Functional Translation Theory And Advertisement Translation

Advertising translation has become extremely important as an instrument of inter-lingual communication and cultural exchange. Various kinds of translation theories have been put forward as man's understanding of translation becomes deeper and deeper. It is under this kind of circumstances that the functional concept of translation was put forward by some German scholars in 1970s. Owing to the great contributions done by Katharina Reiss, Hans Vermeer, Justa-Holz Manttari and Christiane Nord, the concept developed into the sound system of the functional translation theory. Different from the equivalence-based theories, it dethrones the authority of the source-text and puts the translation study into the framework of the action theory and cross-cultural communication theory. Translation in this theory is defined as a part of translational action which is viewed as the process of transferring message transmitters produced by translators. And translation is characterized by the intentional, communicative, intercultural, interpersonal and text-producing features. Essentially, the theory involves viewing translation as a purposeful activity and the focus of this theory is on the function or functions of texts and translations, especially the target- text's function. As Vermeer puts, the overall frame of reference for the translator should not be the original and its function, as equivalence-based theory would have it, but the function or set of functions the target-text is to achieve in the target culture.This theory tries to liberate translation from the constraints of the source-text and to expound the translating action from the translator's perspective. Thus it has opened up a new perspective to translation studies. First, the functional translation theory has directive function to translation practice. It enlightens us to do translation and to evaluate translation with multi-dimensional criteria because the adequacy criterion is a dynamic concept. Second, the concept 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 methods such as abridgement, adaptation and so on. As a result, a study on various translation varieties is evoked in China.The first chapter gives a detailed introduction of the basic concepts of the German functionalist approach to translation, including the background, the development and the enlightenment of the nucleus theory"Skopos theory"towards the advertising English translation. Next, a discussion of the major linguistic features of English advertising texts is conducted from three perspectives: linguistics, grammatical and rhetorical aspects. At present, advertising in China as well as in the United States has become virtually impossible for people to avoid or escape, because ads are so pervasive, aggressive, repetitive, and intrusive. And in most cases, advertising works by using language in a given cultural environment. This is one of the paper's focus points. In chapter three, the thesis approaches in details the comparative study between them in a cultural angle. It is concluded that advertisements translation is not just a SL-TL linguistic operation, but often a specialized adaptation process according to factors of the target language. Then, by authentic examples, the writer attempts to explore some successful translation techniques applicable to advertisement translation in light of the German functionalist approach which are adaptation, abridgement, imitation and structure-borrowing.This thesis is intended to explore the functionalist theory and the major characteristics of English advertising texts, to produce a solid theoretical framework for advertising translation study, and to guide advertisement translation. The thesis aims to bridge the gap between the abundant advertising translation practice and the principles for translating English advertising texts. It is sincerely hoped that this thesis will somewhat enrich the theories of translation and contribute to advertising translation.