The Differences between Chinese and English Language and Culture Influence the Advertisement Translation.doc

the differences between chinese and english language and culture influence the advertisement translationcontentsabstract摘要1. the features and functions of advertisement language .41.1 the features of advertisement language41.2 the functions of advertisement language.42. language differences between chinese and english advertisement translation.4 2.1. sound difference.5-6 2.2 the differences of the choices of words between chinese and english.6-7 2.3 flowing chunks vs. sv structure.7-8 2.4 rhetoric contrast.8-102.5 semantic difference10-113 the culture differences in chinese and english advertisement translation 11 3.1 differences of social history back ground123.1.1 different politic values.123.1.2 differences in numbers.12-133.1.3 differences in colors, signs and symbols14 3.2 different region environment and sense of worth.14-15 3.3 aesthetic difference15-164. the principles and ways of chinese and english advertisement translation164.1 the principles of chinese and english advertisement translation16 4.1.1 function-oriented.17 4.1.2tl readeroriented17-18 4.1.3 tl cultureoriented.18-194.2. the ways of advertisement translation194.2.1 literal translation.194.2.2 free translation204.2.3 parody translation.20-215. conclusion.21-22references22-23acknowledgements24abstractadvertisement is not only an economic activity, but also a cultural communication. in china, the authoritative definition of advertisement is the advertisement law of the peoples republic of china. “advertisement” refers to “any commercial advertisement, which passes certain media or forms, directly or indirectly introducing their commodities being sold or services being provided”. however the advertisement translation is influenced by the different language and culture. as a translator, he or she should know and master the differences between languages and cultures. in this paper, it will only discuss that the differences of chinese and english language and culture influence the advertisement translation. some defects and even unsuccessful advertisements are made because of the poor quality of translation. this paper proceeds from problems in advertising translation that the translators do not have a good command of the nation-specific culture and is too adhesive to the advertisements superficial meaning while there are a lot of cultural factors hidden in the present advertising translation. in fact, advertisement translation requires more than just rendering sentences into another language. translators have to convert the ideas and thoughts behind the sentences into the target language by applying the knowledge of the target culture. this paper suggests some methods to make advertising translation in view of the language and culture differences. in the paper, it will be divided four parts to discuss the theme. the first will discuss the features and functions of advertisement language through the features of words, sentence and rhetoric and the functions of advertisement. the second will discuss the differences of chinese and english language influences the advertisement translation from the differences of sound, the choice of words, the structure of sentences, rhetoric and semantic. the third will discuss the differences between chinese and english culture influence the advertisement translation through differences of social history background, difference region environment and sense of worth and aesthetic difference. the last is exploring the principles and ways of advertisement translation according to the differences of chinese and english language and culture in the future. key words: advertisement translation the differences between chinese and english language the differences of chinese and english culture摘要广告活动不仅是一种的经济活动，还是一种文化交流。在中国，广告的权威性定义是指中华人民共和国的广告法的定义。广告指的是通过特定的媒体或者其他形式来推销产品或提供服务的商业广告，直接或间接的介绍他们的出售产品和提供的服务。然而广告的翻译被不同的语言和文化所影响。作为一个翻译者，他或她弄清和掌握不同语言和文化的差异中英广告的互译中，有许多不理想的实例，有的甚至导致了销售挫折.本文分析了问题的原因，主要是在于当今广告翻译同样蕴藏着大量的文化，而译者却没有足够的文化的驾驭能力，太拘泥于原文表层。事实上，广告的翻译不是简单地把句子翻译出来。翻译人员要充分运用目标文化知识，把句子后而所承载的思想、概念尤其是文化传递给译入语的目标消费者。本论文从广告语言文化差异的角度出发介绍几种英汉广告互译的方法。在本论文中，只探索中英语言和文化差异对广告翻译的影响。本论文将分四个部分来讨论这个主题。 第一部分，将从词语，句子和修辞的特点来归纳广告语言的特色， 以及广告的各种功能。第二部分，将从词的发音和选择，句子的结构，修辞手法和句意的差异来讨论中英语言的差异对广告翻译的影响。第三部分将从不同的社会历史背景，不同的地域环境和价值观和不同的审美观来讨论中英文化差异对广告翻译的影响。最后一部分，将根据中英语言和文化的差异来探索未来在广告翻译的原则和方法。关键字：广告翻译 中英语言差异 中英文化差异 1. the features and functions of advertisement language 1.1 the features of advertisement language as the part of culture and carriers of culture information, usually the language is translated into the other ones. as we know, advertisement language also is a kind of culture and belongs to the subculture of commerce culture. in general, advertisement has special features to take on the relationship of language, culture and mind. advertisement language should be distinctive, attractive, positive, readable and memorable. as carriers of message, advertisement language is the most important element. the purpose of an advertisement determines that its language must have selling power, memory value, attention value and readability. both chinese and english advertisements share the same language features: advertisement language should ask the translators to use colloquial and concise words, short and simple sentences and various rhetorical devices to attract consumers attention. such as: the advertisement “once tasted, always loved” is about food. the words are very simple and easy to understand and memory. another advertisement “time will tell” uses personification to carry out the message that the goods is durable and you can use it forever（li jianjun,2006）.1.2 the functions of advertisement language advertisement attracts the readers through the process of attracting attention, stimulating interests and creating desires. according to newmark（newmark, 2001）,advertisement language mainly has three functions: one of important roles of advertisement is to inform consumers of quality, characteristics, specialties or advantages of the products. the other is the aesthetic function. the advertisement language should please the readers sense through its language beauty, including the sound and semantic beauty. another function is the vocative function. following newmark, the core of vocative function of language in english advertising is the consumers. the term “vocative” retains the sense of “calling upon the consumers to act, think or feel, and in fact to “react” in the way intended by the advertisement .this can be considered the most important function.2. language differences between chinese and english advertisement translation2.1. sound difference (zhangna, 2005, p1-2)the pronunciation of language can influence peoples felling in aural effect and reactions. from all kinds of advertisements, we can see the onomatopoeic motivation, sound symbolism and echoism usually are used in advertisement language. thus, it sounds beautiful，but it also brings many difficulties because of the differences of sound, onomatopoeic motivation, and rhyme between chinese and english. for example, in order to increase the beauty of phonology, alliteration, assonance, rhyme and consonance are usually adopted in the english advertisement words. for example, the advertisement word “never late on fathers day”, two ei make it harmonious. but it is very different to reserve these kinds of musics beauty in chinese. otherwise, the translator should notice some pronunciations which maybe have bad effects in others language. for example, the toshiba company in japan once used a advertisement word “东芝(toshiba), 东芝(toshiba),大家的东芝(our toshiba)” . this advertisement is lyric. but some young people use partial tone to translate “ 偷去吧，偷去吧，大家的东西”. it makes this advertisement in strict. originally, toshiba is the brand of goods, but the translation makes its impression weaker.another example: (1) “foiled again? try dillions.” erotizes for the dillion bookstore. “foyle” is the title of another bookstore. by adding a letter “d”, the advertiser makes it sound the same as “foiled”. the whole sentence can be translated into in english if you can not find your books in foyle, please come to dillions.(2) “天罗地网一把罩 油烟一网打” is a chinese advertisement for the sakura grease pump. it uses two chinese idioms: “天罗地网” and “一网打尽”. here the word “网” implies the meaning “滤油网”. (3) “梦想的力量让广州 accord3.0v6脱影而出.” is a car advertisement. the advertiser uses the chinese idiom “脱颖而出”, but changes “颖” to “影” in order to attract the readers attention.generally speaking, the difference of pronunciations between chinese and english influences the advertisement translation through reflecting the brand translation. the brand is the name of goods which can attract customers eyes and bring expectations to customers. in the advertisement translation, the key of brand translation is the similar to body and pronunciation. that is, the difference of pronunciation can bring the different shock of culture in the advertisement translation. such as: the pronunciation of nike is naiki:, the name of the victory goddess in greece fairy tale. if a translator translates it into “naiji” or “naji” in the pronunciation of chinese, the consumers dont understand it in china. let alone it can bring good impressions and take on the clear image and feature of goods to consumers. at last, the translator selects the”耐克”in chinese to translate nike. it is accepted by chinese people quickly because it fits to the pronunciation of nike and takes on the sports wear being durable. so a translator may pay an attention to the difference of pronunciation between chinese and english when translating the chinese and english advertisements. 2.2 the differences of the choices of words between chinese and english when concerning about the sound difference, chinese tends to use gorgeous words while english has a vivid character of conciseness. “chinese people are good writers because expressing their feelings by writing and trying their best to apply grand vocabulary to describe beautiful and moving images to be sounded elegantly” (wei qin, 2004, p41-42). in chinese advertisements, many high-sounding words can be found. for instance, in chinese advertisements we frequently see words like“一流”(first class)，“完美”(perfect)，“独特”(specific) regardless of the quality of goods being advertised. with following language forms, the chinese language strives to pursuit symmetry in structure, rhyme in sound, hence reading neat, implicit and musical. for example, four-character phrases, parallelism, antithesis appears frequently in chinese advertisement. in order to achieve rhyming, emphasis or neat structure chinese language often resorts to tautology. for example: 条条大路通罗马，款款百羚进万家。（百羚餐具）。 on the contrary, in the western society, its literature and art have been developing under the theory of imitating the reality. the english language reflects this theory and proves to be objective, factual and rational. as we know, english has tight sentence structure, meticulous stream of thought, and logical relationship between linguistic units, concise wording and straightforward description. all in all, brevity is the soul of wit, or in other words, a proper word in a proper place is good english. abusing of florid language is forbidden in good english, for it is considered illogical and may harm the original meaning or communication. thus chinese and english advertisements are quite different, especially when describing scenery in tourist advertisements. instead of defining or judging, chinese language for poets to give expression to special feelings to us. even when describing sceneries, english displays a beauty of form, straightforward, explicit, objective, unlike the casual, subjective chinese. for example, the following advertisement written by a native speaker of english is concise and plain, and through simile and combination of concrete scenes, it provides enough space for imagination. however, from the point of view of chinese, it may be too plain. for example: tiny is made up of lands which are strung around the edge of the peninsula like a pearl necklace. hunks of coral reef, coconut palms and fine white sand. when seeing the english advertisement, the translators will think that if translated word by word, it will not meet chinese readers expectations. so abundant modifiers such as“礁红”，“成片”，and“如银”，and four-character phrases like “玲珑小巧”，and“如诗如画”are employed to make the translated version read beautiful. so the english advertisement was translated like this. “ 座座岛屿玲珑小巧，紧密相连，像一串珍珠缀成的项链，环绕着半岛边缘。 岛上珊瑚礁红，椰树成片，沙滩如银，景色如诗如画。” the bold characters add charm to the scenic spot and contribute to the whole rhyming structure but mean nothing to english readers because they are repetitive and wordy. the same is true that in chinese and english translation, those superfluous modifiers should be omitted, adapted or implicit between lines so as to make the target version conform to the westerners aesthetic standards. 2.3 flowing chunks vs. sv structure shen xiao long（shen xiaolong, 1999, p15 ）once summarized that western language are rule- governed while the chinese language is people- governed. western languages are made up of verb central elements which are inflexible while chinese is considered as a flexible language. that is to say, chinese can be long or short in its lexical units and is based on the language of logic phrase chunks.jin huikang compares the chinese and english languages in details. in view of syntax, the structure of chinese language is shooting and loose. unlike the chinese structure, english sentence displays a spatial arrangement with the verb as a center. its structure is tight to express the clear meaning. therefore, chinese syntactic structures usually employ parataxis, while english adopts hypostasis. in translation of advertisement, the translator must deal with his own thinking and arrange sentences conforming to the target rules and conventions. the following examples show these intrinsic differences working in chinese and english, and help us explore some plausible translation methods. for example:境内西湖如明镜，千峰凝翠，洞壑幽深，风光绮丽。 the west lake is like a mirror, embellished all around with green hills and deep caves of enchanting beauty. obviously, the original structure is changed in the target text. the structure of the chinese advertisement is loose with some short clauses, whereas the english one breaks it into one sentence, which is centered on a verb, with modifiers of participle phrase, proposition phrase, and noun phrase around it. by doing so, the translation emphasizes the central meaning in the sv structure the west lake is like a mirror and specifies the implied logical relationship in the surface form. reflecting linguistic features of english language, the translation is a successful one in both content and function.the other example: 产品形美色绿，气味芬芳，味道甜美。（绿茶广告）the translationthe shape of the product is beautiful; the color is green; the smell is fragrant and the taste is mellowin the advertisement, 形refers to the shape of the product and 美 means beautiful; 色 refers to the color and 绿 is used to describe the color of the product. in the advertisement, shape, color, odor, and taste are nouns, and green, fragrant and mellow are adjectives. so the sentence is made up of noun and adjective. following the grammar, it is not sv structure. but the chinese grammar is liberal. . however，the english sentence must be made up of verbs and verb phrases. when translating the chinese advertisement, the translator does not directly translate it into the shape of the shape of the product beautiful; the color green; the smell fragrant and the taste mellowobviously, there is an error in the translated sentence. the advertisement should be translated into the shape of the product is beautiful; the color is green; the smell is fragrant and the taste is mellowaccording to the difference between flowing chunk and sv structure.2.4 rhetoric contrastsuccessful advertisements should not be always naked. on the contrary, it puts the commercial motives as well as commercial natures into the content of advertisements. at this time, it is necessary to rely on culture, in particular, the clever rhetoric. with the development of economic, the advertisement becomes internationalized. as a translator, he or she must master the differences among all kings of languages. specially, english is rapidly becoming the universal language for international business, so chinese translators should know clearly the difference between chinese and english language. rhetorical devices are the most commonly used tools in chinese and english advertisements. there are differences in rhetoric figures between chinese and english. and these differences may put translators in a difficult position. for instance, in china culture, “lily” always used in advertisements symbolize “love for all seasons”. however, if it is used in the other counties, people will not understand it. similarly, the english slogan fit is best is very simple and symmetrical, but if it is translated into “合适就是最好” in chinese, the effect is less than the advertisement itself. the other example is : 你想身体好，常饮健力宝, which is translated into if you wish physically stout, please often drank jianlibao in english. obviously