A Study Of E-C Translation Of Cosmetic Brand Names From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

Cosmetic industry, as a beauty industry, attracts close attention of increasingconsumers recent years. With China’s open-up policy, many foreign goods haveflooded into Chinese market. When these cosmetic goods enter Chinese market, inorder to carter to Chinese consumers, these brands are better to be translated intoChinese，including English cosmetic brand names. In our country, studies on thetranslation of brand names are many, and many of them have made certainachievements. However, the researches on cosmetic brand names are few. Moreover,most of these researches are based on former translators’ experience, lackingscientific nature.In this paper, under the guidance of Skopostheorie, the author probes into theaffecting factors, translation principles and strategies of English cosmetic brands.Skopostheorie proposed by Vermeer breaks the equivalence principle in translationand points out that all actions in translation are determined by the purpose. Sincecosmetic industry is a commercial industry, the final purpose of it is to get profit. Thefeature of owing clear and strong purpose conforms to the rules of Skopostheorie.This thesis takes a combination of quantitative and qualitative research method.First, the author analyzes the collected394English cosmetic brand names and theirtranslations in quantity, obtaining the proportion of various factors, principles and methods considered and used in translation under the guidance of Skopostheorie. Andthen a qualitative analysis of the various factors, principles, methods listed above, ismade by specific example analysis. Through combining quantitative and qualitativeanalyses, the author comes to what external factors, principles and techniquestranslators commonly consider and use in the process of translation and how to usethem. It is found out that in the E-C translation of cosmetic brand names, there aremany factors affecting translating process, consisting of cultural, linguistic andaesthetic factors. Also, the most commonly used principles in translation arereadability and memorability, distinctive and aesthetic principles. Moreover, there aretranslation strategies used in brand name translation, incorporating transliteration,literal translation, free translation, transliteration plus free translation, noveltranslation and zero translation.It is hoped that this paper could give translators some inspiration to take intoaccount these factors, to use these principles and methods to better serve thetranslation of cosmetic brands.