Functionalist Approaches To Chinese-English Translation Of Foreign Publicity

Functionalist approaches, put forward by German scholars, advocates production of functionally appropriate target texts based on existing source texts, whose communication function(s) can be achieved in the target culture settings. At present, Chinese to English translation of foreign publicity lacks a solid theoretical foundation and there are lots of urgent problems in such translations, for instance, literal translation, ignorance of cultural differences, Chinglish, etc. This thesis touches upon the present conditions of Chinese to English translation of foreign publicity and explains general principles in Functionalist approaches. Chinese and English do have huge differences both language-wise and culture-wise, which a good translator should be able to spot, master and goes further to make adjustment and adaptations. Analysis of such differences makes another part of this thesis. The author tries to identify existing and potential problems in Chinese-to-English translation of foreign publicity through the points of view of Functionalist approaches, with problems in pragmatic, cultural, linguistic and text-specific aspects being discussed into great details. Then the paper strides into making solutions for translation of foreign publicity. Four general principles and fifteen specific tactics are raised, all backed up with convincing real-life cases.