Translation Of Vague Language In Cosmetic Advertisements From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Due to its wide extension and rich information embedded, vague language is used by more and more advertisers as a communicative strategy. The significance lies in delivering information effectively and communicating with consumers quickly, so as to achieve the ultimate goal of advertisement. With the increasingly important role that vague language plays in cosmetic advertisements, which is a kind of practical texts, the study on pragmatic functions of vague language becomes one of the research concerns in recent years. A case in point is that some scholars combine vagueness with cosmetic advertisements, but studies on the translation of vagueness in cosmetic advertisements are relatively inadequate in the existing literature.In this case, the present study mainly focuses on the translation of vague language via analyses of their characteristics and functions in cosmetic advertisements. According to the three rules of Skopos Theory and analyses of plentiful examples, which are mainly collected from authoritative magazines and official websites,the paper focus on the differences between English and Chinese in linguistic systems, culture and consumers’ psychology. Thus, four effective translation skills are summarized as literal translation, free translation, amplification and adaptation.In addition, this study chooses Skopos Theory to guide the translation of vague languages in advertisements. It is beneficial to get in-depth understanding of advertisement translation. The translator can also use flexible translation strategies while taking the differences between different countries into account. Thus, this study resolves the contradiction between the source language and target language in the translation work and provides a theoretical foundation for partial unfaithfulness, such as addition, deletion or even rewriting.