Applying Functional Equivalence Theory To Advertising Translation: Guidelines To Bilingual Copywriters

China's entry into WTO affected global advertising. Multinational companies became extremely ambitious of Chinese market, dedicating to expand a solid territory in respective realms. Spontaneously, an advertising war was provoked during the competition. Consequently, since boundaries are crossed, advertising finds itself relying on translation greater than ever. While copywriters get more involved in English language and translation in their jobs, growing number of professional translators start to launch their new career in advertising agencies, especially in the creative department. The author defines the person who translates advertisement and writes copies in non-mother-tongue as Bilingual Copywriter.Based on the experience of interning in a multinational advertising agency and the understanding of translation theories, the author concentrates the study on the translation of English advertisements into Chinese, the main translation task for Chinese bilingual copywriters. Constructed under the direction of Nida's functional equivalence theory, the thesis is composed of five chapters:Chapter One, on one hand, has a bird's-eye view of the history and status quo of advertising; on the other hand, it specifies how advertising interrelates with related subjects, such as Economics, Public relationships, Literature, Translating and so forth. Finally, it states the purpose and significance of the thesis, that is, to provide bilingual copywriters with a theatrical approach in advertising translating.Chapter Two deals with the basic knowledge of advertising that must be primarily acquired by bilingual copywriters with translation background, including the definition, the components and classification of advertisements, the composition of an advertising agency together with the responsibility of each department, and the characteristics of advertising language. Particularly, an elaborate description of Bilingual Copywriter, a concept put forward by the author, is provided.A literature review of functional equivalence theory makes up the first part of Chapter Three, with a distinguishing of functional equivalence and dynamic equivalence. In the second part, in response to the various challenges to functional equivalence theory, the feasibility of applying functional equivalence theory to advertising translation is argued.Chapter Four focuses on how to produce functional equivalence in practice. Six principles suggested by Nida are quoted and discussed through the instances of English copies collected by the author, and a possible Chinese version of each illustration containing functional equivalence is respectively proposed by the author.The thesis is summarized in the conclusion chapter, expecting the possible contributions of the thesis to the practice of English-Chinese advertising translation in China, especially the instructional significance for bilingual copywriters. In the end, limitations of the thesis are presented with suggestions on future researches.