Textual Function And Commercial Advertising Translation

Textual Function and Commercial Advertising TranslationBy informing the customers of the favorable information of a product or firm to the customers, commercial advertising intends to convince the customers into the action of buying and to help the build-up of the goodwill of the firm.Commercial advertising nowadays has become an influential power to the economy and development of a society. Due to the differences in respect of values, ideological moulds, life styles, and aesthetic values derived from the cultural differences among different nations, whether the original appeal designed in a commercial ad is fit for the taste of the target customers becomes the biggest difficulty in commercial advertising designing. Thus, some firms prefer to recreate an absolute new ad when the product is being promoted in a new foreign market. However, the high cost for redesigning and the time delayed for it are very likely to affect the anticipated result of the promotional activity. With the globalization of market and products, this thesis proposes that commercial advertising translation is a more feasible and effective way to realize the promotional task of the original ad in overseas market.In light of the Language Function Theory and Text-Types proposed by Peter Newmark and the Market Mix Theory proposed by Jerome McCarthy, this thesis endeavors to analyze the textual functions of commercial advertising and its translation on the basis of the functions of commercial ads and their translations in market. And based on the theory of "Semantic Translation" and "Communicative Translation" proposed by Peter Newmark, this thesis analyzes the techniques and methods constructive for commercial advertising translation with hope to provide help to the marketing strategies overseas.The main body of the whole thesis is composed of four chapters.Chapter One includes two sections. Section One firstly introduces the basic ideas of commercial advertising and its classification. Then, in consideration of the cultural values of commercial advertising, the cultural functions of commercial advertising is discussed and this thesis points out that commercial advertising is part of culture and influences culture. Section Two analyzes the present situation of commercial advertising and its translation on the basis of the cross-cultural communicative function of commercial advertising, and broadly studies the causes of the problems in existing translation.Chapter Two firstly introduces the Language Function Theory proposed by Peter Newmark, and discusses the categorization of texts and their corresponding textual functions. Based on the Market Mix Theory proposed by Jerome McCarthy, the functions of commercial advertising in promotion mix and during product cycle are analyzed to define the language functions of it. Then, combined with the theory of "semantic translation" and "communicative translation" proposed by Peter Newmark, the functions of commercial advertising translation are discussed with hope to seek out proper ways to solve the problems in existing translation of commercial advertising.Chapter Three focuses on the translation approaches of commercial advertising. Firstly, it analyzes the different emphases of textual functions in commercial ads of different appeals and points out that it is a must for the translator to realize the intention of the original advertiser and the textual functions of the original ad in his work. Secondly, it discusses the techniques and ways effective and constructive for commercial advertising translation of different appeals on the basis of the properties of appeals. In light of the methods proposed above, this part also points out that the translation of commercial advertising should take advantage of both semantic and communicative translation approaches to maintain the appeal and force of the original.Chapter Four discusses the translation of trademark. Trademark serves as the icon of a product or firm and is essentially important in promotional activity. In lig...