Translation Evaluation Of Appeal-focused Text And Application In The Assessment Of Brand Name Translation

Translation evaluation has always been a heated topic but it has long been in asubjective state. As one of the major functionalistic scholars, K. Reiss put forward hertext typology approach to translation evaluation, in which she identified four types oftexts, namely, content-focused text, form-focused text, appeal-focused text andaudio-medial text. Since there is no unified assessment approach catering to each texttype such as appeal-focused text and for the purpose of the further completeness ofthe translation evaluation system of K. Reiss, the author conducted a review study ofE. A. Gutt‘s relevance translation theory (RT theory), aiming at introducing RTtheory into the appeal-focused text‘s translation evaluation and applies it in theassessment of brand names translation.With the development of translation theories and theoretical breakthroughs thatfollows, translation evaluation embarks on the way toward an objective andtheory-guided stage. There are a multitude of foreign theorists who have contributed alarge amount of effort to translation evaluation field, like W. Wilss (2001) and K.Reis（s2000）. Besides, many domestic theorists also put their endeavors into the studyof translation evaluation, like Xu Jun, Yang Xiaorong, Wen Xiuying, Wen Jun, LuJun and Hou Xaingqun. All of them have achieved fruitful research results. However,there still remains disagreement on what criteria should be preferred.In the first place, the author makes a brief introduction of the major schools interms of their theoretical basis and nature and analyzes the merits and demerits ofthese approaches. A theoretical breakthrough was made by the German functionalisticscholar K. Reiss, who proposes an evaluation approach based on her functionalistictext typology. After the introduction of the theory of K. Reiss, the author makes areview of RT theory. On the basis of the analysis of the correlation betweenappeal-focused text and RT theory, RT theory is believed by the author to furthercomplete the theory of K. Reiss and provides the translation evaluation ofappeal-focused text with an appropriate theoretical basis. On the basis of an analysisof the genre and text type of brand name, it is pointed out that the brand names belongto appeal-focused text, and the search of relevance in some of them is not aimed.Then, appropriate translation strategies are presented. In the final place, a conclusionconcerning the feasibility and effectiveness of RT theory‘s application in theassessment of the translation of appeal-focused text is drawn. About the methodology, the author has conducted an evaluation research of RTtheory under the circumstance of translation evaluation of appeal-focused text.Besides that, the author clarifies and supports the effectiveness of this theory by theassessment of two groups of brand names, among which six are cosmetics brands andfive are automobile brands. Both the theoretical analysis of correlation betweenappeal-focused text and RT theory and the process of these brand name translationassessments have proved the credibility of the application of RT theory in translationevaluation of appeal-focused text. But this is not the end of this research, it issuggested that this study can be continued by focusing on the other three text types‘translation evaluation system, namely, content-focused text, form-focused text andaudio-medial text.