Vague Language In Advertisements And It’s Translation

Vagueness of language refers to the uncertainty of boundaries of a term. From theperspective of epistemology and cognitive science, vagueness of language not only originatesfrom vagueness of objective things themselves, but also from people‘s limitation anduncertainty in understanding them. Vagueness of language does not affect communication.On the contrary, vague language is more decent, vivid, tactful and more beautiful than preciselanguage in daily communication, which makes natural language more expressive.In today‘s society, vague language is widely used in various fields, which is also used bylarge amount in advertising activities to reach the goal of delivering information of products,attracting consumers, promoting products and enhancing image of enterprises. Faced with thecultural differences behind two languages, translation of advertisements is not only importantbut also difficult. This thesis will analyze translation of vague language in advertisementsunder the guidance of Nida‘s Functional-Equivalence theory.Besides introduction and conclusion, this thesis is composed of four chapters. The firstchapter is a general study of what vague language is and the transformation between vaguelanguage and precise language. Then I make a literature review of vagueness of language,and the achievements and limitedness. In the second chapter, I analyze the characteristics ofadvertisement language and vague language in it. Then, I analyze the special functions ofvague language in advertisements. And it can be concluded that proper usage of vaguelanguage in advertisements can produce many positive functions. As this thesis aims toanalyze vague language in advertisements from the point of view of Nida‘s FunctionalEquivalence theory, I present Nida‘s Functional Equivalence theory and the significance of itin the third chapter, and the feasibility of applying Functional Equivalence theory inadvertisement translation. In the last chapter, I analyze translation of vague language inadvertisements under the guidance of Functional Equivalence theory through case studies.