Advertising Translation From The Functionalist Perspective

With the rapid development of international business and multinational companies there is a growing need for efficient international advertising communication and translation. The amount of advertising translation is already substantial, and keeps increasing. However, incommensurate with its importance in cross- cultural communication, advertising translation is still an underexplored field which has not yet been adequately studied in the discipline of translation. As a branch of translation study, advertising translation has its own laws and demands a systematic study. This thesis approaches advertising translation from the perspective of functionalist theory and discusses advertising translation standard and strategies with the aim to practically help improve ad translation from Chinese to English.Functionalist approach to translation is characterized by its target-orientedness. This theory emphasizes the functionality of the target text in the target culture. Under the theory, the original text is not the only source of material that translators can work on. Translators are encouraged to make full use of various sources of information and they are entitled to choose whatever translation strategies he thinks appropriate to achieve the expected functions of the translation. Functionalist approach to translation has opened up a new perspective to translation studies. The major contribution of functionalist approach to translation is that it enriches the theory of translation criterion through the introduction of the function and/or the purpose of the target text as the decisive criterion of all translation. (Schaffner, 1998:1). And another contribution of the theory is that it provides a theoretical basis for some unconventional translation strategies such as adaptation and rewriting.Such translation strategies are frequently employed in advertising translation.The analysis of the real-life phenomena in advertising translation indicates that to achieve its expected functions in the target culture, ad translation is not an imitative activity of reproducing faithfully the message of the source text but a dynamic one of creative interpretation which suggests adaptations of the original text to the target culture are usually intentionally made by translators to overcome the cultural barrier to international advertising.The nature of ad translation determines that translation concepts and conventions are subject to changes when ad translation standard is established. "Functional equivalence" is a representative among the discussion of ad translation standard. Its feasibility, however, is questioned, especially when the ad is only targeted at overseas markets. Without the original text as a rigid reference, the evaluation of translation becomes subtler. So to find another pivot is the key to the evaluation of ad translation. Functionalism emphasizes the functionality of translation in the target culture, therefore, the commercial effect of an ad translation in the target culture is put forward as a yardstick of ad translation in this thesis. Generally speaking, three kinds of commercial effect of ads can be observed, namely, positive effect, zero effect and negative effect. An ad translation which brings positive effect is regarded as a good one, which means the translation contributes to an increase in brand awareness and demand on the promoted product in the target market. The potential problem of this criterion is also discussed in this thesis.Translator's choice of translation strategies is always guided by the translation standard he adheres to. Direct transfer and adaptive transfer as two ad translation strategies are discussed in this thesis. Adaptive transfer herein means that inadvertising translation, cultural and linguistic adaptations of the target text to the target culture and audience are sometimes called for to make sure of the success of the advertising campaign. Facts have proved that adaptive transfer is usually more effective in dealing with the cultural barrier to international a...