Advertising Language And Adapted Translation Of Advertisement

Advertising is something that we are all exposed to everyday. It is also something that is likely to affect us in a number of different spheres of our lives. Advertising takes many forms, but in most of them language is of crucial importance. The wording of advertisements is especially crafted to meet the purpose of informing, persuading and influencing. In today's world, with the extraordinary growth in the number of businesses operating internationally, the need of translating advertisement is increasing at a very rapid rate. However, advertising translation is still a relatively new subject in China that lacks sophisticated guiding theories or principles. Therefore, it is necessary to revisit the existing models of advertising translation and explore effective new approaches in this regard to meet the increasing demand of the international market.This thesis aims to discuss the characteristics of advertising language and advertising translation between English and Chinese. After a panoramic view of the whole thesis, the second chapter of the thesis discusses the linguistic features of advertising language in four perspectives, namely morphology, syntax, rhetoric and semantics. Based on the above understanding, the third chapter talks about advertising translation. The chapter starts with a brief account of the existing translation theories and an explanation of the translation process. It is followed up by a list of four approaches for translating advertisements, i.e. transliteration, free translation, literal translation and adapted translation.Adapted translation is defined here as a strategic means of advertising translation. It is developed from Nida's dynamic equivalent translation and Newmark's concept of semantic and communicative translation. Besides some commonly applied strategies in advertising translation between Chinese and English, the thesis discusses particular translation tips for translating English advertisements into Chinese or vice versa, taking into consideration the unique linguistic features of both languages. Besides the substantial details put into the linguistic perspective in advertising translation, cultural and marketing factors cannot afford to be ignored. Advertising reflects the culture of the society. Thus thorough understanding of both the source and target language cultures is required for the translator to capture the unique expectation of the target markets. Likewise, translators who possess knowledge of marketing will contribute to the final advertising product that is ready to go for the market at the lowest possible cost. A large number of examples were recorded and analyzed to support the theories advocated or tips offeredfrom practice.The concluding chapter reiterates that adapted translation based on Nida and Newmark's principles is the chosen approach for advertising translation, so to produce functionally adequate target texts especially tailored to the target audiences and achieve the ultimate goal of sales. To end the thesis, the author concludes that advertising translation is an intercultural topic and requires further study on intercultural communication. Thus a good command of both the source and target languages, extensive knowledge of intercultural communication and experience with real translation work are the key requirements for the translators of advertisements.