广告翻译 开题报告.doc

兰州交通大学硕士研究生学位论文开题报告学号：0210652 姓名：黄蓉 专业：外国语言学及应用语言学 导师姓名及职称：郭磊 副教授 论文题目：A Study on Advertising Translation from the Perspective of Memetic_1. Introduction1.1 Background and Significance of the Present StudyAs more and more companies do their business abroad and with the entry into WTO and the huge influence of the 2008-Olimpic-Games, we are exporting and importing different kinds of products all over the world more and more frequently. Therefore, the translation of Chinese and English advertisement will play an increasingly crucial role in introduction and promotion kinds of commodities. The choice of combing advertising translation with memetics is out of the consideration that the contagious nature of memes has the potential to harness the propagation of the transferred message in advertising translation. Under such a background, many researchers and translators domestic and abroad are beginning to study how to translate advertisement effectively. And many advertising translation theories have been put forward and practiced by them. Those theories are mainly equivalence theory, Skopos theory and adaption theory, etc.A meme is a unit of cultural imitation, a self-propagating idea much like a computer virus. It is invented to suggest a strong analogy with genes. The effective nature of memes provides memes with such a natural relationship with advertisement that it drives many marketers to conduct their advertising research or design advertisement from a memetic perspective.Memetics is a newly developed theory aiming to replicate the development of language and culture from the perspective of Darwinism, which lays much emphasis on the universal connections between different things and the inheritance of cultural elements in the development of languages. Memetics reveals the law of language development. Advertisement and its translation have close connection with memes. A successful advertisement can attract customers attention, so that a product can firmly stay in consumers memory. Effective memes should be those which can cause a high degree of real and long-term preservation of memory. Thus, it is feasible to apply memetics to instruct advertising translation. Memetics has practical significance to the practice of advertising translation.Unfortunately, the research that has done on the combination of advertising translation and the emerging memetics is not enough. And the research on advertising translation strategies in the enlightenment of memetics is far from adequate. The significance of the study lies in the establishment of a systematic theoretical framework of advertising translation which in turn increase the like hood for an advertisement to be accepted on a large scale.1.2 Objective of the StudyMemetics has certain guiding significance to advertising translation. Taking memetics as its framework, the thesis will provide translators with theoretical guide helpful to evolve feasible translation principle and strategies, with which the translation of the advertisement can better, duplicate the original information and improve its effectiveness. Taking the limitations of previous studies on advertising translation in light of memetics into consideration, this thesis attempts to improve the application of memetics to advertising translation. With an introduction to ways of replication and transmission of memes, the author will put forward four types of translation strategies in the guidance of memetics and also make further case studies on these strategies. Specific strategies of how to create strong meme in the target language and how to encode memes into target language will be proposed. It is sincerely hoped that this thesis will enlighten translators and researchers of advertisement and make a little contribution to the prosperity of translation studies and to the progression of advertising translation.1.3 Structure of the ThesisChapter One is a brief introduction to the thesis and states the background, the significance and the objective of the study. Chapter Two is the literature review. Chapter Three is the theoretical framework of the thesis.Chapter Four would do a more comprehensive analysis of the translation of advertisements from the memetic approach based on the selected data, which is the emphasis of this paper. The last Chapter is the conclusion. In this part, the author intends to summarize the major findings and limitations of this thesis.2. Literature ReviewAs consumers, people are exposed to hundreds or even thousands of commercial messages, both domestic and abroad, every day. However, advertising translation was almost completely overlooked by translation studies for many years. Fortunately, the emergence of multinational companies makes advertising more and more persuasive in our daily life and contributes to the study of advertising translation. Some scholars and experts have dwelled on this topic from various perspectives, although they are not systematic. This chapter will examine how far the evolution of advertising translation theory has managed to cope with the special circumstances of advertising translation.2.1 Studies on Advertising Translation Pieer Hurbin is accepted as the pioneer of advertisement translation. In his article, Hurbin(1972) demonstrates the translatability of advertisement and suggests ways of translating. Hurbins time was characterized by the notion of equivalence that much research on advertising translation emphasizes the equivalence of source language and target language. With the flourishing of functional theory, researchers turn to text material. Resis (1989) takes advertisement as a persuasive tool, translation of which should be in line with consumers psychology and conventions. Nord (1991) considers the advertising translation in terms of intercultural communication and insists that translation should have the same cultural function in the target language. The year of 2004 ushers in a hot debate on the nature of advertisement translation. The Translator publishes several articles of different viewpoints. The debate draws researches from pure methodology to ontology of advertising translation.Domestic studies on this subject began in the late 20th century. In the early period, most researchers focus on the principle and strategies of advertisement translation. Jiang Lei (1994) holds the view that translators should follow the principles of semantic, socio-cultural, and stylistic equivalence, and he also proposes four strategies of advertising translation, i.e. agreement, replacement, emphasis and compensation. Ding Shude (1995) puts more emphasis on conciseness in translation. Li Xiangde (1989) argues the usage of literal translation, free translation, and rhetoric of Chinese idioms. Later, many researchers study advertisement under the guidance of some theories, either domestic or borrowed. Lin Kenan (2003) publishes an article, for example, to illustrate the urge for theoretical interference. During that time, various theories, such as functional equivalence theory, reader-centered theory, was introduced into advertising translation.2.2 Memetic Research on Advertising The essential purpose of advertising is to infect, or say to inform potential consumers of the product information. Once the product is favorably accepted, the advertisement is considered successful. In this regard, advertisement is to customers what meme is to its potential vectors. Only those which are able to infect new hosts can be passed from person to person and finally win the competition. Geoff Ayling (1998) firstly notices this inner connection of the two conceptions, and discusses advertising from the perspective of memetics. Ailing defines meme in the context of advertising. “In the context of advertising, a meme is an idea or a concept that has been refined, distilled, stripped down to its bare essentials and then super-simplified in such a way that anybody can grasp its meaning instantly and effortlessly” (Ayling, 1998:4). Two natures are derived from the definition, i.e. contagious nature and subliminal nature. As a meme in advertising spreads infectiously, three prerequisites must be achieved, which are respectively extremely simple, emotional impact, and critical mass (Ayling, 1998:2). Jay Conrad Levinson (1998) talks about making use of memetics to propagandize producrs. To him, a meme is “a self-explanatory symbol, using words, action, sounds, or pictures that communicate an entire idea” (Levinson, 1998:4). Levinson, based on his understanding of meme in advertising, emphasizes memes significant function, that is, to affect people most efficiently by using least words conveying most information. Paul Marsden (1998) does practical research and tries to develop the technique of memetic engineering and build up models of “memetic” customers mind map, in order to propose measures for enterprises marketing.Domestic researchers have done memetic researches on advertising language and advertising translation since the 20th century. Wu Xinxin (2007) thoroughly analyze the relation between language and meme, proposes the selection criteria for advertising language creation. Cai Zhaohui (2008) in her paper demonstrates devices for advertisers to enrich the advertising language from the perspective of memetics. Ren Rongrong (2007) discusses the selection process of meme and suggests some methods of how to create strong brand name memes. Huang Hui (2008) and Shi Xiaoying (2009) both pay attention to the memetic research on advertising translation. They make helpful exploration on advertising meme replication in the process of advertising translation. However, they fail to propose specific strategies of how to create strong meme in the target language and how to encode memes into target language.3. Theoretical FrameworkWhat is meme? There are many definitions. For example, a meme is an information pattern, held in an individuals memory, which is capable of being copied to another individuals memory. Memetics is the theoretical and empirical science that studies the replication, spread and evolution of memes (Heylighten, 1998). This includes anything that can be learned or remembered: ideas, knowledge, habits, beliefs, skills, images, etc. 3.1 Definition and Characteristics Memes and MemeticsMemes as the unit of cultural element play a very important role in the transmission of languages and cultures. Memes were originally described by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976) a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation. Memetics, as an evolutionary theory about human culture, studies the evolutionary models of information transfer based on the concept of the meme. Memetics reveals the law of language development; provides a new perspective on language research, communication and culture. The replication and transmission of language memes provide a quick and an effective way to enrich human languages and a new perspective on translation.The internal nature of human memory determines some memes can easily and successfully be remembered. These natures of human beings favor the transmission of some memes and others do not. In The Selfish Gene, Dawkins writes, “Imitation is how meme can replicate Some memes are more successful in the meme-pool than others But in general, they must be the same as those discussed: longevity, fecundity, copy-fidelity.That is to say, in order to be successfully replicated and transmitted, successful memes should have copying-fidelity, fecundity and longevity. 3.3 Ways for Memes to Be Replicated and TransmittedThe transmission of memes is not the process during which content and form are exactly identical from the original one to the replicated one. According to Blackmores, professor He Ziran gives the following classification: memetic genetype and memetic phenotype. And according to He Ziran, there are: (1) memetic genotypethe same core content inherited in various language forms. For example, with different times and different regions, waitresses were once named: “comrade” (同志)，“master worker” (师傅)，“lady”（小姐），“sister”(小妹) and “cuihua”（翠花）. (2) memetic phenotypethe identical set pattern of language followed by different contents. For example: once can find“托”in “婚托， 房托，商托， 医托”，etc.3.4 Enlightenment of Memetics to Advertising TranslationMemetics has some advantages which are summarized as follows: Firstly, in terms of development of language, memetics puts its concern on the replication and transmission of language, which embodies, explains and improves the development of language.Secondly, speaking in theoretical sense, memetics provides an entirely new theory for studies in many fields, such as advertising and translation, etc. Last but not least, speaking in sense of modern aesthetics, it conforms to the times and follows the law of development, in a word, it is fashionable.As a matter of fact, memetics has a natural and close relationship with translation deals with language, since memes have such inseparable connections with language.Susan Blackmore gives a meemtic solution to the mystery of human language origins, in her famous book The Meme Machine (1999). She suggests that memetics provides a new approach to the origin and evolution of language. When human beings began to imitate each other, as a second replicator, memes were born about two and half or three million years ago. In this process of replication, the highest-quality memes succeeded. The early speakers not only copied the best speakers in their society but also mated with them. With imitating becoming widespread, it gradually created natural selection pressures on genes whose selective environment changed and forced them to evolve better and better meme-spreading apparatus (1999).In summary, language is the carrier of memes and its function is to spread memes. Mimetically, language memes reveals, from a new perspective, the law of language replication and language transmission.3.5 Data Collection and MethodologyThe present data will be composed of consumer advertising and service advertising, including the original advertisement and its translated version mainly from network, related books, newspapers, magazines, some previous papers, etc. So far as methodology is concerned, the thesis is qualitative-based and integrates the theoretical explanation and practice. Detailed comparative analysis on different versions of advertisements will highlight the importance of selecting strong memes in advertising translation to maintain their longevity in foreign countries. Induction and deduction are also applied to the thesis because strategies of advertising translation can be generated from the exploration of meme translation process and can better direct practice.4. Translation Strategies of Advertisement It is clear that the characteristics of advertisements enable the application of memes in the translation of advertisement, since they are so naturally linked together. And the characteristics of memes are just what a successful advertisement needs, in order to be memorized, accepted and spread in the target language countries. According to Blackmores “The Meme Machine”, professor He Ziran (2005) gives this classification: memetic genotype and memetic phenotype. These are two ways for memes to be replicated and transmitted. According to the ways for memes to be replicated and transmitted, there are mainly four strategies in advertisement translation in light of memetics, namely, replication, imitation, reorganization and displacement. In the following text, the author will talk about the application of these strategies in the practice of business advertising translation.4.1 Replication Replication means complete copies of the present idiom, mottos, poems, proverbs, songs, etc. without changing a word. In order to be spread successfully among target language, replication should also accommodate to contexts-the memetic copies should fit in the contexts. For example, a Chinese fruit company has its English slogan for apples like this: An apple a day keeps the doctor away. (每天一个苹果，疾病远离我。) It is a traditional saying known by almost everyone from western countries. Therefore, the advertisement achieves psychological adaptation and it may be easily accepted and receive good effect. Besides, this advertisement also shows that our apples are nutrient and healthy. Therefore, the advertisement may attract people to buy the product.4.2 Imitation Imitation means imitate the suitable memes, such as idioms, proverbs, poems, etc. with certain adaptation or alterations without changing the original form. More over, successful advertisement lies from popular movies, and TV drama programs, etc. can also be effectively imitated. Of course, imitation should also imitate according to contexts but not arbitrarily. For example: ., 尝过才知道！- Tasting is believing! This is a slogan for some food, and it imitates the English proverb: “Seeing is believing!” with the change of the word “seeing” into “tasting”. This English version is short as the original Chinese advertisement, and it is novel by altering the traditional proverb. Therefore, it successfully attracts consumers attention and interest. Similar example is Bili Slimming Cream: Using is believing. (百闻不如一用)4.3 Reorganization Reorganization means proper and formal alterations to language memes (idioms, mottos, poems, songs, etc.) in target language according to specific circumstances and demands. Adaptations here are formal adaptation, which also bear a rhetorical feature. For example: 吃梨交好运。“All good things come in pears.” This is a slogan for pears. It reorganizes the widely known English idiom “ Good things do not come in pairs.” by changing the form-add