A Study Of Commercial Advertising Translation From The Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

With the gradual deepening of China's reform and opening up and the quick developing of China's international trade,foreign products have been occupying our market quickly;meanwhile,along with a positive response to China's strategy of “Going Out”,China's enterprises are selling out their wide variety of products all over the world.Among the factors,which influence the goods winning the favor of consumers and occupying the market rapidly,in addition to the quality,price,enterprise strategy,commercial advertising also plays a vital role.And in international trade,naturally it cannot be underestimated that the role the commercial advertising translation plays as a bridge.As a new field of intercultural communication research,more and more attention has been paid to commercial advertising translation.As a special style of communication,commercial advertising has the definite commercial purpose and unique stylistic features.The translation of commercial advertising can only stimulate the consumers' desire to buy,only in accordance with the target readers' language,cultural habits,etc.In most of the previous studies on the translation of commercial advertising,the writer-centered theory and the text-centered theory are in the prevalent position,without considering the utilitarian motive of commercial advertising translation.The introduction of Reception Aesthetics Theory into commercial advertising translation exactly transfers the attention from the original writer and original text of commercial advertising to the target readers.In this circumstance,based on Reception Aesthetics Theory as the theoretical framework,this thesis has studied and analyzed the definition,classifications,functions,and linguistic and cultural characteristics of Chinese and English commercial advertising.The basic concepts,namely “the Reader's Subjective Role”,“Horizon of Expectations” and “Response-inviting Structure”,are used to guide the translation of commercial advertising and based on this the author has put forward three strategies as below:First of all,in the process of commercial advertising translation,translators should focus on the target readers all the time,considering their horizons of expectations which means translators must always bear the target readers' linguistic features,consumption psychology and aesthetic tastes in mind to shorten aesthetic distance between commercial advertising translation and expectations of the target readers and to achieve a high fusion of expectations,resulting in striking a chord in the hearts of the target readers.Secondly,commercial advertising language has its own unique aesthetic appreciation due to its literariness.Translators should actively interpret the Response-inviting Structure of the source text and reproduce the beauty of source language: the beauty of sound,of form and of meaning in target text so that the target readers can feel the same artistic sensibility as the original readers.In addition,translators should use the concept “Indeterminacies” or “Blankness” in Response-inviting Structure.It means that translators should give much attention to leave indeterminacies or blankness intentionally in the target text with an aim to arouse imagination and creativity of the target readers,and make them involved in concretizing target text with their subjective initiative.Once the Response-inviting Structure of target text has been formed,the commercial advertising translation would give the target readers a good impression and persuade them to purchase at the end.At last,the author also finds the special status of translators in commercial advertising translation guided by Reception Aesthetics theory.That is,the translator is also a reader,the reader of original text with a clear intention and tasks,who can be regarded as the keenest reader.Due to untranslatable factors existing between Chinese and English caused by the differences between the two languages and cultural crashes behind them,the translator has to resort to creative treason inevitably at the two stages of interpretation of the source text and the creation of the target text in commercial advertising translation.And creative treason can be divided into subjective treason and objective treason.Subjective treason is the treason caused by translator's subjective reasons.The translator's perspectives of translation theory and the views of translation practice,which are formed for a long period of time,affect the translator inevitably through the whole translation process.Objective treason refers to the treason adopted by the translator due to the objective factors.In the process of commercial advertising translation,the translator is not only restricted by regulations and laws of advertising,market rules,market strategies and cultural barriers of different countries,but also influenced by social and cultural background,the level of education and purchasing power of target readers.