Study Of Advertising Translation From The Perspective Of Functionalist Approaches

With the further deepening of the police of opening to the outside, China's market economy has been developing rapidly; international trade has been growing gradually. To gain bigger international market shares and establish international images, advertising has been playing a significant role in the international market. Thus, the importance of advertisement translation has been concerning, whilst the economic development puts higher requirements on advertisement translation.Advertisement is a commercial and practical stylist, which is a special stylist. As an operative ext, the ultimate purpose of advertising is to persuade consumers to buy the products and services advertised. The different stylistic features and particular purpose decide the complication of advertising translation. Hence, the linguistic and cultural differences between Chinese and English turn advertisement translation into an importance method for companies to success in international market. Thus, the peculiar stylist, the special purpose of advertising and the translation theories have to be combined when translating advertising and studying the principles and strategies of translation theories. However, advertising translation theories have not been well developed in current China. The traditional linguistic-oriented translation theories cannot meet the requirement of modern practical and special advertising translation while functionalist approaches provide a new perspective and powerful theory support.Functionalist approaches put forward in 1970s by several German scholars, mainly including Katharina Reiss, Hans J. Vermeer, Justa Holz Manttari, and Christiane Nord. Functionalist approaches provided a new perspective for translation studies. Functionalist approaches take into consideration the functions of texts and translation in the real situation of professional translation, it shift away from the then predominantly equivalence-based linguistic-oriented translation theories. According to Skopotheories, the predominant rule is skopo theory,"The end justifies the mean."It is the skopos (the purpose) of the translation which determines the translation methods and strategies that a translator may adopt in order to produce a functionally adequate translation. The approaches present that translation is a purposeful action based on the source text. It provides a theoretical basis for unconventional translation strategies as abridgement, adaptation and imitation. Thus, functionalist approaches can effectively guide advertising translation.