The Effect Of Methods In Brand Names English To Chinese Translation On Consumer Perceptions

Combining translation methods and consumer perception theory together, this paper intends to explore the following issues by two pretests and a main experiment. (1) Whether there is significant difference of effect on the judgment of Country of Origin by names translated phonetically and semantically. (2) Whether there is significant difference of effect on consumer perceptions by names translated phonetically and semantically. Consumer perceptions consist of perceived quality and purchase intention. (3) Combined phonetically translated names and semantically translated names with corresponding Country of Origin information, whether there is significant difference of effect on consumer perceptions including perceived quality and purchase intention by those translation names.Questionnaire survey is adopted in pretest one. According to the statistic results, four unfamiliar original English brand names are collected. Then the author gives four translation names for each original English brand name. In pretest two 84 valid questionnaires are collected. According to data collections and positions of translation names in quadrant graphs, 8 stimulus are generated, which will be applied in the following main experiment.63 subjects who age from 18 to 39 are involved in the main experiment. The main experiment takes eight translation names as stimulus, making test and analysis on the three issues mentioned above.The outputs conducted by T—test reveal the followings. (1) There is significant difference of effect on consumers' judgment of COO by names translated phonetically and semantically. (2) There is no significant difference of effect on the perception of consumers' purchase intention by phonetic translation names and semantic translation names.This paper positions translation names by means of quadrant graphs, which make the stimulus applied in the main experiment convinced. The main experiment reveals that translation methods influence consumers' judgment of Country of Origin; furthermore, for translation names derived from different translation methods, there is statistical significant difference on consumers' judgment of Country of Origin. There is no significant difference on consumers purchase intention by phonetic and semantic translation methods.