A Study Of The Translation Of Commercial Advertisements From The Perspective Of Nida's Functional Equivalence

As a kind of practical text type with high business value, an advertisement must contain persuasive power and"memory value". With the increase of international exchanges, advertising translation has become very important. Since the 1960s when Eugene Nida, the American translation theorist, advocated the functional equivalent theory, it has cast a profound impact on the translation circles in the world. Eugene A. Nida is a distinguished American translation theorist as well as linguist. Regarded as the most influential one among all contemporary translation theorists, Nida was named as the"father of modern translation theory". His core theory is"dynamic equivalence". Later, Nida decided to use the term"functional equivalence"to replace the often misunderstood"dynamic". Many Chinese translation theorists such as Jin Di and Tan Zaixi have long been appraising the functional equivalent theory. This theory is mainly based on the translation practice of the Bible. Comparatively speaking, the overall function of Bible and advertising is to persuade its target readers into certain behavior, one to persuade its readers to follow the guidance of God while the other to persuade its readers to buy the advertised products. In this sense, the theory of equivalence should have its significant effect on advertising translation.This thesis mainly discusses how to realize cultural equivalence and aesthetics equivalence in advertising translation through applying the functional equivalence. From relatively through analysis, the author notices two completely different phenomena in the field of advertisement translation. On one hand, professional and effective translation of English advertisements into Chinese; while on the other hand, relatively poor and ineffective translation of Chinese advertisements into English. Therefore, the author concentrates the study on the translation of Chinese advertisements into English. Also the author introduces practicable translation strategies though applying Nida's functional equivalence theory.The structure of this paper goes as following:Chapter 1 begins with a brief introduction, which presents the purpose, significance, the structure of the thesis and the study materials and research methods it uses.Chapter 2 focuses on the literature review, which introduces the previous studies and relevant translation theories in this field. The author elaborates on Nida's functional equivalence theory, which guides advertising translation effectively.Chapter 3 concentrates on the dynamic/functional equivalence theory.Chapter 4 is the core part of this thesis. Firstly it gives a brief introduction to advertising and advertising translation. Advertisement has its own characteristics and is restrained by a lot of aspects. And the advertising translation is limited by many aspects. And then it mainly talks about the functional equivalence approach to advertising translation. The author analyzes the feasibilities of functional equivalence theory in advertising translation and explores suitable strategies in light of functional equivalence theory in order to seek the closest natural equivalence.The last chapter is the conclusion of this thesis. It summarizes the whole thesis, objectively states the possible contributions of the thesis to the field of advertisement translation, and points out the limitations of the thesis with suggestions on future research efforts.