（英语语言文学专业论文）品牌名称翻译中的文化顺应：跨文化交际观.pdf

abstract in chinese i abstract in chinese 随着经济全球化进程的加快，尤其在中国加入世界贸易组织后，我国与世界各国 的经济交流空前广泛。在参与国际竞争的同时，打造知名品牌已成为我国市场运营战 略中塑造企业形象的核心。其中不容忽视但往往被忽视的环节就是如何贴切而又创造 性地翻译出品牌的名称。因此，探究品牌名称翻译是一个具有现实意义的热点问题。 我国对品牌名称翻译真正意义上的研究始于 1994 年。从 1994 年到 2005 年期间， 在中国三大核心翻译杂志上刊出的相关文章共二十篇。通过对目前国内所做的相关研 究分析，品牌名称翻译领域存在以下不足：大多数研究建立在译例的描述而非学科理 论之上，虽已注意到文化对品牌名称翻译的影响，但不注意运用当前的语言学和跨文 化交际学的理论成果。 本文的新颖之处有三：第一，本文运用顺应论(jef verschueren, 2000:13)指导品牌 名称翻译，从语用学的角度探讨了动态的文化顺应在品牌名称翻译中的重要性。另鉴 于品牌名称翻译属于目的性极强的文体之一，本文将功能目的论运用于其中；第二， 本文从跨文化交际的角度着重探讨了品牌名称中的文化顺应，指出品牌名称翻译本身 就是一个完整的跨文化交际行为，在品牌名称翻译中实施文化顺应是成功进行跨文化 交际并在目的语文化中达到成功促销目的的前提；第三，本文从文化顺应的条件、内 容、模式和功能四个方面完整地阐述了品牌名称翻译中文化顺应的具体运作机制。 本文的结论是：文化顺应是品牌名称翻译中至关重要的一环。如果忽视这一点， 译名便得不到目的语消费者的青睐，一旦该跨文化交际行为失败，企业的品牌拓展战 略将遭受致命的打击。相反，如果能在品牌名称翻译时较好的施行文化顺应，产品在 目的语文化中受到热销，品牌和企业形象将得到大大提升。换句话说，从跨文化交际 的角度来看，品牌名称翻译中能否成功的进行文化顺应是决定一个品牌生死存亡的关 键。揭示这一点能够帮助我们更深入地理解品牌名称翻译过程中文化顺应的重要性以 及如何跨越品牌名称翻译中的文化障碍，从而达到成功的跨文化交际。 关键词关键词：文化顺应; 品牌名称; 翻译; 跨文化交际 abstract in english ii abstract in english the present study largely derives from a feeling of increasing unease about the status quo of chinese brand name translation. chinas entry into the wto and the trend of globalization will dramatically increase competition for the chinese businesses. we are convinced that it is now a matter of urgency to understand how we should conduct the problematic brand name translation. despite its importance, brand name translation failed to draw any attention from the chinese translators until around 1994, when really significant studies on this topic began. the twenty essays relating to brand name translation published in the three leading translation journals -chinese translators journal, chinese science and technology translators journal, shanghai science and technology translators journal (shanghai translators journal) from 1994 to 2005 fall into five categories in terms of their focuses. admittedly, though the previous studies have served as a starting point and thus have made enormous contribution to the study of brand name translation in china, they are far from being satisfactory, most of the studies are based on a mere descriptive analysis of examples rather than on a theoretical foundation, and although culture has been discussed repeatedly, recent linguistic and intercultural communication theories have scarcely been applied to the discussion. the originality of the present research embodies at three points: first of all, it inquires into brand name translation in the light of the theory of adaptation (verschueren, 2000:13). since brand name translation is a purposeful action, skopos theory is also applied into the research; secondly, translation is an act of intercultural communication, the present study explores the cultural adaptation in brand name translation from an intercultural communication perspective, pointing out cultural adaptation is the pre-requisite of successful intercultural communication and sales promotion in the target culture; thirdly, this paper discusses the concrete operating mechanism of cultural adaptation in brand name translation from a holistic manner, say, its condition, its content, its model and its function, abstract in english iii which have never discussed before. through the above analysis, the paper comes to the conclusion that cultural adaptation, which is a dynamic process, is crucially important in brand name translation. ignoring this will bring fatal disaster to the company that wants to make profits in a foreign market. accordingly, if special attention is paid to cultural adaptation in brand name translation, the brand will be welcomed by target consumers, thus help to achieve successful intercultural communication and remarkable sales promotion in the target culture. in other words, to adapt or not to adapt is the key to the development of any brand that wants to widen businesses in foreign markets. this research aims at achieving a better understanding of the importance of cultural adaptation in brand name translation process and can help to overcome the cultural barriers to achieve successful translations of brand names. key words: cultural adaptation; brand name; translation; intercultural communication 湘潭大学湘潭大学 学位论文原创性声明学位论文原创性声明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的论文是本人在导师的指导下独立进行研究所取得 的研究成果。除了文中特别加以标注引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何其他个 人或集体已经发表或撰写的成果作品。对本文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和集 体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。本人完全意识到本声明的法律后果由本人承 担。 作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日 学位论文版权使用授权书学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，同意学校 保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版，允许论文被查阅和 借阅。本人授权湘潭大学可以将本学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库 进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。 涉密论文按学校规定处理。 作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日 导师签名： 日期： 年 月 日 chapter one introduction 1 chapter one introduction with chinas entry into the wto and the trend of globalization, chinese businesses have been undergoing ever-frequent exchanges with the outside world. well-translated brand names contribute to the good reputation of the companies and their products, while poor translations of brand names often result in costly failures, and even damage the image of the companies. carrying on studies on this topic can lead to peoples serious consideration of good translation of chinese brand names and thus help to improve the competence of chinese companies in the global market. 1.1 literature review although brand name translation plays a vital role in establishing the international brand image of a company, it failed to draw translators attention in china until around 1994, when really significant studies began to be conducted in this field. relating to brand name translation, twenty essays have been gathered which are published in the past eleven years in the three leading translation journals in china-chinese translators journal, chinese science and technology translators journal, shanghai science and technology translators journal (shanghai translators journal), though the previous studies have served as a starting point and thus have made enormous contribution to the study of brand name translation in china, they are still far from being adequate for the present situation of chinas development. the majority of the previous studies, counting to 47% of the total have been dealing with the principles and methods of brand name translation. nearly all the studies in this group, such as studies done by scholars like lou chenzhao (1994:2), yang liu (1995:2), cheng quanming (1996:1), wei caixia (1997:3) and chen zhendong (2005:2) have elaborated on the categorization of translation skills, and the principles and skills are more or less the same. guo shangxing (1995:4) points out problems existing in the present brand name translation practice by giving examples of poor translations. in terms of translation principles, li guisheng (1996:2), and pan hong (1996:6) propose three kinds of chapter one introduction 2 “faithfulness”, namely, faithfulness to pronunciation, faithfulness to meaning as well as faithfulness to marketing strategies. apart from the above-mentioned studies, liu fagong (2003:6) sees brand name translation as a complicated work which demands a comprehensive ability of translators including creativity, sensitivity, and imagination. among all the studies, six essays, which count up to about 29% of the total, have touched upon the importance of culture in brand name translation. tang degen (1997:1) and bao huinan (2001:274-287) agree that culture plays an important role in brand name translation. hu kaijie (2001:4) stresses the importance of an appropriate conversion of cultural meaning and jiang lei (2002:3) clearly puts forward the opinion that ignoring cultural differences can cause pragmatic failures in brand name translation. zhu xiaoju (1999:2) also approaches brand name translation from the angle of cultural differences, considering it crucially important to know the western customers aesthetic conception and their response to the translated brand names. cang lanju (1999:1) considers it a necessity to take into consideration consumers psychology, product nature, and conciseness of translations and target culture in brand name translation. and finally, liang xiaodong (1997:3) is particularly interested in the treatment of national psychology in brand name translation. all in all, though these six essays have repeatedly discussed the importance of culture, most of them merely start from describing examples of translated brand names rather than being based on theories in linguistics and intercultural communication. moreover, their analysis of culture is to some extent confined to one or more aspects and is far from being holistic, which is probably due to the limited length of the essays. another two essays have been dealing with the translation of brand names when used in different parts of speech (zhou fangzhu, 1997:4, zhang dingxing, 1999:3). despite the fact that no more essays have been written on this issue recently, it remains a quite new topic and deserves our further attention. as for theoretical application to brand name translation, the essay written by li shuqin and ma huijuan (2000:4) is unique in applying socio-semiotics to this field. according to their study, socio-semiotics can be applied to assure pragmatic equivalence in both designative meanings and associative meanings of brand names. there are still two essays commenting on the studies on brand name translation in chapter one introduction 3 china (wu weixiong 2000:2, yang quanhong, 2003:3). the two essays agree that the previous studies in this field have certain limitations and still have ample room for improvement. unfortunately, though a few scholars have been much concerned for the unsatisfactory situation of the previous studies on brand name translation, little effort has been made to improve it. to summarize, most of the discussions lay emphasis merely on practical translation strategies and there seems to be a tendency to separate theories from the translation practice in this field. the primary concern of those studies has chiefly been the discussion of methods or practical strategies of translating brand names and most of them are based on a mere descriptive analysis of examples rather than on a theoretical foundation. besides, the discussions of culture also lack the guidance and support of systematic theories. 1.2 motivation of the present study brand name translation is an emerging and promising field for translation studies. firstly, the global social and economic climax attaches significance to this topic. globalization and chinas entry to the wto are exposing domestic companies to cutthroat competitions with foreign companies, a multitude of which bear a global brand identity and enjoy international prestige. chinese enterprises will be pushed to an unfavorable position because of being devoid of strong brands. besides, consumers now are much more critical and tend to have stronger sense of brands than ever before when choosing their products. thus, to establish international brand image is of great significance to our enterprises. and to this end, brand name translation definitely would play a vital role. secondly, as stated in literature review, the current practice of translating chinese and foreign brand names is far from being satisfactory. some brand name translations may be meaningless or even offensive in the target setting as a consequence of violating target basic socio-cultural norms. errors in the translation of brand names have cost businesses millions of dollars, not to mention damaging their credibility and reputation. for instance, a womans blouse was prohibited from exporting to european markets due to the suspected terrorism indicated by its translated name “nazi” (娜姿). chapter one introduction 4 thirdly, though there are already some discussions on brand name translation, their approaches, as we will show, have many limitations. as a matter of fact, in the past there has been a tendency to divorce theoretical studies from the translation practice in this field. attempts at applying theories to brand name translation have so far, in relation to english and chinese, been scarcely made. with a feeling of increasing unease about the status quo of brand name translation in china, we decide to have a tentative research in this field. we believe it of great significance both to translators who want to be competent enough and to those chinese enterprises that want to be competitive enough in the global market. 1.3 significance of the study 1.3.1 practical significance a brand name is a customers first contact with the company and its products. a brand name is what consumers use to talk about the product to others, potential customers. the right brand name makes consumers and other businesses want to use the product or associate with the company. the right brand name begins the sale for the marketers. in a highly competitive global market, companies dont get a second chance when developing a brand in a foreign market. however, the translation of a brand name can always present big problems. over the years, disastrous errors can easily be made with brand names when venturing into new territory. for instance, general motors (gm), the us auto manufacturer got a costly lesson when it introduced its chevrolet nova to the puerto rican market. “nova” is latin for “new (star)” and means “star” in many languages, but in spoken spanish it sound like “no va”, meaning “it doesnt go”. few people wanted to buy a car with that cursed meaning. in a word, the findings of brand name translation research may help work out more appropriate target brand name and avoid translating blunders. chapter one introduction 5 1.3.2 theoretical significance note that brand name translation study, as expounded and proved by scholars, involves not only knowledge of languages, but also that of culture. therefore, firstly, brand name translation study will certainly provide insights into language study and accelerate the research of combining of linguistic theories and translation theories with brand name translation practice. secondly, due to lack of relevant studies, the goal is to explore the mechanism of cultural adaptation in brand name translation holistically. last but not the least, brand name translation study, as with an interdisciplinary characteristic, will hopefully stimulate other practical and interdisciplinary studies as well. 1.4 structure of the thesis with a view to exploring new research perspective for translation, the present study applies theory of adaptation (verschueren, 2000:13) and skopostheorie to brand name translation practice and probes into the culture adaptation in brand name translation from an intercultural communication perspective. the choice of this approach is justified by the fact that brand name translation is a particular form of using language aiming at producing an ideal target brand name. and brand name translation is a means to intercultural communication and it resides in the language use with the target brand name as the product of a purposeful and highly flexible process of adaptation. to begin with, the paper reviews the previous studies on this topic and introduces the present study. in chapter two, some closely-related conceptions have been introduced. chapter three presented the theoretical framework of this thesis. chapter four, which is the focus of the research, concentrated on cultural adaptation in brand name translation, including its condition, its content, its model, and its function in brand name translation from the perspective of intercultural communication. theory of adaptation is exploited to facilitate the understanding of brand name translation as a process of continuous adaptation to various cultural factors. the word “culture” refers to the cultural elements embodied in brand names. finally, the paper drew a conclusion about the present study and suggested further investigation. chapter two related concepts and practice in retrospect 6 chapter two related concepts and practice in retrospect we are in an age of globalization, when businesses around the world spare no effort to market their products or services in the world marketplace and to build their brand images on a global basis. if a company is to make a successful move into a foreign market, it is essential for it to translate all relevant documents into the target language, including its brand name. it is important to ensure that the translated brand name is not only accurate, but also in conformity with the culture of the designated market. this paper, therefore, focuses on the translation of existing ones, since the undergoing process of globalization has presented brand name translation as a significant research topic. and in this part, the authors chief concern will be the major concepts regarding brand name translation. 2.1 about brand name and brand name translation 2.1.1 defining brand name according to the famous american economist richard t. hise (1979:257), a brand, i.e., trademark, is a name, term, sign, symbol, design, or a combination of them which tells who makes it or who sells it, distinguishing that product from those made or sold by others. another definition of brand is “a synthesis of all these elements, physical, aesthetic, rational and emotional and cultural, which is a perception created in the mind of consumers who ascribe beliefs and values to the product. the brand name is the part of the brand that can be vocalized.”(murphy, 1987:3). in other words, the brand is treated as the symbol of the actual product. a brand name is that part of the brand consisting of words or letters included in a name used to identify and distinguish the firms offerings from those of competitors. the brand name