【英语论文】广告语英汉翻译策略探究On English-Chinese Translation of Advertising Slogans.doc

广告语英汉翻译策略探究on english-chinese translation of advertising slogans摘要进入二十一世纪以来，由于我国改革开放的不断深化、加入wto和全球经济一体化等诸多因素影响，越来越多的外国跨国公司进入中国，开展业务。由于英语这一国际通用语言的影响力，再加上企业的形象战略和品牌建设需要，以及跨国公司的广告语在全球范围内具有相对的统一性这个显著特点,大部分跨国公司的原广告语为英语。为了更好地适应当地受众的文化习惯，打破语言壁垒，更好地促进企业的商务业绩，做好广告语的中文翻译和本地化无疑具有十分重要的意义和价值。本文试图通过精心搜集的三十二个世界知名跨国公司的英语广告语及其中文翻译实例，来揭示实践操作中英语广告语翻译的现状、基本策略和技巧。通过调研和系统化地分析总结，作者发现，英语广告语翻译大体上可以分为三类，一类是直译，一类是意译，一类是增译。同时，英语广告语在句法、词法和一些修辞手段的运用上都与其他英语文体有较大地区别。这就要求从事英语广告语翻译的相关人士，在工作过程中要重视英中两种语言及其所属的历史文化上的差异，使得翻译前后的作品基本达到等效的结果。由于搜集的实例数量有限，以及官方广告语正式翻译资源的相对匮乏，加之一些知名企业将其英文广告语直接导入目标市场，可能导致结论出现缺陷和不足。所以，本文只是对英语广告语翻译的一次尝试，希望在以后的学习进程中进行更为深刻地研究。从另外一个角度来说，作者还期望此文能对越来越多的我国企业走出国门进行国际营销时，对其中文广告语的英文翻译提供一定的参考价值。关键词：广告语；英汉翻译；现状；策略abstractwith the further development of chinas revolution and opening-up and chinas entry into wto, more and more foreign multi-national corporations (mnc) have entered chinese market to set up their business. most mncs original advertising slogans are in english for the reason that english is the dominating language internationally. besides, their slogans are consistent in global market to meet the requirement of mncs identity strategy and brand building policy. however, for chinese local target consumers better awareness of the brand key message and promotion of company business, it is absolutely necessary to translate and localize the english slogans into chinese. this paper examines 32 representative english advertising slogans of world famous brands and their corresponding translated chinese versions. based on this, the paper tries to explore the strategies and techniques of the e-c advertising slogans translation.through the research result, we could infer how some basic translation strategies applied, peoples common practices and some unique features in advertisement slogan translation. the author finds out that e-c advertising slogans translation could be categorized into three groups: literal translation, free translation and meaning-add translation. besides, english advertising slogans are much different from other texts in syntax, morphology and rhetoric. to make sure translation results carries same meanings with the original ones, the person working on english advertising slogans translation should pay attention to the cultural difference. the weakness of this research lie in that samples collected may not be adequate and typical enough due to the resource for official slogan translation is limited plus some famous companies adopt the english original directly even in a foreign market. the author hopes based on his attempt, more investigation would be carried out in this area in the future study. meanwhile the researcher also hopes this research would be viewed as reference when we translate chinese advertising slogans into english for national companies global marketing. key words：advertising slogan; e-c translation; strategiestable of contentspages1.introduction -1.1 research backgroud -1.2 research objective -1.3 project design -11222.rationale -2.1 definition of advertising slogan -2.2 the linguistic features of english advertising slogan - 2.2.1 morphology in english advertising slogan - 2.2.2 syntax in english advertising slogan - 2.2.3 rhetorical devices in english advertising slogan -2.3 translation principles -2.4 translation strategies -223334453. description of the data -64. data analysis -4.1 anlysis of the two language versions - 4.1.1 three main translation methods - 4.1.2 the other unique translation ways in chinese culture -4.2 summary -666775. results and suggestions -95.1 results -5.1.1 some common skills -5.1.2 the unique features of advertising slogans translation - 5.2 suggestions on the use of translating strategies -91010106. conclusion -10bibliography -12appendix: -1322on english-chinese translation of advertising slogans1. introduction1.1 research background1.1.1 why advertisement?the modern advertisement that originated in western countries undoubtedly has great influences on the entire human society. corporations of every field cast billions of dollars into advertisement every year, lay over every kind of media, launch so many campaigns and hire a great number of famous people for their prolocutors. according to the survey, the global advertising expenditure in 2000 is about 410 billion us dollars. in china, the very next year after the carrying out of reform and opening-up in 1978, i.e. 1979, was called the first year of comprehensive recovery chinese advertisement field. nowadays, chinese people find that they have been surrounded by various kinds of advertisements. obviously, as the reform and opening-up further develops, advertisement would play a more and more important role in our state economy and peoples life.at personal level, the author is much interested in advertising especially in copy writing. also the author has certain experiences in drafting, translating and polishing advertisements. 1.1.1 why slogans?in the advertising identification and communication, advertising slogans have held a unique and irreplaceable position. nowadays, more and more international famous companies have endowed advertising slogans with prior status and regarded them as an important part of their strategy development, which includes brand building, corporation culture shaping, product characteristics and corporation identification system. 1.1.1 why e-c?based on the fact that chinas advertisement started relatively late, the references and models mainly are english advertisements, especially the foreign and joint venture advertising companies dominated the modern chinese advertising market. therefore, the scope of the thesis is mainly covered by practical examples from english advertising slogans, translation strategies based on comparative studies of translation examples and their original versions.1.2 research objectivethrough the research the author aims to accomplish the following objectives:1) the basic translation rules applied to e-c advertising slogans translation;2) to summarize the research and look into the future of english advertising slogan and its translation.to fulfill this project, the author will better understand advertising slogans language characteristics and improve translation skills. also it will enable the researcher create better advertising slogans, bring the more smooth and proper sense of foreign advertising slogans to our nations consumers.1.3 project designthe research is divided into four parts. in part one, the author will define advertising slogans and describe the main theories related to the study. in part two, the author will go further into the study of e-c advertising slogan translation by examining 32 carefully-chose examples and their translations. in part three, the author aims to summarize e-c advertising slogan translation strategies according to the data analysis, and also find the important factors which affect on the translators decision-making of translation strategies as well as offer suggestions for the practice of advertising slogan translation. finally, in part four, the author will summarize the whole research and present the implications for the future practice and research.2. rationale2.1 definition of advertising slogansince this project aims to explore the e-c translation strategies of advertising slogans, we should first look into what is advertising slogan. according to the definition committee of american marketing association(方薇, 1997, p2), advertising is defined as follows: advertising is the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media. the oxford dictionary 6th edition explains slogan as “a word or phrase that is easy to remember, used for example by a political party or in advertising to attract peoples attention or to suggest an idea quickly”. (advanced learners english-chinese dictionary, the commercial press & oxford university press)slogan: a standard company statement (also called a tag line or a theme line) for advertisements, salespeople, and company employees. slogans have two basic purposes: to provide continuity for a campaign and to reduce a key theme or idea to a brief, memorable positioning statement. (戚云方，2003, p375)to compare and summarize the above definitions, we can infer that advertising slogan is short sentence that could enhance impression and make focus swiftly.2.2 the linguistic features of english advertising slogan2.2.1 morphology in english advertising sloganenglish advertising slogan has particular characteristics; it is different from daily english.1) a lot of verbs especially monosyllable are used. for example, get, make, give, like, love, buy, need, use, etc. for example: im lovin it. mcdonalds 我就喜欢buy one get one dannon 买一赠一2) adjectives are often used, but using highest adjective on products are usually avoided. for example: new beijing, great olympics beijing 2008 olympic games 新北京，新奥运lets make things better philips 让我们做的更好3) adjective or attributive phrases are added before nouns. for example:easy in and easy out swivel 进出自如4) agreat number of compound, usually hyphenated compounds are adopted. for example: the all-new mitsubishi mirage coupe mitsubishi motor 全新的三菱幻想双座轿车home-baked taste by the spoonful betty crocker 满口家常菜的味道2.2.2 syntax in english advertising slogan1) simple sentence is mostly used. impossible is nothing adidas 没有不可能just do it nike 只管去做2) to adopt interrogative and imperative sentence.have you driven a ford lately? ford motor 你最近开过福特车吗？get the feeling sports illustrated 身临其境3) disjunctive sentence.yes.avis is all over asia pacific. avis rent car 是的。avis遍布亚太地区4) elliptical sentencecome to marlboro country. come to where the flavor is. marlboro 光临风韵之境万宝路世界fresh up with seven-up. pepsi 君饮七喜，提神醒脑2.2.3 rhetorical devices in english advertising slogan1) similecool as a mountain steam consulate tobacco 如山间溪流般清爽2) metaphorsophisticated, sweet-to-drink pink lady pink lady wine 高级、可口的红粉佳人3) punim more satisfied more tobacco 莫尔，我更满意4) repetitionlive in the lap, lap, lap, lap, lap, lap, lap of luxury nissan 尽享奢华的重重包围5) rhymesend more, save more ups 发的多，省的多2.3 translation principlesencyclopedia america defines translation as “the act of rendering a work of one language into another”. fan zhongying(1994) said,“ 翻译是把一种语言的信息用另一种语言表达出来,使译文读者能得到原作者所表达的思想,得到与原文读者大致相同的感受(translation is to express the information from one language to another language, so that target readers can received the idea of the original author and the similar feelings of original readers.)”.(p.13). so we could infer that advertising slogan translation is the act of rendering advertising slogan in language a into language b and offering language b readers the access to information that language a readers can get.the basic rules as follows:1) preciseness of information convey during translation process. in alexander fraser tyler (1747-1813)s essay on the principles of translation (1790), he pointed out that there are three basic translation principles, namely the translation should be a complete transcript of the ideas of the original work; the style and manner of the writing should be of the same character with that of the original and the translation should have all the ease of the original composition. the first systematic translation standards in china are put forward by yan fu as “信、达、雅”, in which “信” goes first.2) different cultural background such as historic and political factors should be considered.almost every text has a common phenomenon that is more meanings conceal in few ostensible words. if these implications were not expressed in a proper way, the audiences would be confused for the letters.2.4 translation strategiesaccording to translation terminology (delisle & lee-jahnke & cormier , 1999), the term “translation strategy” means a coherent plan of action adopted by translators based on their intention with respect to a given text.1) the flexibility of literal translation and free translation. 2) they may change the text type or modify it as a function of the perceived needs of the target audience.3) the unique grammar should be applied.particularly in translation of advertising slogans, the meanings-add method should be adopted. the reason has been mentioned above is that simple sentences are most used in it. so translators should add some words to explain the connotative meanings. unless we do it the target consumers will misunderstand the messages in the slogans.3. description of the datasince this paper aims to explore the translation strategies on english advertising slogans, the data to be analyzed include:during translation process, the analysis of famous corporations english advertising slogans with its official chinese versions to explore their similarities and differences and to illustrate the unique features should be noticed.about 32 carefully chosen advertising slogans will be presented in this paper. the slogans with its chinese and english versions are available at the annual of chinese advertising works 2005, 2006, sanlian life book, fortune, business week, business week chinese version,cctv, btv and corresponding corporations official websites.4. data analysis4.1 analysis of the two language versionsthe english advertising slogans with its official chinese versions are shown in table three main translation methods the example no.5, 6, 8, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 24, 29, 32 are literal translation. the original english versions are simple sentences. to render them into chinese directly is good enough and no confusing left. the example no.1, 9, 20, 26, 28, 30, 31 are free translation. the original texts are with unique meanings and it will be difficult to comprehend if translating word by word, so the translator restructures the words and use flexible way to express the key messages in chinese language. regardless of the form, the results are gratifying.the example no.1, 2, 9, 10, 11, 19, 20, 21, 22, 26, 28, 30, 31 have used meanings-add translation. in that situations, the authors of chinese versions adding some words into target texts to meet the requirements. this is a very important method in translation of english advertising slogans. from above we could dig out that slogans are almost short and simple. for the target consumers better understanding and the perfect transfer of key messages of mncs, adding more words, in fact adding more meanings, is crucial.4.1.2 other unique translation ways in chinese culturethe stated above are three main translation ways. in actual process of english advertising translation in china, other render ways as supplementary would be needed. the first one is usage of four-character phrases. the texts no.4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18, 20, 22, 25, 27, 30 in table 1 are examples. since four-character phrases are used frequently in chinese traditional culture and peoples daily life and they have pop sound with their reading rhyme, to translate english advertising slogans to chinese in four-character phrases is easy for chinese to recognize and remember. take p&g rejoices translated slogan成功之路，从头开始, it is far better than the direct meaning of its original english text “start ahead” in greater china market. the factual product sale record has proved it too.the second one is using couplet form. its examples are no.1, 4, 7, 9, 11, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 28, 30 in table 1. the reason about it is as same as the first one that mentioned above. the long and ancient chinese history has formed this unique expression of character and it lasted to current chinese society. using this form could make chinese people feel familiar and easy to remember. “精于心，简于形” which is the latest advertising slogans chinese version of the royal philips. it is a good paradigm about the adoption of using couplet form in translation.the last but not least one is using ready chinese idioms.