of an advertisement both accurate and attractive is a great challenge to the translator. In this thesis we will discuss the problems in translating English advertising on the basis of the theory of functional equivalence and suggest the principles underlying the translation. Focusing on the functions of advertising, this thesis attempts to solve some basic problems arising from advertising translation. The study, far from comprehensive as it were, also touches upon some practical issues, including the bridging of cultural differences when translating English brand names into Chinese, and it may therefore be helpful to the translators of . advertising and our further research in this field. 飞、 2 内容摘要 今天广告已经成为我们生活中密不可分的一部分,它不仅影响着 我们的经济发展,也影响我们的价值观念和文化生活。随着我国改革 开放的深入发展,越来越多的英语广告随着进口商品进入我国。如何 翻译好这些英语广告,以便让它们在中国消费者中能够发挥更大的影 响,已经成为一个热点引起越来越多的关注。 广告文案的创作往往具有很大的创意性,它语言多变,形式多样, 这给广告的翻译带来很大的难度。如何使一则广告的译文既忠实于原 文,又具有广告的功能与美感是每一个译者都面临的问题。本文以广 告的功能为线索探讨了广告翻译中的一些实际问题。广告的翻译并不 应该只追求形式上的忠实与对等,而是应该寻求译文与原文能够达到 同样的引导消费者的效果。因此本文应用了著名翻译理论家奈达的功 能对等理论并在此基础上试着提出了英语广告翻译的原则。本文与翻 译实践紧密相连,讨论了广告翻译中的一些基本问题,包括英文商标汉 译过程中的跨文化现象。对于我们的翻译实践以及今后在这一领域的 进一步研究,本文将会起到一定的指导作用。 / \- ? I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis owes its existence to the keen guidance of Professor Zhang Yonghua, my supervisor, who has devoted her precious time to reading each draft and making critical comments. I would like to give my heartfelt thanks to Professor Feng Qinghua, Professor Qiu Maoru, Professor Nie Zhenxiong and all the other teachers of the college of English language and literature. Their enlightening and conscientious teaching has provided me with a firm basis for the composing of this thesis and will always be of great value to my further academic research. I would also like to extend my deep gratitude to my dear parents, brother and friends, whose constant encouragement and support have made all my accomplishments in school possible. INTRODUCTION Advertising, as a way of publicity, can be traced back to 3000B.C.. 'In the ancient ruins of Pompeii, you can see messages advertising gladiatorial events. Town criers in ancient Greece acted in the same manner as car radios as they announced important news and public events.'(Berkowitz, Kerin & Rudelius, 1986: 496) But it was not until this century that it really began to enter our daily life. Along with the rapid development of social economy, nowadays, advertising has found its way into all walks of life and every aspect of society. Whenever we open a newspaper or a magazine, turn on the TV, or look at the billboards in metro stations or on buildings, we are confronted with advertisements. Advertising has become an inseparable part of our daily life and is likely to affect most of us in a number of different spheres of our life. 'It not only plays an important role in our economic life, but also becomes one of the most important cultural factors moulding and reflecting our life.'(Wilmshurst, 1985: 12) In the 1990s, the advertising business in the world has undergone some great changes. More and more multinational companies have shifted their attention to the global market, especially to those largely untapped markets in developing countries for sales and profits. This caused the phenomenal development of international advertising. In China, with our reform and opening to the outside world being further deepened and with rapid progress in our economy, more and more foreign companies have focused on the Chinese market. They have brought to us not only their products, but also many of their advertisements to propagate their products. Thus we are exposed to more and more English advertisements. How to translate English - 1- advertising has become an issue of important practical significance. Translation is a kind of work which involves languages. Therefore before translating advertising, we must have a thorough understanding of the language of advertising. Just as what Vestergaard and Schroder said in the preface of their book The Language ofAdvertising, 'advertising takes many forms, but in most of them language is of crucial importance.' Effective language is the prerequisite of a successful advertisement. Now the English for advertising has become a special variety of English with its own unique style and characteristics, and its close relationship with linguistics, psychology, economics, sociology and aesthetics has caused some difficulties to the study of it. In recent years, scholars have done much research work in this field and have made some great achievements. In our country there also appeared some books talking about the English for advertising. But much of the research is focused on the lexical features, grammatical features of advertisements or the usage of some rhetoric devices, and on generalizing some 'golden rules', such as the common usage of short sentences and simple words. But sometimes when we read English advertisements in magazines or saw them on TV, we may find that such 'golden rules' are not always observed. In fact in today's English advertisements, the language takes a great variety of forms, the sentence patterns vary a lot and the choice or words is free. In advertising virtually we can find every type of writing. Thus even the 'golden rules' sometimes will become helpless before the vivid and diversified use of the English language in advertising. Then does it mean that no rule exists in English for advertising? Of course there do exist some rules. The language of advertising is a kind of loaded language which is greatly persuasive. As a tool of commerce, it is different from language for literature or language for science and technology - 2- since its intention is to persuade the readers to buy. Thus all the features of English for adverting are closely related to the functions of advertising. No matter what form it has taken, as long as it can fulfill the functions of advertising, it is effective. So when studying the English for advertising, we should not focus our attention just on the language phenomena, such as the usage of words or sentence patterns, but on linking the usage of language with the functions of advertising and on analyzing how the language serves the functions of advertising. In view of this, we should evaluate the effectiveness of the language of an advertisement by asking whether its function is fulfilled. A translated advertisement should also meet this standard. So faithfulness in advertising translation should first of all mean faithfulness to the functions of the original copy, rather than faithfulness to the form or the message itself. In this respect, translation of advertising is different from translation of other works. And as the language of advertising is free in usage and has a variety of forms, it is quite difficult to translate. With the growing influence of advertising on our life, more and more people begin to work in this field and some achievements have been made. But anyhow the research is far from enough and there are still many problems left to be solved. In this thesis we will mainly discuss the translation of English advertising into Chinese. We will discuss the standard and the principles of translation and analyze some difficult problems in translating practice. The whole thesis will focus on the functions of advertising, the determinant factor in advertising, and all the questions discussed in this thesis will be closely related to the functions of advertising. It consists of three chapters, the fist chapter will discuss the definition, functions, structure and language features of advertising. The second chapter will mainly deal with the translation of English advertising. In this chapter, Eugene Nida's translation - 3- theory of functional equivalence will be applied to the translation of advertising and on the basis of the theory, some principles of translating English advertising will be suggested with examples to demonstrate them. The third chapter will discuss the translation of the English brand names, a practical key problem all translators of advertising will meet in the process of translating, focusing on the cultural differences between English and Chinese. For the convenience of discussion, in this thesis the term 'advertising' is used in its narrow sense, referring to the commercial consumer advertising, and only in its printed form. - 4- CHAPTER 1 Some Basics of Advertising Before discussing the translation of English advertising, it is quite necessary for us to have some background information on advertising. First we will give a clear definition to advertising and consumer advertising, which is what we will deal with exclusively in this thesis; then we will discuss the main functions of advertising and the style of English advertising determined by its functions, including its structure and its language features. 1.1 The Definition of Advertising What is advertising? The word advertising derived from the Latin word 'advertere', which means 'to tum toward'. On the basis of this Latin word, in the 15th century, . the word 'advertir' appeared in French. This word means 'to attract other's attention'. The English word 'advertising' was borrowed from this French word, and didn't have any great change in meaning at first. It was not until the end of the 17th century when large scale of business activities appeared in Britain that the word 'advertising' has got its present meaning as 'the action of calling something to the attention of the public, especially by paid announcements. '(Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 10th edition: 18) The Definition Committee of the American Marketing Association defines advertising as: "Advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about - 5- the products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media." (Mandell, 1984: 3) The key words here are 'nonpersonal', 'paid', 'persuasive', 'identified', and 'media'. First, advertising is directed to groups of people and therefore is nonpersonal in nature. This is why it is different from personal selling. Second, most advertising is paid for by the sponsors. Many big American companies annually spend several hundred million dollars or even several billion dollars in sponsoring advertising. Third, for a message to be considered an advertisement, the sponsor must be identified. This is why it differs from public relations, as certain public relation activities like publicity are normally not openly sponsored. Fourth, most advertising tries to be persuasive----to win the consumers' trust to a product, service, or an idea. This is the purpose of advertising and also is the reason why companies sponsor it. Fifth, most advertising reaches us through mass media-e-namely the newspapers, magazines, radio and television. Only when a message fulfill the above five requirements can it be called an advertisement. Here is an advertisement quoted from Newsweek, Sep 26, 1992: GILLETTE SENSOR The only razor that senses and adjusts to the individual needs of your face. Gillette Sensor: the shave personalized to every man. It starts with twin blades, individually and independently mounted on highly responsive springs. So they continuously sense and automatically. adjust to the individual curves and unique needs ofyour face, Innovation is everywhere. You can feel it in the textured ridges and - 6- the balance of the Sensor razor. You appreciate it in the easy loading system and the convenient shaving organizer. Even rinsing is innovative, the new blades are 50% narrower than any others-i--allowing water to flow freely around, for effortless cleaning and rinsing. All these sensor technologies combine to give your individual face a personal shave-s-the closest, smoothest, safest, most comfortable. The best shave one can get. Gillette This is an advertisement made by Gillette Company for its new product. It fulfills the five requirements of advertising mentioned above: 1. it is nonpersonal, and directs to all the consumers. 2. the sponsor----the Gillette Company---- pays for it. 3. the sponsor can be identified as the Gillette Company. 4. its purpose is to persuade readers to buy this new product. 5. it reaches the consumers through the mass media as it is printed on the magazines. Torben Vestergaard and Kim Schroder in their book The Language of Advertising divide advertising into noncommercial and commercial advertising. (Vestergaard & Schroder, 1985: 1-14) 'As examples of noncommercial advertising, one may mention communication from government agencies to citizens like the British metrication campaign, or appeals from various associations and societies, whether their purposes are charity or political propaganda.' (ibid, 1) Here is an example of noncommercial advertising: GRANDMOTHER HANDED DOWN A LOT MORE - 7- THAN HER CHINA Unfortunately, no one ever taught Grandmother how to be a good parent. Or how to cope with the problems of everyday living. And grandmother, helpless as she was, took those problems out on her daughter. Today that daughter has children of her own. And they endure child abuse from a mother who learned it from the grandmother everybody loves. Help destroy a family tradition. When people are helpless, love isn't enough. It is estimated that there are at least one million of child abuse in American each year. And most of the children in those cases grow up each year. And most of the children in those cases grow up to be child abusers themselves. Child abusers can be helped. Find out what it takes to break the cycle. PREVENT CHILD ABUSE National Committee for Prevention ofChild Abuse (from «J ~ 5iH-B- » by ~ tit) This advertisement is sponsored by a charitable organization for the purpose of persuading people to stop maltreating the children. As it does not aim at gaining profit, it is a noncommercial advertisement. Commercial advertising can be divided into three types. First is the socalled prestige advertising, 'where firms advertise not a commodity or a service, but rather a name or an image'. (Vestergaard & Schroder, 1985: 1) This type of advertising aims at creating long-term good will with the public rather than at an immediate increase in sales. The second type of commercial advertising is known as industrial or trade advertising, where a firm advertises its product or services to other firms. In industrial advertising, both the advertiser and the prospective readers have a special interest in and a particular knowledge about the product or service - 8- advertised. The third type is commercial consumer advertising. This kind of advertising appeals to the general consumer to promote sales. This is what most people mainly associate with the term 'advertising'. This type of advertising is the most frequent type on which most money and skill is spent and the type which affects us most deeply. Here is an example ofconsumer advertising: YOU MANAGE A BUSINESS, STOCKS, BONDS, PEOPLE AND NOW YOU CAN MANAGE YOUR HAIR. For the first time, there's a remarkable gel that can give your hair any look you want-i-s-sleeker; fuller, straighter, curlier, more natural, even wet---without a drop ofalcohol or oil. It gets your hair into shape in the morning and keeps it under control all day. Whatever you management style, Maltplexx is for you. Get the full facts at the Aramis counter. ARAM MALTPLEXX natural hair gel for men. (from New York Times, May 16,1993) As consumer advertising is the most commonly seen type, it is what we will specifically talk about in this thesis. And as printed advertising is easier to study than other forms of advertising, such as the TV advertising, because TV commercials extend in time and make use of combined effect of sound and picture, we will deal exclusively with printed consumer advertising in this thesis. 1.2 The Functions of Advertising From the definition of advertising, we may find that advertising usually - 9- tries to be persuasive. This means that the ultimate aim of all advertisements is to persuade the readers to buy some commodities or services. By achieving this aim, advertising plays an important role in our life. In the process of persuasion, it somewhat affects people's ideas and way of thinking. Thus it has great influence not only in our economic life, but also in our social and cultural life. Generally, the functions of advertising are summarized from the following five respects: (1) Function of Conveying Information 'Conveying information is the most fundamental function and objective of advertising.' (iJIlJI 00, 1994: 265) Advertising is like the bridge that connects the producers and the consumers. It presents the message to a large group of people through the mass media. People can learn about the products that are available to them and learn how they can better their lives. The era we live now is an era of information, and advertising works as one of the most important conveyers of information. (2) Function of Persuasion 'Advertising is an art of persuasion.' (Berkowitz, Kerin & Rudelius, 1986: 507) It aims to influence people, to persuade them to buy commodities, and to prompt consumers to make choices which are in conformity with the purposes of advertising. 'Advertising is one of the most important and powerful tools of promotion in the market.'(ibid) (3) Function of Image Building 'Advertising can effectively create and build up the image of a product or that of an enterprise, and so enhance its reputation.'(Mandell, 1984: 125) A good reputation of a product or its producer can make the consumer believe in its quality and distinguish it from other products. Image of a product is a kind of invisible treasure for the producer. (4) Function of Stimulating Consumption - 10-