On Chinese-English Translation Of Brand Names From Culture Aspect

With China's entry into the WTO, more and more Chinese enterprises have the opportunities to compete on the world stage. In the process of exploring into the world market, Chinese enterprises have come to the realization that one of their most valuable assets is the brand names associated with their products or services. Therefore, it's not only necessary but urgent for people to make a study of Chinese brand names and their translation.Brand name itself is not only a linguistic phenomenon, or a simple translation from the source language to the target language. A successful translation of Chinese brand names blends various elements together with a unique way in which various aspects of knowledge might be involved, such as translation theory, history, culture, aesthetics, psychology, sociology. So, to some extent, the translation of Chinese brand names is the study of culture.However, from the analysis of brand name translation in China, the author notices a special phenomenon: people made professional and effective translation of English brand names into Chinese, while relatively poor and ineffective translation of Chinese brand names into English.Owing to the limitions of the previous studies and the significance of Chinese brand name translation, the thesis first makes a study of the basic functions and cultural characteristics of the Chinese brand names, as well as typical characteristics of Chinese culture, and then further analyzes the root cause of the"special phenomenon", the cultural differences. Based on the discussion of cultural differences like different beliefs, different thought patterns, different concepts of values and different figurative associations, the author expounds the current problems appearing in the translation of Chinese-English brand names, which include 1) abusing of Chinese Pinyin, 2) redundance in translated brand names and 3) neglect of cultural differences in the translation of Chinese brand names into English .As the translation of brand names is related to the function of brand names,and the realization of function of brand names should take into consideration the consumers'acceptance and culture. Therefore, based on the above discussion, the thesis proposes Nida's"functional equivalence theory"as the principle for producing culturally effective English renderings of Chinese brand names. And in accordance with this principle, it summarizes the following common methods, such as 1)literal translation 2)liberal translation 3)transliteration 4)combination of literal translation, liberal translation and transliteration.In a word, through the comparative thorough analysis of the translating of Chinese brand names into English from cultural aspect, the author hopes it will increase understanding of the important issues in translating Chinese brand names and provide appropriate theory and methods to make the special cross-cultural communication more successful.