Research On Advertisement Translation From The Perspective Of Schema Theory

Originated from philosophy and psychology, the concept of schema is used torepresent the background knowledge stored in human brain. It is believed that newinformation can be comprehended and certain inferences can be made during the processof comprehension through the effective activation of related schemata from the perspectiveof schema theory. With the development of cognitive linguistics, schema theory has beenwidely adopted in the researches concerning language comprehension and foreignlanguage teaching issues such as blank-filling, reading and listening comprehension, etc.The past decade also has witnessed a tentative application of schema theory to thespeculation about the advertisement translation, which is initiated by some researchers inChina as translation can be viewed as a cognitive process of meaning transmission fromthe source language (SL) to the target language (TL). Though translation is traditionallyconsidered as the static mapping from one linguistic form to another, according to schematheory, translation is a dynamic process going from the comprehension of the SL text to theproduction of the TL text. During this process, the activation of related schemata is neededfor the translator to interpret the SL information and then TL readers are able to make senseof the translation product by means of possible schema activation.The present thesis under the framework of schema theory is intended to carry out theresearch of translating advertisements (abbreviated later as “ads”), among which theprimary emphasis will be laid on the commercial ads. First of all, the functions of languageschema and content schema are further elaborated and demonstrated through the analysisof advertising materials. Then the value of brand in advertising is reinterpreted from aschema-theoretic angle, which highlights the significance of brand name translation in theoverall advertisement translation. Moreover, the critical review of previous studies givesrise to a more novel perspective in the exploration of advertisement translation strategy. Tobe specific, as texts also pose certain influence on readers’ schemata through schemareinforcing, schema refreshing and schema adding, various translation methods could beflexibly employed in order to achieve the persuasive and eye-catching effect ofadvertisement. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the information gap does exist betweenthe SL text and the TL text in advertisement translation from a schematic point of view;what’s more, the inefficiency in schema activation makes it inevitable that the translatability of advertising language is limited to a certain degree and some ads areradically untranslatable.