Semantic Translation And Communicative Translation In English-Chinese Translation Of General Reading On Marketing

This is a translation project report for Chapter Three of Advertising:What Everyone Needs to Know,a general reading on marketing written by Mara Einstein,a professor of Media Studies at City University of New York.This paper tries to apply Newmark's semantic translation and communicative translation to the translation problems encountered in the translation process.With the features of the source text and problems encountered in the translation practice,this paper analyzes the application of semantic translation and communicative translation to the translation practice from three perspectives,proper nouns in light of brand and company name,marketing terms and culture-loaded words.According to characteristics of proper nouns formation,the translator divides proper nouns into three categories.Semantic translation and communicative translation are applied flexibly to solve specific translation problems of proper nouns.The proper nouns which are named after people's name could use transliteration to keep phonetic features of the source text.Literal translation is applied to those proper nouns which are named after common vocabulary so as to be close to the structure and form of the source text.As for those named after coinages,unique feature or function of the brand or company could be the top priority to translate so that the target language readers and the source language readers can have the same reading experience.When it comes to translate marketing terms,information of the source text must be reproduced correctly in the target text.As for marketing terms or acronyms which are hard for readers to understand,explanation should be added.The translation of culture-loaded words ought to clarify the relevant historical or cultural information carried by those words.As for those culture-loaded words that are absent in the target language,semantic translation and communicative translation could be combined so as to achieve the communicative purpose of the text.Through this translation practice,the translator holds that in the translation of the same text,and even in the translation of the same type of vocabulary,some words or sentences need semantic translation,and others need communicative translation.Two translation strategies can be applied in combination when it is necessary.That is to say,there is neither absolute semantic translation nor absolute communicative translation.They are supplementary to each other.Therefore,in the process of translation,the translator should use semantic translation and communicative translation flexibly to solve specific translation problems so as to convey accurate information and achieve communicative purpose of the text.