The Cultural Differences in Advertisement Translation

1、中英广告翻译中的文化差异the cultural differences in advertisement translationabstract: as the product of culture, advertisement directly reflects close relationship between language and culture. prefect advertising language is good for selling the products. at the same time, the world is getting increasingly gl

2、obalized, there are more and more communication and operation of cross-cultural, advertisement translation reflect the commercial activities. therefore, translators have to convert the ideas and thoughts behind the sentences into the target language by applying the knowledge of the target culture. t

3、his paper studies the situation of culture differences in advertisement translation. key words: advertising translation；culture difference；language摘要：广告作为文化的产物，可以更直接地展示语言和文化的关系。精彩的广告语言有助于产品的推销。与此同时，随着经济全球化的发展，跨文化的交流、合作日趋频繁，广告翻译中存在的语言与文化的差异将影响着商业活动的发展。因此，译者要充分利用目标文化知识，把句子后面所承载的思想、概念尤其是文化传递给消费者。本文就广告翻

4、译中出现的文化差异现象进行了探究。 关键词：广告翻译；文化差异；语言 contents.introduction .1a. background introduction.1b. the relationship among language, culture and translation introduction.21. different definitions of language22. different definitions of culture.23. the different definitions of translation24. the relationship a

5、mong language, culture and translation3ii. translation of english advertisement.4a. general introduction of advertisement.4b. basic purposes and general principles of english advertisement translation into chinese.51. basic purposes of english advertisement translation into chinese.52. general princ

6、iples of advertisement translation.5c. linguistic characteristics of english advertisings and relevant translation techniques61. lexical characteristics of english advertisements.62. syntactical characteristics of english advertisements.7d. cultural differences in advertising language.91. the implic

7、it way versus the direct way.92. the imagery pattern versus abstract pattern.103. respect of authority versus respect of self-performance.114. difference social history background.11e. the makings of a translator.121. a translator must be well acquainted with the source language.122. a translator mu

8、st be well acquainted with the target language.123. a translator must be armed with professional knowledge needed.12iii.conclusion.13work cited14i. introductiona. background introductionwith the development of our socialist market economy since chinas opening up to the outside world, advertising has

9、 been developing at a speed no one could have imagined. since coco-cola became the first american product available in china in1979, foreign products have been flooding into china. with the rapid development of international business in the world, there is a growing need for efficient international

10、advertising translation in order that these products could be accepted by consumers easily. international advertising translation is of great significance in internationalizing of chinas enterprises and opening the global market for made-in-china products under the circumstance of globalization of w

11、orld economy. therefore, there has been a great many of scholars who have studied advertising translation from various perspectives. more and more books and articles about advertising translation have played an important role in how to promote the sales of commodities abroad. however, the studies of

12、 advertising translation are not given enough attention. there are two reasons that the author makes a decision to study the topic: on the one hand, along with the fast development of the internet and information communication technology, the international advertising would be promoted to a new step

13、 and the advertising translation would enjoy unprecedented development. the importance of advertising translation tells its own tale; on the other hand, the study of advertising translation needs to be improved, for a great number of scholars have only analyzed the examples and strategies of adverti

14、sing translation sketchily. in order to make the chinese-english advertising translation more satisfactory, this thesis focuses on the analysis of cross-cultural pragmatic failure in chinese-english advertising translation and examines appropriate strategies for doing the translation well.any countr

15、y or nation has their own unique traditional cultures including values, modes of thinking, moral rules, customs, life styles, etc, which forms the differences among different nations on culture. how to do the right ads? it is important to know the culture of others. so we should study the relationsh

16、ip among language, culture and translation in order to do the right choice when we choose. this paper is composed of three parts. in the first chapter, the author will deal with the translation of english advertisements. it includes general introduction of advertisement basic purposes and general pr

17、inciples of english advertisement translation into chinese and linguistic characteristics of english advertisements and relevant translation techniques. chapter two is explaining some methods of intercultural advertising translation. the makings of translator will be mentioned in chapter three.b. th

18、e relationship among language, culture and translation introduction1. different definitions of languagewhat is language? the following definition includes any levels of language generally: language is a system of arbitrary vocal symbol used for human communication. (zhang 1). in the book “intercultu

19、ral communication in english” (yu,lisheng 2004), there are the following definitions:language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotion and desire by means of voluntarily produced symbols (sapir 1921).from now on i will consider language to be a set (finite or infi

20、nite) of sentences, each finite in length and constructed out of a finite set of elements (chomsky 1957 ). in my opinion, language is just a way to communicate with other people in order to get the purpose for ourselves.2. different definitions of culturethere are some more than 250 kinds of definit

21、ions concerning culture. there are some common definitions about culture. in some ways of life, there are the definitions:1) the customs and beliefs, art, way of life and social organization of a particular country or group.2) a country, group, etc. with its own beliefs, etc.3) culture consists of a

22、ll the shared products of human society (robertson 1981) 4) following the definitions of sociologist and anthropologists, our team culture refers to the total pattern of beliefs, customs, institution, objects, and techniques that characterize the life of a human community.in my opinion, culture belo

23、ngs to the history. it developed by the development of history,3. the different definitions of translationtranslation is one of the most complex and the most difficult activities of human. “however, translation, in a narrow sense, is the practice of finding the equivalent both in form and essence be

24、tween two cultures. the two terms translation and translating should be distinguished for a translator. translation just refers to the act that the translator translates from one language into another, and translating is the process in which the translator does his best to convey the message of the

25、source language. furthermore, translating is not a word-for-word conversion, but a process of bilingual communication between two different languages. it expresses the message of the source language from the receptor language message, and the relationship between receptor and message should be subst

26、antially the same as that between the original receptor and the message”. (he 1) there are other definitions of translation. translation is the process to make the meaning which is taken a cultural language into another cultural language the process of changing something that is written or spoken in

27、to another language. for purpose, translation is a process of changing something like words, picture or anything else in order to get the things that we want.4. the relationship among language, culture and translationlanguage is a part of culture and plays a very important role in it. it can not equ

28、ate with culture. there is no culture that has no language as its part. language is strongly influenced and shaped by culture as a mirror. culture is reflected in language, and at the same time it exists in the intellectual structures that a certain group use their language. in this sense, we ought

29、to pay special attention to cultural aspects when we are engaged in the task of translation. however, the relationship between them is not just that between a part and the whole. it is much more complex than that. language is the carrier and container of culture and it also exerts its influence on c

30、ulture. human knowledge and experience are described and stored in language. customs, habits and behavioral patterns can be described and analyzed in language. social institutions, value systems, beliefs, world views can be described, analyzed and evaluated in language. even the visual arts like pai

31、nting, sculpture, and dancing and auditory arts such as music and singing can be described and evaluated in language. to be sure, culture can exist in the form of materials. but language as the medium of communication is indispensable in their production and use. it is concluded that language and cu

32、lture are closely related, influencing and shaping each other. to learn a foreign language implies to learn the culture in which it is spoken. a language can never be learned in a cultural vacuum. culture is learned through language. without language as the medium for formal or informal instruction,

33、 no culture could ever be learned. some social scientists consider it is the keystone of culture. without language, they maintain, culture would not be possible. on the other hand, language is influenced and shaped by culture; it reflects culture.social scientists tell us that culture differs from o

34、ne another, that each culture is unique. as cultures are diverse, so languages are diverse. it is only natural that with difference in cultures and languages, differences often arise in communicating between cultures and across cultures. understanding is not always easy. (deng 3) every one of us sho

35、uld know the fundamental cultural difference between chinese and native speakers of english. the team native english speaker includes people of many countriesamericans, englishmen, australians, canadians, new zealanders and others. each of these belongs to a culture that is somewhat different from t

36、he others, in spite of their common language. so if we do something about foreign culture. we have to knowledge something about culture.translation is an important part of language. how to translate well? in my opinion, it is necessary to know the detail of the language. if you feel studying languag

37、e is a difficult thing, you will fail to translate. when you do translation you should pay attention to following things:first, to study the language you will use in order to make sure that you would not do some errors about grammar and common sense. second, to know the cultures about the language y

38、ou use so that you should do less cultural errors and make the reader accept. third, to pay attention to the right way of translating.above all, we could get the information: language is an important part of culture. we can not separate language from culture. the view is important for learning commu

39、nication by using language. translation is a part of language. language is the necessary condition of translation. translation is not only the changing of language, but also it is the changing of culture. due to the relationship and characteristics among culture language, and translation, in other w

40、ords, it is the process of rendering the culture underlying the language. it is not simple understood as an activity on linguistic facet. we hold that to translate from one language into another, in a sense, is to translate the culture of the language. (he 314 ).translation of english advertisement

41、a. general introduction of advertisementadvertising is one of the marketing strategies in the international business activities. advertisements exist everywhere and influence us every day. according to a statistics, one third of the present-day newspapers space is used for advertising in england. ad

42、vertisement is a widely used medium of communication in business activities in our modern society. therefore, it is necessary for us to know advertisements characteristics.b. basic purposes and general principles of english advertisement translation 1. basic purposes of english advertisement transla

43、tion into chineseto do a good job in advertisement translation, we should first know the aim of advertisements. the goal of advertisements can be summarized as follow: a. attention, b. interest, c. credibility, d. desire, e. action. to be more accurate, advertisements must attract peoples attention-

44、for example, by using bold typr and eye-catching pictures. next, advertisements must arouse the prospective customers interest in the product and build credibility for the product. then advertisements should be able to arouse a buying desire that finally leads to a purchasing action. if the translat

45、ion of an advertisement can not achieve these effects of the original, it will be a failure.2. general principles of advertisement translationthe general principles of advertisement translation should be: smoothness, precision and conciseness.“smoothness” means to use smooth and natural chinese expr

46、essions that chinese customers can accept to give the information about a product. whether the translation of an english advertisement is excellent or not depends on the response of its receivers. only when the chinese readers response to the translation is similar to the original readers response t

47、o the original advertisement, will the translation achieve its purpose. to achieve this, the first step is to translate the original with smooth chinese expressions.“precision” is also demanded by the advertisements function. if the meaning of the original advertisement were altered in the translati

48、on, the consumers would be misled by the chinese version.“conciseness” means the translator should use informative and concise diction and sentence structure. the education levels of the reader are varied, so far too complicated or difficult diction or sentence structures in translation may make it

49、hard for its intended readers to comprehend its information.c. linguistic characteristics of english advertisings and relevant translation techniques1. lexical characteristics of english advertisements the words and phrases of advertisements are colorful and lively, and the only purpose of choosing

50、a word in writing an advertisement is to “promote products”. therefore, these phrases are usually intriguing and appealing. the lexical characteristics of english advertisements can be summarized in the following aspects: a. the abundant use of modifiers in advertisements, there is an abundant use o

51、f modifiers to highlight the merits of a product, to describe vividly the special features of the product and to enhance its appeal to the prospective customer. famous world-wide gourmet cuisine. excellent daily specials and mouth-watering desserts. 世界有名的美食烹调，精美的每日特色饭菜和令人垂涎的点心。this is an advertiseme

52、nt of a restaurant. we can see that the adjectives account for one half of the word used in the advertisement. they show the restaurants features to its customers. to attract more customers to buy their products, advertisements often highlight their unique merits with the use of comparative and supe

53、rlative-degree modifiers, though they dont belittle other similar products directly. for the first time, theres a remarkable gel that can give your hair any look you want-sleeker, fuller, straighter, curlier, more natural, and even wet-without a drop of alcohol or oil. 一种前所未有，不同寻常的发乳问世了。它可以使您的头发随心所欲

54、-更光滑，更茂盛，更平直，更卷曲，更自然，甚至保持湿度-都不含一滴酒精或油脂。in this advertisement, the use of five successive comparative-degrees adjectives, i.e.,” sleeker, fuller, straighter, curlier, more natural” , suggests that this kind of gel is better than other gels and meet consumers different demands.b. intentional wrong-spe

55、lling intentional wrong-spellings in english advertisements can arouse peoples sense of curiosity about the advertisement and impress people deeply. for example: drinka pinta milka day.this is a milk advertisement. the normal form of the expression should be: drink a pint of milk a day. this intenti

56、onal misspelling is intended to induce prospective customers curiosity, and it reads rhyming and rhythmic. besides it uses four words that have no grammatical relation with each other to express a complete concept. this purposeful wrong spelling is used much to the advantage. however, it is not easy

57、 to translate this advertisement, or rather; it cannot be translated literally, because as for the chinese characters, we cannot add any stroke to them. so we can only translate its basic message as: 一天请喝一品脱牛奶。 c. the use of new coined and strange words advertisements often invent new and strange words to highlight products characteristics: novel, creative and original, so that they can satisfy the consumers who are fond of following fashion. when we translate these new coinages and strange words into chinese, we should bring our imagi