Contrastive Research On Chinese & International Automobile Brand Naming

Brand naming, a burgeoning linguistic industry derived in the US more than 20 years ago, with the development of IT industry and new economy centered around Silicon Valley, has been flourishing as an practical business application of language with potential multi-disciplinary interests to linguistic community. Applying proper brand names to international markets remains a challenge to multinational corporations.Automobile industry has witnessed a booming market in China. Besides, the entry into the WTO in 2001 generates domestic and foreign economic consequences leading to China's further integration into the global economy. Naming automobile brands and having automobile brand names translated into culturally acceptable linguistic symbols becomes an even challenging business as culturally heterogeneous and linguistically diverse consumers drive the global marketplace.Based on data of Chinese and international automobile names, this paper attempts to make an empirical contrastive research on the automobile brand naming from both micro aspects and macro aspects. In the light of modern linguistic theories such as contrastive linguistics, phonetics, phonology, lexicology, and semantics, in the framework of intercultural communication, the research is to present insights into the translation of Chinese and international automobile brand names; to raise the awareness of Chinese native culture, globalization, and intercultural communication, out of the contrast research of the Chinese and international automobile brand naming(1) systematically and hierarchically.This paper is divided into six parts. Part 1, the introduction, is about the research objectives, literature review, and design of my research. Part 2, the related theories, illustrates the related linguistic theories, which support this research. Part 3, brand naming, introduces the concept of brand, brand-naming industry, and brand naming practice. Part 4, contrastive research, the body of this paper, makes the contrastive research from linguistic perspectives and cultural perspectives. Part 5 focuses on the translation principle and the strategies in automobile brand naming. Part 6, the conclusion, summarizes the research limits and future research.