A Research On Translation Strategies In English Commercial Advertisements From The Perspective Of Register Theory

In the background of economic globalization, with the development of commodity economy, the progress of technology and the popularity of mass media, commercial advertisements increasingly become an indispensable part of people’s daily life. Recently, with more and more frequent cultural communication between China and the West, trade between China and the West is increasing accordingly. Therefore, the Chinese translation of English commercial advertisements seems to be more and more important. However, it is found that there are some regrettable mistakes in the process of English commercial advertisements translation, which have a terrible effect on the sale of products. One of the important reasons is that translators ignore the analysis of equivalence between the original language and the target language in the process of English commercial advertisements translation.As the branch of linguistics, register theory plays an important and essential role in the field of translation. According to register theory, Halliday holds the view that translators should reproduce the similar register features of the original text in the process of translation, represent field, tenor and mode of the original text properly and make the original text and the target text have the correspondent register features. Besides, the three register variables, namely, field, tenor and mode are closely related to the three metafunctions of language. Field represents the ideational function of language, tenor indicates the interpersonal function of language and mode is the representation of the textual function. Therefore, this thesis makes an attempt to relate register theory to the advertisements translation in the advertisements translation in practice. The author sets about from the three register variables, namely, field, tenor and mode, makes a full understanding and illustration of them based on the ideational function, the interpersonal function and the textual function, makes an attempt to reproduce the situationall context of the original text in the process of translation, makes the translated version and the original text achieve the register equivalence based on the equivalence in the ideational function, the interpersonal function and the textual function and thus explores the translation strategies from the perspective of register theory.The thesis is composed of an introduction, the main body and a conclusion. Its main contents are as follows:The first part is introduction, which involves the research objectives and a brief summary of the previous research of register theory and commercial advertisements translation both at home and abroad, and then points out the theoretical and practical significance of the study on translation strategies in English commercial advertisements from the perspective of register theory.The second part is the main body of the whole thesis, including four chapters:In Chapter One, it is mainly about literature review, which is made up of three parts. The first part gives an overview of register theory, in which the history and development of register theory, register variables and metafunctions of language and the relationship between them are included. The second part gives a general survey of commercial advertisements, including its definition, functions and register features. The third part makes a brief introduction to translation strategies in English commercial advertisements.In Chapter Two, it mainly makes an analysis of translation strategies in English commercial advertisements in the light of field. This chapter sets up from the aspect of field and analyzes the translation strategies in English commercial advertisements specifically through collecting some Chinese and English commercial advertisements in combination with some translation examples. There are two parts in this chapter. In the first part, the realization of equivalence in field is analyzed. In the process of English commercial advertisements translation, the equivalence in field is mainly realized by lexical selection and transitivity patterns. The second part makes an analysis of some translation examples of English commercial advertisements and based on field, in the process of translation, translators should make an analysis of the field features of the original text and reproduce the field features in the target text. The author proposes the possible translation strategies based on field, including literal translation and amplication.In Chapter Three, it mainly analyzes translation strategies in English commercial advertisements in the light of tenor. This chapter sets up from the aspect of tenor, and the translation strategies in English commercial advertisements are analyzed through analyzing some specific translation instances. There are two parts in this chapter. In the first part, how to realize equivalence in tenor is analyzed specifically. In the process of English advertisements translation, the equivalence in tenor is represented by mood and modality systems. In the second part, the author proposes a few translation strategies in English commercial advertisements based on tenor through analyzing some specific translation examples of English commercial advertisements, including imitation and conversion. In the process of translation, translators should make a full analysis of tenor features of the original text and then reproduce the similar tenor features in the target text.In Chapter Four, it mainly makes an analysis of translation strategies in English commercial advertisements in the light of mode. This chapter sets up from the aspect of mode and analyzes the translation strategies in English commercial advertisements in detail through analyzing some translation examples of English commercial advertisements. There are two parts in this chapter. In the first part, a detailed analysis of how to realize equivalence in mode in the process of English commercial advertisements translation is made. The realization of equivalence in mode is represented by formality and rhetorical devices. In the second part, the author proposes a few translation strategies based on mode through analyzing some translation examples of English commercial advertisements, which include liberal translation and omission. In the process of English commercial advertisements translation, translators should make a full analysis of the mode features of the original text and then make an attempt to reproduce the correspondent mode features in the target text.The third part is the conclusion of the whole thesis, which mainly makes a brief summary to the thesis. Firstly, it makes a brief summary to the main contents and research and the research findings are introduced and concluded briefly. It turns out that the application of register theory provides a new angle for the study of translation strategies in English commercial advertisements and based on register theory, the translation strategies proposed are valid for English commercial advertisements translation. Besides, it emphasizes the shortcomings to analyze translation strategies in English commercial advertisements from the perspective of register theory and a few suggestions are put forward for future study, so that scholars can study English commercial advertisements translation from the perspective of register theory more comprehensively.