On Metaphor Translation In English Advertising In Light Of Relevance Theory

In the modern society, with the rapid development of international business and marketeconomy, advertising has been permeated into every corner of our daily life. In Englishadvertising language, metaphor is widely used and turns out to be an effective andsignificant device. This paper is mainly concerned with the metaphor translation in Englishadvertising with relevance theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson, aiming at figuring out:(1)In accordance with Relevance Theory, how can the audience understand the deep meaning ofmetaphor from the surface structure of the advertising language?(2) In the process ofmetaphor translation in English advertising, what kind of translation strategies should beapplied to achieve the optimal relevance effect of the metaphor translation?This paper first gives a brief account of previous studies on advertising and metaphor,helping readers form a general idea with this regard. Then the author establishes a theoreticalframework, based on Sperber and Wilson's relevance theory. After a detailed introduction ofkey notions of the relevance theory concerning metaphor understanding, the author proposesthat advertising is an ostensive-inferential communication and includes three reasons whymetaphor is so popular in English adverting: as an ostensive stimulus, as a loose talk and as asearch for weak implicature.In order for the readers to understand the relationship between previous advertisingtranslation and advertising translation with relevance theory, an introduction to the basic ideaof previous study in English advertising is made, especially on the cultural factor.In the final analysis, many famous and influential advertisements are analyzed andapplied to illustrate the translation strategies of metaphor translation in English advertising.The four strategies include: reserving of the same image in the target language, replacing theimage in the source language by a standard image in the target language, compensating thegap between the source language and the target language and condensing the source text intoa brief target text.This study helps advertisers make better application of metaphors in English advertisingand help the potential consumers search for cognitive efficiency so as to get optimalrelevance. Hopefully, this paper will make its contribution to the aforesaid and the authorlooks forward to more research in metaphor translation in English advertising.