An Analysis Of Advertisement Translation In Fashion Magazines From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

According to the latest figures showed in2013, China has already surpassed the UnitedStates and become the world second biggest consumer of luxury goods. More and morepeople pay attention to Chinese fashion industry. In these circumstances, fashion magazinesin China become a very important approach for foreign merchants to realize productpromotion and brand building. Fashion magazines also affect the consumption habits andlifestyles of modern Chinese gradually. As the main part of magazine contents, theadvertising in fashion magazines calls for effective translation skills.The advertisement in fashion magazine is exactly a kind of practical text which focuseson selling, promoting and spreading the messages of a particular brand. The companiesexpect to raise the reputation and popularity of their brand and products through fashionmagazines. In other words, the advertisement in fashion magazines has an extremely clearaim and target addressees. The fact that translation advertisement in fashion magazines has adefinite purpose coincides with the concept of Skopos theory, which enables people toanalyze advertisement translation in terms of its characteristics, strategies and criteria.Skopos theory, a branch of the German translation theory, was established by Germanlinguist Hans Vermeer. Skopos theory is usually considered as the core concept of functionaltranslation theory. Vermeer puts forward this idea and breaks the restriction of equivalenttheory and considers the―skopos‖as the first principle for translation. He also stresses thattranslating is a purposive action which produces a target text for the target addressees in thetarget setting. Skopos theory provides the translation of practical texts a broad prospect.In order to analyze the advertisement translation in fashion magazines, the followingresearch has been conducted. First of all, some typical and successful examples from both theAmerican edition Cosmopolitan and Chinese edition Trends Cosmopolitan are collected.Then the advertisement translations are classified into different types and a detailed analysiswith three rules, namely the Skopos Rule, Coherence Rule and Fidelity Rule is undertaken. Itis found that Skopos theory provides a solid foundation for the analysis of fashion magazine advertisement translation. Some practical and useful translation skills are summed up. Factorsinfluencing translation quality are discussed as well. It is hoped that the thesis will be ofpractical value to the study of advertisement translation in fashion magazines.