A Study On Advertisement Translation-From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Advertisement is a practical style of writing with high commercial value, it is also one of the main means of propagandizing the products. With the rapid progress of the world economy and the frequent international economic exchanges, the translation of advertisement is becoming more and more important. How to keep the charm of the original advertisement after translating is of great significance, it will do benefit to the development of the world economy and the international economic exchanges.Recent years witness the great achievements of the advertisement translation studies both in the West and in China. Yet in China, not enough attention is paid to the advertisement translation, most of the studies are just limited to some superficial aspects like linguistic or rhetorical features, the traditional translation theories can not satisfy the need of advertisement translation and achieve the final purpose of the advertisement. More theories are expected to guide the advertisement translation.Verschueren's Adaptation Theory is a relatively new-born pragmatic theory, it claims that the process of using language is a process of the continuous making of choices, consciously or unconciously, for language-internal and/or language-external reasons. According to Verschueren, language has three features: variability, negotiability and adaptability, and adaptability is the core of the language using; people may explain language phenomena from four interrelated angles: contextual correlates, structural objects, dynamics and salience of the adaptation process. This thesis attempts to explore how, under this theoretical framework, different and yet interdependent constraints on the translation process play their roles in the translation of advertisement through the comparison between the source text and the target text.The thesis is composed of four chapters besides the introduction and the conclusion, the first chapter is a brief introduction to advertisement, telling that the final purpose of the advertisement is to persuade the readers to make purchases. In the second chapter, the writer mainly reviews the advertisement translation studies at home and abroad, pointing out the problems existing in the current research in China. The third chapter makes a full explanation of the new-born Adaptation Theory, analyzes its feasibility as the guiding theory to advertisement translation. The last chapter is the most important part of the thesis, it explores how the Adaptation Theory is applied into the advertisement translation practice especially on two aspects: contextual correlates of adaptability and structrual objects of adaptability. The writer analyzes adaptation to the structrual objects(linguistic reality) in advertisement translation from three points: lexical, syntactic and rhetoric orientation, and discusses adaptation to contextual correlates in advertisement translation from the physical world, the social world and the mental world. Through the analysis, the author finds that the process of advertisement translation in fact is a process of continuous choice-making of language forms and translating strategies to achieve the commercial purpose of the advertisement.This research is a tentative attempt to study advertisement translation within the theoretic framework of adaptation theory, hoping to provide a new prospective and some enlightenment to advertisement translation.