（英语语言文学专业论文）奈达功能对等视角下的商业广告翻译.pdf

iv 奈达功能对等视角下的商业广告翻译奈达功能对等视角下的商业广告翻译 研究生：汤玉洁 年级：2005 级 学科专业：英语语言文学 指导老师：袁斌业 教授 研究方向：翻译理论与实践 中中 文文 摘摘 要要 广告是一种具有很高商业价值和实用性的文体，一则广告必须具有说服力和记忆价值。 随着商品经济的发展和各国经贸交往的增加，广告翻译日益重要。美国翻译理论家奈达的 功能对等理论自问世以来，在国内外翻译界都产生了深远的影响。奈达是美国著名的翻译 理论家、 语言学家,在世界翻译领域占有重要的地位,被人称为“现代翻译理论之父”。 他的理 论核心内容就是“动态对等”(dynamic equivalence),后来为了强调“功能”的概念并避免有些 人对“动态”的误解后将其改称“功能对等”( functional equivalence)。这一理论曾给中国翻译 界带来了新鲜空气,也给译论注入新的血液。许多翻译理论家如金堤，谭载喜曾大力赞赏功 能对等理论。这一理论是奈达在圣经的翻译中总结和提炼出来的， 圣经从根本上 讲，是以说服别人相信基督教义并希望别人采取某种行为为目的的一部作品，同样地，广 告作为一种实用文体，其最大的特点也是其说服功能说服消费者采取行动实施购买行 为。因此从这个意义上说，功能对等理论对于广告英汉互译都有极其重要的指导意义。 本文主要从广告文体的功能入手， 分别讨论在功能对等理论指导下怎样实现广告翻译中 出现的文化和美学效果对等。同时考察功能对等理论在广告翻译中的实际操作效果。通过 分析，作者注意到国内广告翻译的实践中，英语广告汉译有许多优秀的成功典范，而汉语 广告英译的错误百出，因此本文侧重于汉语广告英译研究，并通过引入奈达功能对等理论 给出了具体的汉语广告英译的方法。论文结构如下： 导言部分包括引言，阐述了选题的缘由、研究目的、论文的结构和所运用的研究材料 和方法。 第二章是文献综述，简单介绍了本领域的研究现状。 第三章简单介绍了奈达和他的动态/功能对等理论。 第四章是整篇论文的重点。首先介绍了广告和广告翻译。广告的主要功能是促使消费 者购买某种产品或建立对某个品牌的好感和信赖。广告及其翻译都要受到多种因素的制 约，广告语言的制约，广告中文化因素的制约等，但广告仍然是可翻译的。接着详细地论 述了功能对等理论在广告翻译中的应用。主要是从文化和美学效果方面来论述怎样实现广 告翻译的对等。作者分析了功能对等理论在广告翻译中的可行性，并探讨了在功能对等视 角下适当的翻译方法，以求得最贴切自然的对等。 最后一章是结论，综述了本文所进行的研究，客观评价了研究成果，同时指出了论文 的不足和改进的方向。 关键词：关键词：商业广告；翻译；功能对等。 v a study of the translation of commercial advertisements from the perspective of nidas functional equivalence postgraduate: tang yujie grade:2005 major field of study: english language while on the other hand, relatively poor and ineffective translation of chinese advertisements into english. therefore, the author concentrates the study on the translation of chinese advertisements into english. also the author introduces practicable translation strategies though applying nidas functional equivalence theory. the structure of this paper goes as following: chapter 1 begins with a brief introduction, which presents the purpose, significance, the structure of the thesis and the study materials and research methods it uses. chapter 2 focuses on the literature review, which introduces the previous studies and relevant translation theories in this field. the author elaborates on nidas functional equivalence vi theory, which guides advertising translation effectively. chapter 3 concentrates on the dynamic/functional equivalence theory. chapter 4 is the core part of this thesis. firstly it gives a brief introduction to advertising and advertising translation. advertisement has its own characteristics and is restrained by a lot of aspects. and the advertising translation is limited by many aspects. and then it mainly talks about the functional equivalence approach to advertising translation. the author analyzes the feasibilities of functional equivalence theory in advertising translation and explores suitable strategies in light of functional equivalence theory in order to seek the closest natural equivalence. the last chapter is the conclusion of this thesis. it summarizes the whole thesis, objectively states the possible contributions of the thesis to the field of advertisement translation, and points out the limitations of the thesis with suggestions on future research efforts. key words: commercial advertisement; translation; functional equivalence. 论文独创性声明论文独创性声明 本人郑重声明：所提交的学位论文是本人在导师的指导下进行的研究 工作及取得的成果。除文中已经注明引用的内容外，本论文不含其他个人 或其他机构已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究作出重要贡献的 个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。本人承担本声明的法律责任。 研究生签名： 日期： 论文使用授权声明论文使用授权声明 本人完全了解广西师范大学有关保留、使用学位论文的规定。广西师 范大学、中国科学技术信息研究所、清华大学论文合作部，有权保留本人 所送交学位论文的复印件和电子文档，可以采用影印、缩印或其他复制手 段保存论文。本人电子文档的内容和纸质论文的内容相一致。除在保密期 内的保密论文外，允许论文被查阅和借阅，可以公布（包括刊登）论文的 全部或部分内容。论文的公布（包括刊登）授权广西师范大学学位办办理。 研究生签名： 日期： 导 师签名： 日期： iii acknowledgements first of all, my heartfelt thanks go to professor yuan binye, my supervisor, who has helped so much at every stage of this thesis. i have frequently consulted him on theoretical as well as technical matters during my work. because of his insightful views, his providing me with timely feedback, careful modification and encouragement, i just can finish the thesis. professor yuan binye has provided a motivating, enthusiastic, and critical atmosphere during the many discussions we had and a subtle direction of my efforts throughout the preparation of this thesis. during my three years of postgraduate studies at guangxi normal university, i have benefited a lot from his illuminating ideas on translation theories and practice. it was a great pleasure to me to conduct this thesis under his supervision. i would also like to thank all the teachers who have contributed so much valuable academic advice and equipped me with so many inspirations and encouragements. special thanks go to professor bai jingze, professor zhou liangren, professor zhang xianglin and associate professor luo yaoguang. in the first two years of my ma program, they taught me not only knowledge but also the tight way to do scientific research; their interesting lectures all offered contributions to any achievement i have ever made. finally, i would also like to extend my gratitude to my beloved family and classmates. it is their love and encouragements that have helped me overcome various difficulties and make all my academic progress. 1 chapter 1 introduction with the rapid development of reform and opening up to the outside world as well as chinas entering wto, the intensification of international business communication and promotion become increasingly important. the companies not only care much for domestic markets, but also endeavor to expand international market. this phenomenon, in turn, promotes the importance of advertising and advertising translation. i looked through chinese translation journal ranging in date from 1990 to the present and found a lot of articles directly relating to this subject. after searching the full text database of chinese journal network (1997-2007), i obtained many results, among which the majority is published in college journals instead of chinese mainstream journals. many of the articles i found are descriptive and deal with specific aspects of advertising translation, such as translation of rhetoric, slang, brands and slogans, and aesthetic properties and so forth. however, the work that has been done on translating advertisements is still in its infancy to that of other areas in translation studies. 1.1 purpose of the study the writer attempts to offer a contribution to the area of the translation of advertisements between english and chinese. through introducing nidas functional equivalence theory and analyzing its feasibility of applying this theory to advertising translation, we strive to find a suitable methodology and apply it to the analysis of a corpus of 38 english and chinese advertisement pairs to find out how to make use of functional equivalence theory in the advertising translation practice and improve the quality of advertising translation. through this thesis, the writer hopes to increase translators understanding of the advertising genre and to discuss on a theoretical base that can help them make decisions when translating persuasive advertisement into another culture. this paper will try to provide evidence that equivalence theory is quite useful in helping translators to reproduce the informative, persuasive and effective functions of the advertising texts as closely as possible. to a certain extent, equivalence theory can be a kind of function as a guideline. since the utmost purpose of persuasive advertisements is to gain consumers attention and finally stimulate their actionpurchasing the product, whether or not a translated advertisement achieves this purpose is the criterion to evaluate the success of a translated advertising text. in other words, equivalent effect theory is the fundamental guideline of persuasive advertising translation and functional equivalence is the basic level of equivalence a translated advertisement has to reach. another reason for my choosing this subject comes from my personal interest. i enjoy advertisements. the demand of brevity, the relations of text and pictures, the effects of style and 2 the side-stepping of taboos are fascinating. and also i want to make a contribution to this field. 1.2 significance of the thesis with the fast development of world economy and the opening policy deepening in china, we have more chance to contact with foreign countries and there have been more international exchanges in many fields, especially commerce. on one hand, the foreign companies come to china to establish factories and joint ventures, on the other hand, many chinese companies endeavor to expand the overseas market to promote the fame and sale volume of their products. in this process, english versions of chinese advertisements inevitably will play an important role in introducing chinese products and promoting the sales of chinese commodities abroad. taking these factors into consideration, the authors research on advertisement translation has its realistic significance. firstly, the writer advocates the theory should combine with practice and guide practice instead of just talking about the theory or only listing many successful examples, which means that the carried research is not purely theoretical, but closely related with current social and economical background. therefore, the thesis embodies the avocation that theoretical knowledge should combine with practice. secondly, the writer introduces nidas functional equivalence theory and analyzes the feasibility of applying this theory to advertising translation. also the thesis provides an applicable theory to guide the translators practice during translation process instead of just listing some specific translation methods. thirdly, on the basis of nidas functional equivalence theory and analysis on the current problems existing in english-chinese or chinese-english advertisement translation, translation strategies with concrete examples are suggested in the thesis to help the translator perform efficiently during the process of english-chinese or chinese-english advertisement translation. functional equivalence theory applied to advertising translation opens up a new perspective to advertising translation studies. 1.3 structure of this thesis this thesis consists of five chapters: chapter one begins with a brief introduction, which presents the purpose and significance of the thesis and the structure of my thesis. chapter two focuses on the literature review, which introduces the previous studies and relevant translation theories used in the field of advertisement translation. the writer elaborates on nidas functional equivalence theory, which guides advertising translation effectively. chapter three concentrates on the /functional equivalence theory. 3 chapter four is the core part of this thesis. first it gives a brief introduction about advertising and advertising translation. and then it mainly talks about the functional equivalence approach to advertising translation. the writer analyzes the feasibilities of functional equivalence theory in advertising translation and explores suitable strategies in light of functional equivalence theory in order to seek the closest natural equivalence. chapter five is the conclusion of this thesis. it summarizes the whole thesis and points out the limitations of the thesis with suggestions on future research efforts. the advertisements employed in this thesis include those from the radio, television, magazines, the press and the internet. both translations from english to chinese and from chinese to english are examined. 4 chapter 2 literature review the importance of advertisements is needless to mention, as it is an indispensable component of modern society. as potential consumers, people all over the world are endlessly bombarded with all kinds of product or service information from various media including newspapers, magazines, television, radio, posters, the internet, etc. advertising provides a valuable service to society and its members, because it defines for consumers the meaning and the role of products, services, and institutions. undoubtedly advertisement is an important part of our economy and culture that exerts significant impact on all walks of life. advertising translation, as a type of intercultural communication, appears as a new field of study and attracts more and more chinese translators attention. naturally, language of advertising has a powerful influence on people and their behavior. the choice of language to convey specific messages with the intention of influencing people is vitally important. language of advertising is traditionally viewed as a special one related with the functional factors such as attention value, listenability/readability, memorability and selling power (leech, 1969). this concept, not surprisingly, has been unquestionably applied for a long time to the analysis of advertising language. most of the specialists in this field agree on it unanimously and probe into it mainly in the light of several levels: lexicon features, syntax features and figures of rhetoric (leech, 1969; kumar, 1978; geis, 1982; vestergaard and schrodder, 1985; mencher, 1990; arokianathan, 1993; manoharan, 1994). however, all the notions discussed above are traditionally studied and confined to a certain environment, in other words, in the authors native background (custom, culture), leaving cross-cultural advertising untouched. these limited concepts are far from adapting to the modern cultural communication nowadays. with this consideration in mind, one has every reason to probe into the essence of advertising language, which is authorized to make a judgment on this controversial issue and to offer guidance for advertising translation. the study of language of advertising from a linguistic perspective has been attempted by several scholars (leech 1969; kumar 1978; gopal 1980; geis 1982; vestergaard and schrodder 1985; manian 1986; dhongde 1987; hemamalini 1989; mencher 1990; satyanarayana 1990; venkatesa raja 1991; suresh 1992; arokianathan 1993; manoharan 1994). the essence lies probably in the assumption that, language of advertising should be understood by the target audience, as the fundamental aim of advertisement is to persuade them to purchase products and service so as to promote sales and profits. as a result, this assumption adds the concept of target language, because language belongs to those who speak it. if the success of international advertising depends on the conversion of the original message into the linguistic code of the target language, then the language has an intrinsic added 5 value, which is intimately connected with target culture values. in advertising translation practice, cases of inaccuracy are ample, either in the form of over-translation, a version which goes beyond what translation permits in its proper sense, or in the form of under-translation, an inadequate version which fails to convey “full” messages. from a point of view of culture, those cases, to a large extent, can be attributed to ignorance of cross-cultural factors of translating advertisement from the original text to the target text. this inaccuracy, on the other hand, functions as a fair index to the difficulties on the part of the translators, in particular to the beginner, who is at a loss as to what extent should he carry out the culture element into his target text. furthermore most people who are interested in the area of advertisement translation will always concentrate on introducing foreign excellent advertisement examples into china, like advertising english published by anhui press of science and technology, contemporary english advertisements published by shanghai foreign language education press etc, or listing some good examples of translating foreign advertisements into chinese for enjoyment, like translation of puns in english advertisements produced by meng lin and zhan jinghui, or giving some concrete methods of advertisement translation, like strategies of translating english advertising into chinese in the context of globalization produced by li haiying and on handling linguistic and cultural peculiarities in translating advertisements produced by jin xin etc. candace seguinots “translation and advertising: going global” (1995). smith one is meaning, the other, style. in this case， though english and chinese languages are totally different in aspects of cultural backgrounds and expressing ways. a successful translator is always handling translating with agility, and reproduces the spirit of the source language in pursuit of the closest natural equivalent. a translation of dynamic equivalence aims at complete naturalness of expression, and tries to relate the receptor to modes of behavior relevant within the context of his own culture ( nida 1964:159). to make it brief, functional equivalence is to have the translated version get the same responds from readers of the receptor language as the original gets from the readers of the source language. thus these two versions are functionally equivalent to each other on the basis of speech. but the problem is always how to reach the goal. nida once classified all the functions of language into nine categories: expressive cognitive, interpersonal, informative, imperative, performative, emotive, aesthetic, and multilingual. he thought that a translated version should keep equivalent with the original text in terms of these nine functions (ye zinan, 2001:161). generally, original text is considered the only base for judging whether the translated one is correct or not. but nida snatched this right from the origin