A Study Of Brand Name Translation From The Perspective Of Pragmatic Equivalence

With the prosperity of the market and the rapid development of economic globalization, various products provide people with more choices to purchase. Brand name is’an important part of marketing and it provides a shortcut for people to know the products. As global branding becomes a trend, more and more people have an increasing realization of the importance of brand name as well as brand name translation for its functions in stimulating consumption and expanding domestic and overseas market. A good brand name can help a company to publicize its identity and promote the sales of its products and a well-translated one will make the products enter the international market with an easier access.Economic development gives birth to brand names. As a linguistic form with distinct features, brand name is not only the symbol of a brand, which often contains rich information, but also performs important pragmatic functions. It can be used to distinguish products, advertise products, symbolize reputation and stimulate consumption, etc. Brand name translation has an immediate impact on the sales of the products in other countries.Brand name translation has been under heated discussion in the translation circle. The thesis firstly makes a review on the researches made on brand name translation by the Chinese scholars since1980s and summarizes the periodical characteristics of these researches. Some elementary knowledge of brand name is explained, such as the definitions, classifications, features and values. Then an attempt to analyze how the pragmatic approach can be applied to brand name translation to achieve pragmatic equivalent effect is made.It is expected to fulfill the pragmatic force of the original brand names by adopting a pragmatic perspective to make research on brand name translation, which aims to realize the pragmatic equivalent effect of the brand names between different languages and under the influence of different cultures. The creativity of the thesis lies in the application of pragmatic equivalence theory to guide the brand name translation and in the analysis of how to deal with the pragmatic failures arising in brand name translation. Furthermore, most samples of the brand names and their corresponding translated versions to illustrate the pragmatic failures are mainly collected from the present market of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. According to Jenny Thomas’viewpoint (1983), pragmatic failures include pragmalinguistic failures and sociopragmatic failures, which mainly result from the linguistic and cultural differences between the source language and the target language. Translation is a process involving the transference of different languages and cultures. Therefore, in order to avoid pragmatic failures in brand name translation and realize pragmatic equivalent effect, due attention should be paid to both the linguistic and cultural differences between two nations. A successful and equivalent version is produced in brand name translation only when the translator conveys the pragmatic meaning of the source language correctly with an appropriate language form and makes it go by the pragmatic rules and cultural conventions of the target language. It is discovered that three methods are commonly applied to brand name translation, namely, transliteration, literal translation and mixed translation. Apart from these methods, the author proposes communicative translation and compensatory translation as complements, which can be used creatively to some cases of brand name translation. Translators should choose flexibly from different translation methods to get a suitable one to realize the pragmatic equivalent effect between the original brand name and its translated version.The aim of the present study, by the support of pragmatic theory and by way of case studies of brand name translation, is to provide some guiding significance to the Chinese-English translation of brand names. Good translations would bring advantage to the products. It’s hoped that more and more Chinese products, especially the products from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, can go into the international market successfully with an appropriate and remarkable brand name.