Intertextuality In Translation Practice

Since Julia Kristeva coined the word "intertextuality" in the 1960s,studies on the theory have flourished into many different fields.Applying intertextuality in translation studies is a dynamic way which studies the process from text writing, reading to translating with the involvement of social culture,historical context,and extension of concept and so on.In the research of translation practice,intertextuality is employed most frequently to analyze literature translation.In recent years,it began to be used in analyzing advertising,news,film titles and legal texts translation.The topic of this paper,translating names of residential buildings,belongs to advertising translation.As name is one of the promotion strategies of the real estate developers and its Chinese-to-English translation touches upon knowledge on many subjects such as semantic,pragmatic,semiotic and advertising,this research is an extension of intertextuality studies and detailed analysis of advertising translation.Against the background of rapid development of Chinese real estate market,both the Chinese and English names of the buildings are yet chaotic and problematic.After carrying out a qualitative and quantitative research of the English-translated names in Guangzhou,the author summarizes four ways of translation:pinyin treatment,pinyin treatment plus English generic word,word-to-word English translation and renaming, while pinyin treatment accounts for more than a half of the total.The author finds out that there are four kinds of problems for the English names. First,some of the generic names are misused.Second,some non-commonly-used words have increasing appearance in the specific names.Third,some English names confuse the audience.Fourth,some pinyin treatment is not standardized.The author deals with the translation of residential buildings' names from two perspectives:geographical names and commercial names.On the one hand,in accordance with the Regulation on Places'Names issued by the State Council in 1986 and "a single Romanization system" proposed at the Second United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names,pinyin treatment should be used in registering residential buildings in Chinese departments of civil affairs and indicating location and address on maps.It is for the benefits of the standardization of translation names of places in China as well as daily communication.It belongs to intralingual translation.On the other hand,since residential buildings are actually brands and products,they must achieve commercial effects in advertising.The translation of their names is a complex process of interlingual and intersemiotic translation,whose involvement of intertextuality is the key discussion of this paper.Starting from the wide concept of intertextuality and text,the author refers to Hatim & Mason's intertextuality theories and translation procedures as her framework. A number of typical examples of the English names are selected to show how to transfer intertextuality in translation by literary allusion,proverb,self-quotation and meditation with building's location,style and concept.The paper aims to demonstrate the role of intertextuality in translation practice,to clarify that the translating process involves intralingual,interlingual and intersemiotic translation,to summarize the operation system of translating names of residential buildings,and to standardize translation and advertising promotion..