Advertising Translation From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

With the quick development of Chinese economy and accelerating globalization process, advertising business is growing at an incredible speed. China has become one of the top ten advertising giants in the world today. Advertising translation, as a type of intercultural communication and a new field of study, is receiving more attention than ever before. But as a matter of fact, in spite of the large amount of practices, the theoretical study on this new field is still relatively retardant in China. Among the current studies on this subject, most of them dug into the pros and cons of specific translation strategies, but failed to find out an overall guiding principle for the general advertising translation practice.That is because advertisements are of a very practical type of writing with high commercial value, and the ultimate purpose of all advertisements is the same---to promote sales or service. And so is the advertising translation. If the translator rigidly adheres to the original form and content in advertising translation, the translation may not produce the persuasive effect and may lead to the failure of promoting sales or service in the target market. Therefore, a more practical theory and translation techniques are called for.As a break with the traditional translation ideas and an important complement to translation studies, the functionalist conconcept of translation put forward by some German scholars Reiss, Vermeer and Nord, has opened up a new perspective to the study of advertising translation. According to Vermeer's"Skopostheorie", any action has its purpose and so has any form of translation. The prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose (Skopos) of the overall translational action, and translation strategies and methods are determined by the purpose and the intended function of the target text (Translation Skopos). Within the framework of Skopostheorie, the Skopos rule is the top-ranking rule for any translation, and the other rules, e.g. the coherence rule and fidelity rule, are subordinate to the Skopos rule.Due to the barriers of language and culture, a successful advertisement, when translated, may not be successful to the target audience. That is because when the...