从功能理论看广告翻译.pdf

对外经济贸易大学 硕士学位论文 从功能理论看广告翻译 姓名 丁之茵 申请学位级别 硕士 专业 英语 指导教师 常玉田 20050401 i 内容摘要 随着国际贸易和跨国公司的飞速发展 广告翻译在国际交流中的重要作用日益凸 现然而在中国 广告翻译尚未得到充分发展作为翻译学中的一个分支 广告翻译有着 它自己的内在规律 因而需要对它进行系统的研究 以占统治地位的对等翻译理论为指导的传统广告翻译方法是不尽人意的 原因有 二 首先本文通过分析发现英汉各属于两个相差甚远的语言体系很难存在绝对的对 等其次广告是一种有目的的宣传文体如果我们在翻译广告时盲目追求形式对等 就会丧失它的交际功能广告的功能决定着它的翻译方法 在这方面德国的功能翻译理论为我们提供了有益的借鉴该理论强调翻译及目标 文本在其文化中的功能它认为翻译是一种有目的的行为翻译活动是根据翻译目的使 目标文本与源文本之间保持一定联系使交流越过文化障碍得以通畅进行一定联系 而非完全对等为了达到目的不妨使用删译改译和仿译等方法而翻译应纳入这些 实践上行之有效的方法因此功能理论为这些不符合传统翻译标准的翻译方法提供了 有力的理论支持为翻译研究打开了新的视角尤其适用于广告这种有明确功能的文体 翻译 广告翻译不是一种将原文信息忠实转换到目的语中的纯模仿性行为 而是一种积极 的 具创造性的诠释过程 广告翻译中译者应着重实现译文在目的语文化中的预期功能 译者不可避免地会对原文做文化和语言上的调整以适应目的语文化与目的语读者 根据 功能派翻译理论 该文作者认为广告翻译中应赋予译者充分的自由以发挥其创造性 本文意图通过译例分析 归纳出几种有效的翻译方法 尤其是以原文分析为基础的 删减法和改译法等在不少情况下它们是实现译文功能的必要手段完全有理由被承 认研究和运用 关键词翻译功能理论对等翻译理论源语文本目标语文本广告翻译翻译 策略 ii Abstract With the rapid development of international business and multinational companies there is a growing need for efficient international advertising communication and translation However advertising translation is still an underexplored field which has not yet been adequately studied in the discipline of translation As a branch of translation study advertising translation has its own laws and demands a systematic study Traditional equivalence based linguistic approaches to advertisement translation fail to achieve satisfactory effect mainly for two reasons First through analysis of the intrinsic mechanism of the Chinese and English languages and cultures considerable discrepancies in language use are found especially in the field of advertising Thus there hardly exists an absolute correspondence between the two languages Second equivalence based approaches always seek to achieve formal equivalence between the source and target texts and neglect the communicative functions of advertisement translation Functionalist approaches put forward in 1970s by some German scholars including Katharina Reiss Hans J Vermeer Justa Holz Manttari and Christiane Nord shed light on advertisement translation This theory emphasizes the functionality of the target text in the target culture In order to fulfill the communicative functions of advertisements forms of the original texts could be changed to adapt to the target settings Functionalist theory justifies this translation practice declaring that translation is the production of a functional target text maintaining a relationship with a given source text that is specified according to the intended or demanded function of the target text In this model the source text serves as only an offer of information from which a translator selects the items he or she finds interesting and important to reach the intended goal Under functionalist theory translators are encouraged to make full use of various sources of information and they are entitled to choose whatever translation strategies he thinks appropriate to achieve the expected functions of the translation Functionalist approach to iii translation has opened up a new perspective to translation studies It provides a theoretical basis for some unconventional translation strategies such as abrigement adaptation and imitation By authentic examples the writer attempts to explore some successful translation techniques applicable to advertising translation in light of this revolutionary theory Key Words Functionalist approach or Skopostheorieequivalence based linguistic theory source text target text translation strategies advertisement translation iv Acknowledgements My appreciation shall first go to my supervisor Prof Chang Yutian who has given me sustained instructions and encouragement throughout the writing of this thesis and has made it all possible Without his guidance and valuable comments this thesis couldn t have been possible in its present form His sincere concern with my work is highly essential to the development of this thesis I also want to avail myself of this opportunity to express my hearty gratitude to all the teachers in the School of International Studies such as Professor Wang Enmian Professor Jia Wenhao etc I have greatly benefited from their inspiring lectures on translation theory and practice which laid a good foundation for my research in the field Any progress I have made in my academic research is the result of their painstaking efforts and invaluable enlightenment My special thanks should also go to Professor Zhou Ling Professor Yang Yugong and Professor Yu Lijun whose insightful suggestions during the initial stage of my thesis writing made it possible for me to come up with a more significant thesis Sincere thanks are also due to Mr Lee An the general director of Beijing Oriental and Rende Advertising Co LTD where I took internship for one month Mr Lee provided me with many authentic examples of advertisements Without his generous support and enlightening suggestions I wouldn t have completed my thesis Finally I would like to thank some of my classmates for their useful advice and my foreign friends for their patience to correspond the questionnaire for this thesis Their help is essential to make my work better Ding Zhiyin April 2005 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1 Purpose and Scope As China is deepening its opening up to the outside world international exchanges are increasing each day There is a growing need for efficient international advertising communication Thus the amount of advertising translation keeps increasing However incommensurate to its ever growing importance advertising translation still remains an underexplored field as a branch in the discipline of translation As a specialized and important area of translation advertising translation has its own features and rules which deserve an intensive and systematic study With accelerated development of Chinese enterprises which are going international Chinese English translation of advertisements hereafter abbreviated as ads has gained great importance Therefore this thesis is intended to center on Chinese English translation of ads with the aim to practically help improve the quality of translation in this area Traditionally ads are translated in light of the most popular equivalence theory which assumes translation as the replacement of textual material in one language SL by equivalent material in another language TL Catford 1965 32 However translation practice of advertisement based on this theory is far from satisfactory for mainly two reasons first as each language has its unique linguistic features and versatile cultural backgrounds customs and thought patterns there hardly exits absolute equivalence especially when Chinese and English are from two completely different language families second advertising as a sub variety of pragmatic style has its own stylistic features as well as its particular communicative functions i e advertising is a purposeful style to propagate persuade and evoke people to do things Therefore if we seek formal equivalence when translating ads their practical functions would be inevitably sacrificed Advertisements have manifest stylistic features of propagation and through information dissemination and by persuasive and evocative language stimulate readers to take certain action If ads translators ignore these communicative functions of ads and make great efforts 2 to achieve formal equivalence between the source and target texts they will impair the practical effect As the traditional translation theory fails to describe the discipline of ad translation a new theory is called for Let s turn to functionalist approach Functionalist approach which emerged in the 1970s emphasizes the functionality of the target text in the target culture Applied in advertising translation functionalist approach means focusing on the main function of the translated ads with achievement of the intended purposes such as talking people into buying the goods or service advertised Baker 2000 235 According to functionalism translators are encouraged to make full use of all the sources of information of the source text and are entitled to choose whatever translation strategies he thinks appropriate to achieve the functions of the translation That is what we call the end justifies the means As such functionalist approach can offer a satisfactory explanation to the unconventional strategies applied in ads translation which the traditional equivalence based theory fails to account for 1 2 Significance of the Study The significance of the study would reveal itself in some development of translation theory and in some discoveries on improved effect for practice While systematic theoretical research on this issue insufficiently conducted and translation theorists have not attached special attention to translation of ads yet the functionalist theory applied to ads serves as a break from the traditional idea of equivalence and an important complement to translation theories thus opening up a new perspective to translation studies In addition to its guiding function to translation practice the functional concept of translation has provided theoretical basis for some translation practices used to be considered against the existing criteria of translation but with satisfactory practical outcome and provoked reappraisal of certain translation methods such as abridgement adaptation free rendering and even creative rewriting 3 1 3 Structure of the Thesis This thesis attempts to probe into advertising a text type of pragmatic style The writer begins with an elaborate analysis of communicative functions of this text genre and a comparison of linguistic features between Chinese and English ads Dramatic differences are revealed and traditional equivalence based translation methods always fail to fulfill the intended purpose of advertisers For this reason the writer introduces a new translation theory functionalist approach to ads translation and hopes to find some successful translation techniques in this field This thesis is divided into five chapters In the first chapter the writer states the role played by advertising in modern society guiding function of functionalist approach to translation practice and contribution it makes to translation studies In addition the scope this research and the significance of this study are mentioned This chapter also includes a brief layout of the whole thesis Chapter two concentrates on the functionalist approach to translation as a new concept of translation which shed light on advertisement translation The background and development of this theory are briefly reviewed and basic concepts of skopostheorie are introduced in terms of their applicability in advertisement translation The enlightenment of functionalist approach is extensively discussed It arrives at a conclusion that translation doesn t mean word for word correspondence instead it is a creation to certain extent especially in the case of advertisement translation Under the guidance of functionalist approach to translation translators are supposed to focus on the expected functions of the translation in the target culture and are encouraged to make good use of various sources of information to render satisfactory target texts In the third chapter features of advertising language are investigated after a short analysis of the definition advertisements Then a comparison between Chinese and English ads is made The surface structure is said to be rooted in the intrinsic mechanism of each linguistic system cultural background thought pattern etc Due to these differences a series of problems are met when translating ads for example how to fulfill the target purpose how to meet reader s expectation how to adapt to the target cultural conventions etc At the end of 4 this chapter the author contends that advertisement translation is rather an activity of creative interpretation In chapter four the author attempts to explore some successful translation techniques applicable to advertising translation in light of skopostheorie At the very beginning of this chapter the author conducts a case study to validate the priority of functionalist approach over the equivalence based approach Then the author talks about literal transfer the traditional equivalence based method and its inadequacy in the case of advertisement translation Based on the functionalist approach and through analysis of ample authentic examples the author finally suggests several translation techniques such as addition abridgement adaptation imitation semantic transliteration free translation and modeling translation The last chapter summarizes the whole thesis The author reiterates the key points of the thesis and provides some suggestions for those who want to apply this theory to translation practice 5 Chapter 2 Literature Review 2 1 Functionalist Approach to Translation In this part functionalist approach to translation will be explored in terms of its applicability to advertisement translation 2 1 1 Background and Development of the Theory A brief description of its background and development is necessary for us to see the applicability of this theory to advertisement translation Translation had been regarded as an art or a craft However in the 1960s due to the profound influence from the discipline of linguistics translation study was defined as a science and became linguistically oriented By 1970s although the focus shifted from the word or phrase to the text as a unit of translation the fundamental linguistic trend was not broken Nord 1997 7 Most of the linguistically oriented translation theories share something in common that is the central concept of translation equivalence Fawcett 1997 15 However equivalence based theories focus on the source text according to which the features of the source text must be preserved in the target text and the target text must be equivalent to the source text In practice for centuries translators have felt that the process of translating should involve both procedures a faithful reproduction of source text qualities in one situation and an adjustment to the target audience in another Nord 1997 9 So equivalence based translation theories exclude many translational phenomena such as adaptation from the field of translation study and thus can hardly describe some common phenomena in translation study Therefore some scholars began to question the equivalence based translation theories New theories were called for This is where functionalism emerged in 1970s which was intended to break with linguistic translation theory and bridge the gap between theory and practice The development of modern functionalism in translation studies has gone through three stages first is Katharina Reiss and her functionalist translation criticism second is Hans J 6 Vermeer s Skopostheorie and its extensions third is Justa Holz Mantt1ari s theory of translational action They are all German scholars so we call it German school of functionalism Nord 1997 4 Early in 1971 in her book Possibilities and Limits of Translation Criticism Reiss develops a model of translation criticism based on the functional relationship between source and target texts Nord 1997 5 To her TL text should be equivalent to SL text in terms of conceptual content linguistic form and communicative function So obviously she still took equivalence as her basis However in real life she found that sometimes equivalence was not possible and not even desired in some cases for example when the target text is intended to achieve a purpose or function other than that of the original In such situations she thinks that the functional perspective takes precedence over the normal standards of equivalence Then translation critic can no longer rely on features derived from source text analysis but has to judge whether the target text is functional in terms of the translation context Nord 1997 9 Then Hans Vermeer made a breakthrough by putting forward his famous Skopostheorie which is regarded as the landmark of functionalist approach to translation Vermeer maintained that linguistics alone could not solve all the translation problems Thus he put translation in a broader human context embedding the theory of translation in a theory of human action or activity He considers translation as a type of human action which is an intentional purposeful behavior that takes place in a given situation it is part of the situation at eh same timed as it modifies the situation Nord 1997 11 Thus Vermeer calls his theory Skopostheorie Skopos is a Greek word for purpose Skopostheorie is the theory that applies the notion of Skopos to translation According to Skopostheorie the prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose of the overall translational action Nord 1997 27 Manttari goes one step further than Vermeer She even avoids using the term translation in the strict sense She prefers to speak of message transmitters which consist of textual material combined with other media such as pictures sounds and body movements In her model translation is defined as a complex action designed to achieve a particular purpose The purpose of translational action is to transfer messages across culture and language barrier 7 by means of message transmitters produced by experts Nord 1997 13 2 1 2 Basic Concepts of Functionalist Approach An adequate review of basic concepts of functionalist approach will manifest how appropriate it is to apply skopostheorie to advertisement translation 2 1 2 1 Skopos Theory and Communicative Functions Skopos is a Greek word for purposeintent goal function As Vermeer puts it any action has an aim a purpose The word Scopos is a technical term for the aim or purpose of a translation Reiss and Vermeer 1984 96 Vermeer thus founded the Skopostheorie which applies the notion of Skopos to translation In the framework of this theory every translation is directed at an intended audience and translation means producing a text in a target setting for a target purpose and target addressees in targe