Advertising Translation In Cross-cultural Perspective

Everyone lives and works in the world which is influenced by advertising. As a matter of fact, advertising has penetrated into our lives and enriched our culture. With the development of Chinese economy and accelerating globalization, advertising business is growing at a surprising speed. China has become one of the top ten advertising giants in the world today. Advertising translation, as a type of cross-cultural communication and a new field of study, is receiving more and more attention. The Chinese advertisements should be translated into target language with appropriate strategy to meet the needs and expectations of the consumers. So the advertising translation plays a very important role in the development of economy.However, the translation from English to Chinese is far from our satisfaction. It still stays at a very low level. Most advertisements are translated just in the literal level, but little attention has been paid to the difference between the two cultures. Translators always neglect the features and the functions of advertisements. Many problems exist in the translation.Richard E. Porter, one of scholars who early studied cross-cultural communication, states that cultural difference is the main obstacle in cross-cultural communication and it should be taken into consideration when communicating with other nations. Jin Huikang, a professor in linguistics, points out "in the translation of cross-cultural communication, translators always come across some things, articles and concepts that can not be understood and expressed by their native language. They have to face another different language and culture."(2005:296)The study of cross-cultural communication is try to solve the problems caused by cultural differences through probing into the causes of communicative barriers, cultural conflicts and the effective ways of avoiding communicative misunderstanding and wrongly translation. Cross-cultural translation is a communication activity done by people of different cultural backgrounds. Advertising translation can be regarded as a form of cross-cultural communication. Due to the differences of language and culture, a good advertisement, when translated, may not be successful to the target audience.The thesis emphasizes the importance of advertising translation in perspective of cross-cultural communication. It aims at exploring advertising translation under the guidance of cross-cultural communication and the western translation theories. It includes following points:1. Because of the special purposes and social functions, advertising language has its unique stylistic characteristics, which determines that advertising translation should have its own principles, criterions and approaches.2. The western theories, such as Nida's Functional Equivalence theory, Peter Newmark's Communicative Translation and Vermeer's Skopostheorie are very instructive in advertising translation.3. Language is the carrier of culture. Advertising language is also embedded in its specific culture. Thus, advertising translation should meet the requirements of the cultural properties of the advertising languages.4. As an important part of international marketing strategy, the overwhelming function of advertising is to promote sales. Therefore, the criterion to judge an effective translation is whether it can best serve the Skopos of advertising. Translations that can best help promote sales in the target cultural environment are good translation. Literal translation, free translation, adaptation and creative translation are all approaches to achieve the purpose.5.The cultural properties of advertising language determine the orientation of advertising translation from literalism to culturalism.