An Analysis On Advertising And Its Translation From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

With the booming of the international economy, products from different regions are sold everywhere in the world. Advertising as a method of promoting sales has deeply entered into our daily lives. The advertisements which come from multinational companies and international businesses have become a large part of the entire business world. As a result, advertising translation is up to a growing need on efficient international businesses. Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theory has become a new theory of translation, which treats translation as an ostensive-inferential process. In advertising translation, the translator should firstly get the advertiser's communicative intention, and then both informative and communicative intentions should be transferred to the target audience by the translator. And at the same time, the optimal relevance is achieved. This paper approaches advertising translation from the perspective of Relevance Theory and analyzes advertising translation strategies.The thesis consists of five chapters. The author begins with the introduction and provides approach and methodology to this thesis. After introducing the general idea of the whole paper, the essay reviews Relevance Theory by illustrating a theoretic foundation, including cognitive environments, ostensive-inference communication, contextual effects, and optimal relevance. In the third chapter, the author reviews advertising from the definition, functions and language features to find out the unique language usages on advertising. The fourth chapter is a study on the guidance of Relevance Theory to advertising translation on rhetorical figure level and culture aspects. In the fifth chapter, the author introduces some advertising translation strategies including literal translation, free translation, transliteration, and adaptation under Relevance Theory. In the end, the conclusion part summarizes the whole paper.