Intertextuality In Advertisements And Translation Strategies

The great value of intertextuality has been proved in the translation process by lots of researchers and advertising translation has become more and more important in the commodity society. With this background, this thesis aims to find out some effective translation strategies with the guidance of intertextuality.Through the analysis of printed ads, the functions of intertextuality have been demonstrated in this thesis. Intertextuality can be of great help to improve the memory, attention and association values of ads, and it can also help translators to interpret the original text correctly and improve the quality of translation. Then the author analyzes the common types of intertextuality namely generic, cultural, specific and media intertextuality. In the following part, the frequently used intetextual techniques--citations, parody and allusions are analyzed and proved to be quite helpful to achieve the functions of ads. Through the study of intertextuality in advertising texts and their translated versions, it has been found out that intertextual knowledge is of great value for the translators to decode the original ads and adapt the translation to the linguistic habits and cultural customs of the target consumers. Besides, intertextual knowledge of the target readers plays a crucial role on the effect of the translated ads because intertextuality will bring association and imagination to help them interpret the ads which are usually full of cultural and linguistic connotation. In a word, intertextuality is of great value in ads translation.Based on the analysis above, the author gives out the enlightenment from intertextuality theory on ads translation. The translators can employ the superiority of the source and target languages, have close attention on pop culture and put emphasis on linguistic differences, cultural differences and psychological needs of target audience. The translators can also make full use of their creativity and subjectivity to adopt the translation to the target culture. With consideration of the intertextual texts in the translation process, translators can rewrite, imitate or try some other methods to make up the intertextual contexts according to different situations. In a manner of speaking, to adjust the intertexutal context to the target culture is the relatively difficult part for advertising translators which are usually short but full of cultural connotations. Based on the intertextuality theoy, the author puts forward the corresponding translation strategies for ads translation, namely transliteration, literal translation, creative translation, adaptation translation, distribution translation, imitation translation and translation based on the common intertextual techniques. Meanwhile, the author uses a large number of living examples to illustrate the translation methods with the hope that they can be helpful for translators.