浅谈功能对等理论依据下的汽车广告翻译

1、ABSTRACT毕业设计(论文)A Study of Automobile Advertisement Translation from the Perspective of Functional Equivalence学生姓名:学号:专业:指导教师:学院:独创性声明本人郑重声明：所呈交的毕业设计（论文）是本人在指导教师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的研究成果。其中除加以标注和致谢的地方，以及法律规定允许的之外，不包含其他人已经发表或撰写完成并以某种方式公开过的研究成果，也不包含为获得其他教育机构的学位或证书而作的材料。其他同志对本研究所做的任何贡献均已在文中作了明确的说明并表示谢意。本毕业设计（

2、论文）成果是本人在新余学院期间在指导教师指导下取得的，成果归新余学院所有。特此声明。作者签名（手写）： 签名日期： 年 月 日版权使用授权书本毕业设计（论文）作者及指导教师完全了解新余学院有关保留、使用毕业设计（论文）的规定，有权保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交毕业设计（论文）的复印件和磁盘，允许毕业设计（论文）被查阅和借阅。作者签名（手写）： 指导教师签名（手写）：日期： 年 月 日 日期： 年 月 日 .Chapter One IntroductionAdvertisement was derived from a Latin word, advertere. It means a way

3、that can be used to arouse public attention to something, and influence their behavior. As a special language mode, advertisement has a long history. It is said that commercial advertisement appeared at British newspaper in the early 1600s. In the process of economic globalization and integration, c

4、ountries all over the world have inevitably become a part of the world economy system. During international economic exchange, the material exchanges which are represented by goods become one of the most important things. Therefore, advertisement translation plays an important role in the internatio

5、nal trade. As we all know, USA is called a country on wheels. It shows the importance of automobile industry. With the development of economy and the improvement of peoples living standard, automobile has become very popular in our daily life. And the automobile advertisement translation problems em

6、erge followed on it. The famous American translation theorist Eugene A. Nida had came up with the theory of functional equivalence in 1969. He gave the definition of translation as follows.Translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence of source language

7、 message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.1Thus, the translator should obey translation principles and methods, and pay attention to the factor of culture. A successful advertisement can gain enormous benefits. At the same time, it can promote culture exchange and win the fa

8、vor of consumers. On the contrary, a failed advertisement will not only get the desired result, but also make consumers feel confused, and lose interest in the product.Automobile advertisement translation is not only related to product reputation, sales volume and economic benefits, but to some exte

9、nt also reflects the cultural quality of the country and the nation. 2 Therefore, translators need to pay attention to the response of the target readers.The whole thesis will be divided into seven chapters. The first chapter is the introduction and outline of the paper. The second chapter is litera

10、ture review. The third chapter is advertisement translation and automobile advertisement translation. It consists of two parts, discussing advertisement and automobile advertisement. The fourth chapter is the influence of different culture. It studies on values, taboos, customs, and religions. The f

11、ifth chapter is functional equivalence theory, mainly about four parts. It discusses from Nidas functional equivalence theory and some problems. The sixth chapter is translation methods for automobile advertisement. It discusses several methods of advertisement translation, such as literal translati

12、on, free translation, loan translation and creative translation. Last chapter is the conclusion part. This part draws a conclusion of the research and some suggestions and implications are given based on the findings of the study.Chapter Two Literature ReviewPeople have various definitions of advert

13、isement for a long time. Almost without exception, they think that translation is the core part of international sales. It bears the business profit, and cross-culture communication. As the symbol of global economic, automobile advertisement translation becomes one of the most important things to en

14、ter international market. Therefore, translators need to pay much attention to customers response.This essay will focus on the automobile advertisement translation. And it makes an analysis of automobile advertisement function and significance. In order to promote the development of the pluralistic

15、society and enhance cross-cultural exchange, it has a great important value to understand the advertisement translation. Thus, this essay, targeting at improving translation level and promoting cross-cultural communication, makes a close analysis of motor advertisement expressions, including the def

16、inition, the culture difference between east and west, the translation theory of functional equivalence, and the translation strategies based on Nidas functional equivalence theory.It has a long history of the study on the advertisement translation. Many scholars have made deep research on the trans

17、lation of advertisement and generally formed their own theories which have been accepted by the translation circle. These researches can be divided into three categories, the research on the culture difference between east and west in advertisement translation, the influence of marketing in advertis

18、ement translation, the influence of economics and finance and so on. It is referred to many books about advertisement. Whereas, there are most of scholars put their emphasis on the influence of culture difference. It can be summarized as follows.Firstly, the influence of culture difference between e

19、ast and west. This part refers to history and the way of thinking. Secondly, advertisement has influence on marketing. This part mentioned the study of marketing and the study of advertisement are closely related. It is applied to everything these days. Thirdly, advertisement has impact on economics

20、. For this part, many scholars start to analyze various factors of the relationship between advertisement and globalization. And they come up with some strategies of advertisement.There are many researches in China and overseas. They study the advertisement in different ways and from different angle

21、s. Different with them, in this thesis the author pointed to the methods of automobile advertisement translation.In this article, it focuses on advertisement translation methods under the guidance of functional equivalence. According to functional equivalence theory, translators choose the best tran

22、slation methods during the automobile advertisement translation process. And there are mainly four translation methods.The first translation method is literal translation. We use this method when we can find the equivalent expressions in both the Chinese and the English. Original advertisement: New

23、Audi A4: We would never say the new Audi A4 is the best in its class. We dont have to.Translation:我们根本不必说新型奥迪A4是同类车中最好的，没这个必要。Original advertisement: BMW: Sheer driving pleasure.Translation:宝马汽车：纯粹的驾驶乐趣。The second translation method is free translation. It can make a person in different country have

24、 beautiful vision of products. For example,Original advertisement: Volvo: For life, life.Translation:沃尔沃：关爱生命，享受生活。The third translation method is loan translation. Make customers have a same reflection.Original advertisement: Mitsubishi: Not all cars are created equal.Translation:三菱汽车：并非所有的汽车都有相同的品

25、质。The fourth translation method of my thesis is creative translation. That means when you want to translate, you have to understand the usage and its cultural connotation and know clearly the real meaning, symbolic meaning and deeper meaning.Original advertisement: BMW: To protect others, first prot

26、ect yourself.Translation:宝马：防范至上。Above all, if we want to translate the advertisement clearly, the most important thing is that we should keep the same function of original advertisement and translation in mind. “People should know the purpose of translation”. 3 From where the author stands, the dev

27、elopment of translation cannot rely on its own. Instead, it is developing with the economy, culture, and any respect of the society. To translate the best writings, we should combine the theory and practice. .Chapter Three Advertisement and Automobile Advertisement3.1The definition and characteristi

28、cs of advertisement Most of scholars think advertisement contains a lot of things, and has many implications. There are many different views from different persons who have invested in advertisement. Weil Basher made a summary of those different views. “Advertisement is a kind of commercial behavior

29、. Advertisers and marketers are using it to make profits through the mass media. And they hope customers can accepted and believed the information of products.American Marketing Association gives a definition of it. “Advertisement is the non-personal communication usually paid for and persuasive in

30、nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media.” We can give the definition of advertisement language in both broad sense and narrow sense. For broad sense part, advertisement language is various linguistic that uses in advertisement communication. It consi

31、sts of pure linguistic means and non-linguistic means. As for narrow sense part, advertisement is mere language and literary device that using in advertisement communication.From the above definitions, we can know the most basic function of advertisement was provided information to audience. Except

32、spreading information and arousing peoples desire to buy the product, it also can help to establish a good brand image. Overall, advertisement has educational function, cultural function, social function and economic function. In order to achieve these functions, G.N Leech put forward an abbreviatio

33、n principle called “AIDA”. It means attention, interest, desire, and action. 4 He thought that a good advertisement should arouse peoples attention and awaken the potential interest. Then it caused their desire to buy the advertisement products. Finally, people put their desire into buying behavior.

34、Advertisers often useseveral of media to transfer information. The automobile advertisement also use the same way. Motor producer usually promoting sales through different media, such as TV, advertisement, radio, poster, magazine and internet.3.2 Automobile advertisement languageIt was not until 20t

35、h century that the first car was born. Therefore, automobile advertisement is a new field in the history of advertisement. To us, there is no definition of automobile advertisement at present. We can define the automobile advertisement language through summarized the basic definition of automobile a

36、nd advertisement. “Automobile advertisement language is a kind of communication modes. It can provide basic information, service and culture of automobiles. Advertisers transmitted advertisement through mass media.”Before analyzing the translation of automobile advertisement which is a part of trans

37、lation, we need to look back to the advertisement translation.Foreign advertisement translation studies were introduced in 1970s. Since the beginning of twentieth century, the auto industry has become one of the most important manufacturing industries. When the first “Ford Model T” was made in 1906,

38、 mass production has been introduced into the manufacturing industry. If a producer wants to play to mass production advantage, they must have huge market demand. Thus, we need do some advertisement. At present, cars are ubiquitous tools in our daily lives. This is very much due to auto advertisemen

39、t. In the 1920s to 1960s of America, a large number of print advertisements were used to promote auto sales. And it is also called “golden age of period ads” in America. It is well known that the United State can be described as “a country on wheels”. In addition to advanced mass production technolo

40、gies and efficient transportation systems, the automobile advertisement also has an irreplaceable influence.In China, along with the opening to the outside world and the establishment of socialist market economy, auto advertisement developed at the unimaginable speed in the past 20 years. Auto adver

41、tisement has developed rapidly in recent years along with the soaring of Chinese automobile market, especially the family-car market. Therefore, translators need to study on the characteristic of automobile advertisement language and the translation between east and west; they can get much idea of m

42、otor information. And it also has a practical meaning of China automobile industry.Chapter Four The Influence of Culture DifferenceTranslation is a kind of language activities. It transforms one language into another language. 5But for social culture part, there are many differences between Chinese

43、and Western people which make people have different cut-in points and notions on the same thing. The same thing has different ideas under different culture background. Accordingly, we must consider the cross cultural factors in our advertisement translation. 4.1 The influence of different valuesChin

44、ese has been affected by Confucianism for a long time, people stick to loyalty, piety, benevolence and righteousness in their cultural value. The character of Chinese is self-discipline and introversion. However, the westerners are not the same. They tend to be characterized by strong personality an

45、d extroversion. The value of westerners is that they put money in a very important position, and the doctrine is unchangeable.People are sensitive about the money. Take the word “expensive” as an example; westerners are more sensitive about the word than Chinese. Sometimes, Chinese thinks expensiven

46、ess is stands for high grade, high quality and high level products. For instance, some of advertisement agents emphasized that their product was the most expensive and the best one in the area. Under the influence of “Cheap things are not good, good things are not cheap”, Chinese customers will not

47、resent “expensive”. But in the west, the first response is that “Its too expensive to me, of course I dont want it.” Generally speaking, it should describe the expensive products in an acceptable way, like “not cheap, not the cheapest.” Sometimes, the advertisement also use words “reasonable, compet

48、itive” to give people a clear message. During translation we cant translate expensive directly. We also need pay attention to the different values between east and west when we deal with money. 4.2 The influence of different aesthetic sensesCarrying out the advertisement translation, we must conside

49、r the difference in aesthetic. In cross cultural translation, especially auto advertisement translation, the translators need pay attention to content. It should suit with public aesthetic view, and make human connect beautiful things or have a nice psychical reactions to advertisement. We need to b

50、e familiar with foreign culture and aesthetic; otherwise we would make mistakes in exported commodities translation. For instance:A. The race for perfection has no finish line. Watch us push it to the extremes at the Malaysian Grand Prix. The future of automobile. Mercedes Benz. 6B.破界而行，灵感新生。英菲尼迪It

51、shows that “perfection” and “push to the extremes” are very appealing to westerners. The advertisement makes people think that nothing is impossible. And it encourages public to challenge themselves. Thats what most westerners appreciated. And the customers would be willing to buy this car to satisf

52、y their standard of living.But for advertisement B, the peace and harmony of nature have been emphasized. It reflected the aesthetic of Chinese culture.Here is another example about Nike. It described a scene of NBA star Lebrun James beating Kungfu master and China Dragon. Because the advertisement

53、dose not respects Chinese culture, the government of China banned it. Nike Company apologized publicly for this reason. The new advertisement shows that young people incorporated sport into their daily life. There are also many successful cases, like Beyond Your Dreams. Which is translated into 比亚迪.

54、 The translation of Infiniti is英菲尼迪. 乐凯 translate into English is Lucky. Those slogans have not only kept syllable, but also satisfied our aesthetic view. 4.3 The influence of taboos and customsTaboo and custom must not be overlooked in advertisement translation. For this part, the cross-culture tra

55、nslation needs to consider many factors. Because it has influenced the international market extend.4.3.1 TaboosTaboo is both a widespread social and cultural phenomenon. It is also a special outcome of peoples social mentality. And the differences of languages will lead to different taboos. Maybe, a

56、 positive word in west is a taboo in east. So it plays an important role of trademarks translation. Paying much attention to this part, we can avoid many unnecessary mistakes and disputes.Coke Cola company launches a new product named “zero sugar” and make it enter Chinese market. But its translatio

57、n is“零糖”. There is a same pronunciation Chinese word that means mourning hall. Although the trademark is translated in a straightforward way, however, it does not give a good feeling to consumers. Some superstitious people thought that product was unlucky, and refused to buy it. Therefore, it was tr

58、anslated in “无糖”. That means sugar free, and this word can avoid misunderstanding. In China, some places use the similar sounding words to express happiness. Most of Chinese like to say something about happiness. Because the Chinese words “chicken” and “happiness” have similar sounds, people always

59、use chicken in many kinds of happy events as a mascot. But the English word “chicken” has a lot of bad implied meanings. It means timid. “Count ones chickens before they are hatched” means overconfident. It is a derogatory sentence. The following table is about the figure with taboo cultures, we sho

60、uld avoid these in advertisement translation. Table4-3-1FigureFigureCountryCultural association4Chinadeath, unfortunate3、6、9Chinawell, permanently8Chinaprosperity7Westernpositive13Westernunfortunate666UKdevil3Beninwitchcraft4.3.2 CustomsAs a common phenomenon, language is peoples long-term accumulat