CONTENTS
Abstract in Chinese
Abstract ........................................................................................................................... 1
1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 1
1.1. Definition of Advertising ...................................................................................... 2
1.2. Purpose and functions of Advertisements .......................................................... 3
1.3. Characteristics and Features of Advertising Language .................................... 3
2. Related Theory and Principles of Translation .......................................................... 4
2.1. Nida’s Theory of Functional Equivalence .......................................................... 4
2.1.1. Semantic Equivalence .......................................................................................... 5
2.1.2. Social Cultural Equivalence ................................................................................ 6
2.1.3. Stylistic Equivalence ............................................................................................. 7
2.2. Principles of Advertisement Translation ............................................................ 7
2.2.1. Natural ................................................................................................................... 8
2.2.2. Accurate ................................................................................................................. 8
2.2.3. Easy to understand ............................................................................................... 8
3. Strategies of Translation ............................................................................................. 8
3.1 Literal Translation ................................................................................................ 8
3.2 Free translation ................................................................................................... 10
3.3 Transliteration .................................................................................................... 11
3.4 Replacement translation .................................................................................... 13
3.5 Supplementary Translation ............................................................................... 14
3.6 Creative Translation ........................................................................................... 16
4. Results and Discussion .............................................................................................. 16
5. Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 18
Reference ........................................................................................................................... 19
Appendix ........................................................................................................................... 20
中英广告翻译策略分析：中文角度
摘要 在现代社会中，被喻为商业化身的广告己渗透到社会的各个角落，逐渐成为人们日常生活中的一个不可或缺的组成部分。随着我国社会经济的迅速发展，改革开放的进一步深化，以及加入世界贸易组织后，国际贸易往来的日益频繁，中国产品进入到国际市场的机会大大增加了，与此同时，大量的外国产品涌入中国市场，各种产品在市场上的竞争愈演愈烈，而广告在促进产品销售和拓展知名度乃至扩大市场份额等方面的作用也越来越明显，广告翻译的地位也随之显得越来越重要。本文在了解了广告的语言特点和掌握了广告翻译的基本原则的基础上,从分析多例翻译例子出发,提出广告翻译的基本策略。
关键词 语言特点;翻译原则;翻译策略;广告翻译
广州大学毕业论文（设计）用纸
Analysis of Chinese-English Translation Strategies in
Advertisements: A Chinese Perspective
广州大学外国语学院2006级英语国际商务专业10班
邹杰辉 0607010123
指导老师： 彭世勇
Abstract In modern world, advertisements, regarded as embodiment of commerce, has become an indispensable part of our daily life. The intensification of international exchanges and the severe competition cry for a growing need for advertisements and thus the role of translation played in which has become much more important, with the purpose of sales promotion and product popularity as well as market share increase. During the process of advertisement translation, after understanding the language characteristics and the translation principles of advertisements, the author aims to put forward several effective methods and strategies of advertisements translation, by analyzing different translation examples done by English majors of Guangzhou University.
Key Words Language characteristics; Translation principles; Translation strategies;
Advertisements translation
1. Introduction
The purpose of commercial advertising is to attract potential customers to purchase products. (魏传立, 2008) Therefore, the translation of commercial advertisement is of great importance for Chinese products in exploiting overseas markets. With the globalization of markets and the world turning into a small village，more and more companies in China are targeting at foreign language speaking clienteles at home or launching international advertising campaigns. To help a product reach a market other than one’s own，the advertisement must first speak the local language of the new market，hence the importance of advertising translation. In order to make the products or services advertised effective in foreign markets and worth the large budget spent on developing
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advertising campaigns, a mere converting of the words into the target language is far from enough.
With its unique style and obvious functions, commercial advertisements bear their own characteristics and features and thus need special treatment in the process of translation. Advertisement translation involves an exchange of different cultures, an inter-cultural communication. Therefore, knowing some basic strategies of commercial advertisement translation matters a lot.
1.1. Definition of Advertising
The origin of the word “advertise” is a Latin word “Advertere” which means “to catch people’s attention”. During the medieval times, the word turned to “Advertise”, which means “to inform somebody and catch his attention”. It was not until the end of 17th century that with the development of commerce the word “Advertising” became popular and obtained the meaning of “to spread commercial information”. American Marketing Association (AMA) gives the widely accepted definition as follow: “Advertising is the non-personal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media”.
In the opinion of the Association of National Advertisers(ANA)，advertising is a paid form of mass communication，aiming at offering information，altering others’ attitudes towards advertised products，inducing others to get attention and at last making profits for the advertisers. (Gu, 2000:120)
The definitions above reveal the most essential features of advertising. Firstly, advertising is non-personal; its aim is toward groups of people rather than individuals. A company’s advertising aims at a particular group called the target audience. Secondly, most advertisements are to promote sales and make profits. However, some organizations advertise but do not pay, such as political parties, interest groups, religious organizations and governmental agencies. These non-commercial advertisements are mainly involved in popularizing an idea, an attitude, a viewpoint and a social course. Thirdly, most advertising intend to be persuasive------to win converts to a product and service as well as idea. The role of advertising is to inform, persuade, and remind groups of customers or
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markets about the value of the company’s goods and services. In addition to promote tangible goods such as oranges and olive oil, advertising helps publicize the intangible services of bankers, bike repair shops. Finally, an advertisement identifies its sponsor. It seems obvious. The sponsor wants to be identified, or why pay to advertise?
In summary, advertising is paid non-personal communication from an identified sponsor using mass media to persuade or influence an audience.( Philip W Goetz，1985:113) We can say: “Advertising is a persuasive communication attempting to change or reinforce ones’ attitude about certain product or brand.”
1.2. Purpose and functions of Advertisements
From the definition of advertising we have mentioned above，we can learn the main functions and the purpose of advertising. Generally speaking, advertising should have the following functions: information function, demand creating function, persuasive function, get-action function and goodwill establishment function (Wang 2004:9). An effective function will realize all or most of these functions. The ultimate purpose of advertising is to persuade consumers to buy a certain product or service. To be specific, the basic functions of advertisements are to give detail information about products or services to the public and persuade consumers to make decisions and finally take some actions, especially to purchase the product or services.
1.3. Characteristics and Features of Advertising Language
When Volkswagen Beatle first entered the American market, it didn’t attract any attention, because the Americans preferred big cars at that time. Bill Bernbach created the famous advertising “Think small” which told the advantages small cars possessed which changed the criterion Americans selected cars. This is the magic power of successful advertising. To some degree, it represents the characteristics and features an effective and attractive advertisement should possess.
Advertising language is the core content of advertisement. As a language of functionality, its main purpose is to stimulate consumption. Therefore, advertising language has some common characteristics and features: attention value, memory value, expressive function, directive function and aesthetic function. (赵静, 1992:159) Advertisements are not pure commerciality, but a combination of literature and aesthetics
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as well as psychology.
2. Related Theory and Principles of Translation
2.1. Nida’s Theory of Functional Equivalence
When it comes to translation theory, there is no clear definition of “translation standard”. Whether translation standard is descriptive or prescriptive still remains a problem that needs to be solved in disciplinary construction of translation. The discussion of what is translation standard often involves the application of translation theory. That is to say, translation theory should provide theoretical guidance for translation practice.
Modern Functionalism experienced great development in the seventies of the twentieth century. The landmarks of what is now referred to as the “German School” of functionalist translation theories are Katharina Reiss and her functionalist translation criticism(骆乐, 2000)，Hans J Vermeer’s Skopostheory(雷雨, 2009) and its extensions.(陆蓉, 2005). Among all the approaches of translation theories, Nida’s theory of functional equivalence should be paid special attention.
According to the Essay on the Principles of Translation written by Alexander Fraser Tytler, the description of a good translation is that “in which the merit of the original works is so completely transfused into another language, as to be as distinctly apprehended, and as strongly felt, by a native of the country to which that language belongs, as it is by those who speaks the language of the original work”. Based on such description, he put forward the laws of translation which may be deduced from it. It will follow,
1) That the Translation should give a complete transcript of the ideas of the original
work.
2) That the style and manner of writing should be of the same character with that of
the original.
3) That the translation should have all the ease of original composition.
It is not difficult for us to figure out the implication of Alexander Fraser Tytler’s statement on the principles of good translation: translation equivalence is the key to success.
This paper attempts to apply Nida’s theory of functional equivalence to the analysis
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of commercial advertising translation. The unique style and functions of advertising have its own characteristics in the translation, also known as Dynamic Equivalence. Functional equivalence attempts to convey the essential thought expressed in a source text-if necessary, at the expense of literalness, original word order, the source text's grammatical voice, etc.
Because dynamic equivalence eschews strict adherence to the grammatical structure of the original text in favor of a more natural rendering in the target language, it is sometimes used when the readability of the translation is more important than the preservation of the original grammatical structure. Thus a novel might be translated with greater use of dynamic equivalence so that it may read well.
Translation equivalences mainly include three aspects: semantic equivalence, social cultural equivalence and stylistic equivalence.
2.1.1. Semantic Equivalence
In commercial advertisement translation, semantic equivalence should be given priority, since it is the most fundamental and also the most important aspect. Therefore, two points should be paid special attention.
First, to avoid ambiguity. Let’s take one famous restaurant located in Guangzhou for example. It has a significantly brilliant name called “燕子楼”, but it is horribly translated into “ Swallow Restaurant” which means in those westerners’ eyes you have to finish your dish as quickly as possible, without thinking about its taste and smell. Another example is the translation of one kind of lipstick called in Chinese “芳芳” into “Fang Fang”, which means Fangtooth or the sharp teeth of beasts like wolf. Other example like the brand name “太太口服液” is mistranslated sensitively into “oral liquid for your wife”, which could be easily referred to as “sperm” or “semen”. In many other cases, similar mistakes are easily seen in daily life; the English translation does not mean equally what the Chinese original donates. For instance, “成人用品”店 is mostly mistranslated into “sex shop” or even “adult shop”, which indicates a store that sell, not medicine or equipment for healthy reproduction or healthy sexual activities to prevent infectious disease such as AIDS or HIV and the like, but pornographic products like adult videos; The color “red” in China has positive meaning, but in English, it is negative. So when David Hawkes translated
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“The Story of the Stone”, he translated“怡红院”as “Green Delights” to avoid the negative association. The translation of“‘红星’牌电风扇”as “Bright Star electric fan” is better.
Second, to avoid interpretation without real understanding. For example, in China, “红茶” should be translated into “black tea”, not “red tea”; “红糖” should be the translation of “ brown sugar”, not “red sugar”. Moreover,“鸳鸯”symbolizes affection between lovers, but if we translate it as“Mandarin Ducks”, it only has the association of birds in English. If we adapt it into “lovebirds”, it will be better. So“‘鸳鸯’牌枕套”had better be translated as“Lovebirds”Pillowcase.
Examples given above show the importance of semantic equivalence in the process of Chinese-English translation of commercial advertisements. Consequently, one needs to go into further investigation of different meanings of the same word.
2.1.2. Social Cultural Equivalence
Translation itself is introduction of foreign culture. Language, as part of national culture, is the carrier and representation of culture. Each nation has its own cultural treasure house. Therefore, when embarking on the advertisement translation, never translate without taking the cultural differences into consideration. Translation itself is actually the translation of culture that features transmission of culture discrepancy. Examples are given as follows;
“五羊牌”自行车 is translated into “ five goats” bicycle, which is often used to compare to “lovelace or dishonourable man” in English speaking countries.
“一条龙服务” is translated into “ one-dragon service” while dragon is treated as a jinx in English culture.
In Chinese,“喜鹊” has the meaning of “reporting the coming of spring and happy” It is a kind of bird that brings good news and luck. In English, the symbolic meaning of“magpie”(喜鹊) is a chatterbox or a thief, a bird of ill omens, which gives us the association of Pandora’s box. Almost for the same reason, in Chinese,“凤凰”represents“luck and beauty”,while in English, “phoenix” means rebirth. It gives them the feeling of waking up from death. “White Elephant” translated from“白象”, is regarded as rubbish in western country. It will surely cause great embarrassment or even losses.
Besides, the interpreter or translator should take taboo language into consideration
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during the process of Chinese-English translation, which is also an indispensable part of social cultural equivalence.
2.1.3. Stylistic Equivalence
There are varieties of types of advertisements including television advertisements, radio advertisements, newspaper advertisements, etc, depending on the way of classification. So it is with the case of style of Chinese-English advertisements. However, there are several styles which are commonly seen. They are narrative form, descriptive form, associative form, poetic form and catechetical form, etc. Different types of advertisement represent different stylistic features and characteristics. But, the style of translation should be kept in accordance with that of the original one. Common ground says, stylistic equivalence is to keep the style and verve of the origin text.
For example, one local store puts out an attractive advertising for clearance sales: “商场清仓大甩卖，我损失，你得益” and translate it into English as “Warehouse clearance, Their lost, Your gain. With the sharp contrast between “loss” and “gain”, the vast majority of consumers are greatly encouraged to take buying action. The application of rhyme-scheme in poetry is the key to successful advertising.
Anther typical example is the translation of “桂龙咳喘宁，‘咳’不容缓” （桂龙咳喘宁）into “Guilong cough prevention, a wonder drug for stopping coughing.” With regard to dealing with the rhetorical devices in advertisements, the translated version well applies the target language oriented principle and adopts the strategy of interpretation to certain degree, clearly conveying the information and achieving the function and style of the source text.
2.2. Principles of Advertisement Translation
Advertisement is one kind of practical styles of high commercial value. Some scholars(Zhao, 1992:6；雷雨, 2009:4；赵静, 1993:6 ) pointed out that a successful advertisement should be in accordance with the principle of ACCA, which included awareness, comprehensive, conviction and action. (Zhao, 1992:6). Others (毛建武, 2009:9; 马彩梅, 2005:2; 张文娟, 2004:2) claimed that advertisement must meet the requirements of KISS principle, which is “keep it short and sweet”. That is because in today’s information society, whether an advertisement is creatively attractive or not is the key to
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success in advertising. Simultaneously, the advertisement should be easy to understand, to remember or it will be difficult to leave a deep impression to the audiences. Tedious and obscure advertisement is hardly able to arouse the purchasing desire of audiences.
Thus, according to these researcher’s points of view, attention value and memory value are of importance to the success of ads only if an ad attracts readers’ attention and locks in readers’ mind can the ad be effective finally.
As what has been represented before, advertising language has its own unique characteristics and features, not only is it one sort of commercial language, but also a special text; a combination of literature, psychology, aesthetics, advertising as well as marketing. Taking all these factors into consideration, basing on the research and practice of translation of the forerunners, “Natural, Accurate and Easy to understand” principle is applied in view of its concise, vivid and attractive characteristics of advertising language.
2.2.1. Natural
What is natural translation? It means translation that doe not sound abrupt and strange but simple, fluent and accustomed to people in English speaking countries for information transfer.
2.2.2. Accurate
Accurate translation means the translation should transfer the information with accuracy. Mistranslated or wrong information will have bad effect on sales.
2.2.3. Easy to understand
As the title indicates, the target language should be well kept the understandability so that it can attract people’s attention without difficulty. That is to say, the structure and sentences should be as short as possible. What is more, the simpler the advertising language is, the easier it is it can be understood, due to the arbitrariness and temporalities of people’s awareness when scanning advertisements.
3. Strategies of Translation
After analyzing the relative theories and principles of advertisement translation as well as the language characteristics and features of advertising translation, the author puts forwards some basic strategies in commercial advertising translation, by analyzing translation examples done by English majors in Guangzhou University.
3.1 Literal Translation
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Literal translation, also known as direct translation, has the meaning of the rendering of a text from one language to another-“word-for-word”, rather than conveying the sense of the original. In other words, literal translation means to keep both content and style of the original, especially to keep the metaphor, image and local ethnic significance of the original, on the premise of not violating the language specification of translated text and of not causing mistaken association. For examples,
1) “给你一个新的选择”（中国铁通）
A new choice for you
2) “精彩的瞬间，永恒的回忆”（某相机广告）
Wonderful moment, eternal memory
3) “拥有完美肌肤的秘诀”（丁家宜化妆品）
The secret for perfect skin
4) “上有天堂，下有苏杭”（旅行社广告语）
Just as there is a paradise in heaven, there are Suzhou and Hangzhou on earth
5) “本品可即购即食，食用方便”(功夫熊猫方便面)
Opening and eating immediately.
Analysis: “即购即食，食用方便”in Chinese it means convenience for eating. Using “immediately” is improper. When foreigners read “eating immediately”, they can think if they don’t eat up the food will get rotten at once. This will damage the image of the produce. So we’d better translate it into “always ready to serve”. Then the equivalent effect could be attained on the readers of both Chinese and English.
6) “轻身减肥片”
Slimming polls(Yangnan，2005：23)
Analysis: In America, keeping fit has long been a fashion. However one kind of Chinese weight losing tablets ironically could not find its marketplace. After the careful market research, the problem was found that the Chinese brand name“轻身减肥片”was translated into “Obesity-reducing Tablets” which, in the American people’s eyes, was a kind of medicine exclusively for overweight people. Then English name was converted as “slimming polls” and soon it found itself in a big sale.
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7) “一席尊天下”（别墅）
Elegant House Unique in China（Zhang Xiuxian＆Fengzhang，2006：406）
8) “接天下客，送万里情”——天津出租汽车公司
Ready to meet guests all over the world, ready to speed them on their way
9) “世界首创，中国一绝,天然椰子汁”
The pioneer of the world; the most delicious in China; Natural Coconut Juice (Quoted
from the Internet).
Analysis: It is almost the word-by-word translation. The Chinese ad uses Chinese idioms to strengthen the language effect, but the English version is lack of stimulation. It is against the thinking habit of English readers. The revision may be better: Natural Coco Juice: a world special with an enjoyment beyond all your words.
From these examples showed above, the effect and function of literal translation is obvious and apparent. It can faithfully transfer the implication of the source text. However, the application of such strategy should be based on the basic fact that the translation should be equally understood and accepted with pleasure by the target-text readers without causing misunderstanding, which is also the reflection of semantic equivalence and social cultural equivalence principles previously mentioned. Otherwise, it will be Chinglish that can never be understood well by people in English-speaking countries.
3.2 Free translation
Compared with literal translation, free translation refers to, according to the meaning of the original, without paying attention to the details and translation would also be fluent and natural. Free translation need not pay attention to the form of the original, including construction of the original sentence, meaning of the original works and metaphor of the original and so on. But free translation does not mean to delete or add content to the original and translators must consider the original carefully, know its stress, translate it naturally, and express the meaning of the original. Free translation is a skill which translators must know the culture of both source language and target language, and must have extensive knowledge. For examples,
1) “给你一个精彩的视界”（某显示器广告）
a) To give you a wonderful world
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b) See the difference
Analysis: a) is literal translation, but the implied meaning is not clearly given and “视界”is mistranslated into “world”, which is not so appropriate. While b), using free translation, shows exactly the verve and spirit of the implication.
2) “柔韧细致，时刻照顾”（某餐巾纸广告）
a) Flexibility and meticulous care
b) The best quality and the best care
Analysis: the same mistake as example 1) happens in translation a).
3) “青青大草原，自然好牛奶”（蒙牛牛奶）
a) Good milk of green grassland
b) Natural good milk from green grassland
4) 接天下客，送万里情——天津出租汽车公司
Give you a pleasant ride all the way!
Analysis: compared to the translation example (referred to example 8) in Literal translation) using literal translation previously, this translated version using free translation pay more attention to the customers. As advertisement is directly targeted at the reader, the second personal pronoun you and your is preferable to the third person pronoun, which will cause indirect communication effect，which makes good use of You Attitude as well as functional equivalence.
3.3 Transliteration
Transliteration is the practice of converting a text from one writing system into another in a systematic way by keeping the pronunciation of the source language measured in phonemes in order to highlight the language function of the original. (付佳媚, 2009:8, translated by the author) It is used in situations where the original script is not available to write down a word in that script, while still high precision is required. The objects which are suitable to apply transliteration are mainly name, place name and new terminology, such as 北京-Beijing, 马克思-Marks, 雷达-radar, etc. In commercial advertisement translation, on the occasion of finding no accurate target language to explain the source language, transliteration can be applied to avoid mistranslation or misunderstanding resulted by the usage of literal translation or free translation. Examples
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are given as follows,
1) 罗莎(Rosa)；李宁(Lining)；安踏(Anta)；康佳(Konka)；格力（Gree）；
2) “海尔”air conditioner is translated into Haier, “长虹”television is translated
into Changhong, “万宝”refrigerator is translated into Wanbao,“娃哈哈”is translated into Wahaha etc.
3) “衣食住行，有龙则灵”（建行龙卡）
Your everyday life is very busy, our LongCard makes it easy.
Analysis: the inspiration of the Chinese advertisement originates from a well-known saying in Loushiming written by Liu Yuxi, “no matter how high the mountain is, its name will spread far and wide if there is a fairy” the word “龙” in “龙卡” should never be translated as “dragon” for its bad reputation as evil in the westerners’ mind’s eye, though it is a symbol of power in China. Therefore, it is translated as “Longcard” by using transliteration strategy in order to distinguish the different meaning between Chinese and English.
4) “我的世界，美的未来”（美的家电）
a) My world, beautiful future
b) My world, the Midea Future
Analysis: a) is not as good as b) because a) translate “美的” into “beautiful”, while “美的” is the brand name of home appliance, which will cause misunderstanding. b) is the best by the smart use of Transliteration strategy, Midea sounds exactly like Meidi in Chinese.
5) “‘永芳’牌珍珠膏”
Analysis: If we transliterate“‘永芳’牌珍珠膏”as “Yongfang” pearl cream, it will produce bad effect among target audiences, because “fang” in English means “snake’s poison-tooth”. A suggested version of “Yufrang” by Liu Fagong may be better. “Yu” equals to the pronunciation of “you”; “frang” is from the word “fragrance”.
6) A well-known domestic film product with its brand name in Chinese“乐凯”, is
homophonically translated as “Lucky”, a word that owns positive meaning to the world, when opening its overseas market and earned a good reputation among those westerners and of course possess an comparatively outstanding market share.
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In fact, there are lots of translation practices applying transliteration when the dealing with brand name translation. The reason for the translators applying transliteration may come from consideration of convenience. However, in the author’s opinion, transliteration is never the most efficient one, even though it is really the most convenient way during brand name translation. The author was ever deeply impressed by one street slogan. The school name “捷径英语” was translated into “Express English” instead of “Jiejing English”. The author believes that the former translation is much better than the latter in view of the effect. Therefore, the author does not advocate transliteration unless the translated version can combine the pronunciation and certain favorable meaning together. For example,“贝斯曼”is translated into Bestman, “舒肤佳”is translated into Safeguard etc.
3.4 Replacement translation
As the word indicates, replacement translation, also known as structure-borrowing, is the imitation of well-known inherent expressions which are long-term deposition of strong history and traditional culture, such as idioms and proverbs, motto and aphorism, etc. in English or Chinese traditional culture, to translate commercial advertisements by changing certain key words. Let’s take Toyota’s ad for example, “车到山前必有路，有路就有丰田车”，its translation is “where there is a way, there is a Toyota”, which is the imitation of a well-known saying “where there is a will, there is a way”. Similar examples are given as follows,
1) “百闻不如一尝”（悦华佛跳墙）
Tasting is believing (Seeing is believing)
2) “桂林山水甲天下”
East or west, Guilin landscape is best (East or west, home is best)
3) “随身携带，有备无患；随身携带，有惊无险”（速效救心丸）
A friend in need is a friend indeed!
4) “绿丹兰—爱您一辈子”（化妆品）
Lvdanlan cosmetics-Love me tender, love me true (Wang Wenge, 1999:87).
5) “宁可食无肉，不可居无竹叶青”(竹叶青牌白酒广告)
Better a dinner where there Zhuyeqine spirit is; than a stalled ox and Zhuyeqine
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without. (Wang Wenge, 1999:87).
Analysis: The Chinese version imitates the structure of a famous Chinese poetry:“宁可食无肉，不可居无竹。” which expresses the virtue of being modest and honest in life. And the translated version follows the English proverbs“Better a dinner of herbs where there love I than a stalled ox and hatred there with”. In this way, the translated version may have the same advertising on its English readers as the original has on its Chinese readers, and at the same time be more favored by the English readers with its English literature flavor.
6) “中原之行哪里去？郑州亚细亚。”
When in Zhengzhou, do as the Zhengzhounese do: go shopping in the Asian Supermarket. (While in Rome, do as the Romans do)
7) “今日的风采，昨夜的绿世界。”（绿世界牌系列晚霜广告）
Give me Green World, or give me yesterday (Quoted from Internet)
Analysis: The translation is an adapted version of the poem by Patrick Henry during the American Independence War. The original poem is “Give me liberty, or give me death”. The adapted version in the advertisement suggests that by applying the Green World Evening Cream, the consumer can regain her youthful look, thus the consumer demands either to use the Green World Cream to look younger, or to go back to the good old days when she was physically young.
3.5 Supplementary Translation
In order to shorten the length of advertisements, ellipsis is often used during translation of advertisements. Translators can make the best use of supplementary translation or amplification strategy to reproduce the part of ellipsis in accordance with practical situation. Translators can also add some supplementary explanation information that the original doesn’t have according to the need of target-text readers, with the purpose of advertising. For examples,
1) “她工作，你休息（某洗衣机广告）
a) she works, you rest
b) She takes over the chores, so you can rest, of course.
Analysis: Some translate it straightforwardly as “she works while you rest” by using
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strategy of literal translation. But it doesn’t sound a good advertisement because it doesn’t express the implied meaning of the source-text.
2) “不同的肤色，共同的青岛”(青岛啤酒)
a) The same choice for different colors—Qingdao Beer.
b) different skin, similar QINGDAO or Different color, common in Qingdao
c) People’s skin colors are different—far and near, but their choice can be the
same—for Qingdao Beer.
Analysis: the meaning of translation a) can be varied depending on different readers’ perspective. It means literally “everyone choose different colors”, which is quite far away from its original implication and causes misunderstanding. Translation b) is much better even though it is lack of the basic element of the product-Qingdao is Beer, not else. c) is the best because of its supplementary explanation information.
3) Another example is an advertisement for tea, of which one sentence is: 清明前精
心采制（君豪牌绿茶）. The translation is “Carefully collected and prepared before the Tomb-sweeping Day.” In the example,“清明前” is translated as “before the Tomb-sweeping Day” rather than a transliteration “Qingming”, which shows the translator’s effort to paraphrase the Chinese. But it still cannot achieve the same function as the original version, since the term Tomb-sweeping Day is still quite obscure and strange to the westerner’s eyes. The emphasis on the fact that the tea leaves are collected and prepared before“清明” indicates, the leaves are tender, juicy and every drop of the essence of the leaves is preserved before they become too big to keep the best taste of the buds. Whereas, the translated version before Tomb-sweeping Day cannot make any sense to people from English culture, not to speak of achieving functional equivalence to the target reader. Through supplementary strategy with emphasis on the implicature of the source text, suggested translation is as follows:
“The tea is prepared from tender leaves which are picked during early spring.”
From examples above, we know that in order to meet the needs of the consumers of the target language, it is inevitable sometimes to delete, or revise some of the original information or structure while at other times to add some information that does not appear
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in the original case.
3.6 Creative Translation
Creative translation, namely, is to recreate a new way of translation that is beyond translation category. In other words, the translators use a way that is quite different from the basic way of translation to transfer the implication of the source-text so that the effect of advertising becomes outstanding. As we now know, advertising language must be full of imagination and originality to attract the target consumers’ eyes. So advertising translation，in fact, is a challenging job that requires high degree of creativeness.
1) “国酒茅台，相伴辉煌”
a) Maotai, a liquor of national that brings you glory
b) Good and vigorous spirit.
Analysis: the successful application of the word “spirit” in b) is semantically correlated. On one hand, it publicizes the best quality of Mao-tai; on the other hand, it carries forward the great spirit of the Chinese nation, which as a whole makes the translation highly aesthetic valuable. But the application of literal translation in a) does not deserve such reputation, which shows the magic power of creative translation when appropriately used.
2) “红玫相机新奉献”
My love is like a red rose (Quoted from Internet).
Analysis: The original is only a simple declaration of a new product while its translated version is an imitation of a poem of Robert Burns, which is more impressive than its original. From this we may know that the creativeness of translation can give the advertising translation liveliness.
3) “新天地”（楼盘名称）
A City of Art
Analysis: I think the translation of “新天地” can also be translated into “A New World”. If using this translated version, it will give us fancier and set up more excellent product image.
4. Results and Discussion
Different language has different form of expression. If the expected purpose and function of advertisement translation are neglected, that is, to translate straightforwardly
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and literally one language into another without taking its ultimate usage into consideration is usually difficult to obtain good effect of advertising and naturally become what we call Chinglish.
As mentioned previously, translation itself is introduction of foreign culture, so it is with the case of commercial advertisement translation. But how does ads translation express culture values?
People with different cultural backgrounds, when communicating with each other, will inevitably encounter culture shock. And similarly, the Cultural discrepancy between English and Chinese languages is an important factor that limits advertising translation, and influences the spreading efficiency of advertising. Under this circumstance, the translator should take the cultural, atheistic and psychological factors into consideration, and has to decrease, or even totally cut off some of the original content which is unacceptable in the target readers’ community to reproduce the same advertising effect in consumers of the target language as the original does in those of the source language.(冯纪元, 2002:6) So it is possible that the translated version may even get a better marketing respond when it is fit for the culture of consumers of the target language. Secondly, different cultural backgrounds may always cause misunderstandings. So when they communicate with each other, the restriction of the cultural divergence will inevitably be put on the use of language, just as the fast food commercial advertisement example listed before. By doing so, the cultural values of ads translation are accomplished.
From those examples we have discussed above, it is not so difficult to draw a conclusion that the key to success of advertisement translation lies in one’s effort to maintain the spirit and the essence of the original, even though there are differences in form of translation between the source-text and the target text. Therefore, proceeding from the perspective of target-text readers, the language advantages of translated text (target text) should be made best use of in Chinese-English translation of ad in order to make sure of the functional similarity of translation and reach its goal of advertising.
Lack of basic knowledge of translation strategy and the principles of advertising translation will directly lead to failure or mistranslation of advertising translation. Examples done by some of the English majors above prove so.
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5. Conclusion
Advertisement translation itself is a kind of work full of challenge and difficulty. On one hand, it is not easy to create an attractive and vigorous Chinese advertisement, let alone to translate it into a target-text that can be perfectly accepted with pleasure by target readers and reach its aim of sales promotion. Therefore, study of basic translation strategies of advertising translation as showed above is of importance.
On the other hand, advertising has its own unique language features and characteristics. In order to represent the essence of the original, it is necessary to pay special attention to the features and characteristics of advertising language and practice them with flexibility in reality according to the actual situation. Likewise, not only has advertising translation something in common with other language translation, it has his own unique independence. Therefore, proceeding from thoroughly understanding of advertising language features and characteristics, mastering the basic strategies of advertisement translation on the premise of correct and appropriate comprehension of Nida’s Theory of Functional Equivalence and the principle of ad translation plays an important role in the road to success of translation. Regardless of which strategy to choose from, literal translation, free translation, replacement translation, supplementary translation and creative translation, the spirit of the original, the essence of the source-text should be well kept in the process of translation.
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Reference
[1] Alexander Fraster Tyler, 2007.6, Essay on Principles of Translation[M]. London
[2] Bolen, William H. Advertising. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961
[3] Kleinman P.Advertising Inside Out. London: W.H, Allen, 1972
[4] Oliver Robert E. Advertising.New York: Crown, 1983
[5] 靳涵身. 商业广告翻译：性质·特点·技巧[J].四川外语学院学报，2000，(3): 95-99
[6] 蒋磊. 谈商业广告的翻译[J]
[7] 刘卫东. 广告翻译的基本策略[J]. 华中师范大学，2002
[8] 骆乐. 汉英广告翻译的策略与方法[J].南都学坛，2000，(3): 58–60
[9] 林晓琴. 中英广告的语言风格差异及互译策略[J]. 重庆工商学院学报， 2008
[10] 王慧. 谈广告翻译的策略[J].吉林省教育学院学报， 2008，(8): 65
[11] 魏传立. 商业广告用语的翻译技巧[J]. 商业研究，2008，（8）
[12] 张文娟. 目的论对商业广告翻译的指导意义[J]. 西华师范大学学报2004，
（2）：74-77
[13] 张慧. 商务英语广告翻译浅议[J]. 考试周刊，2009,(9):154
[14] 吴玲玲 王莎莎. 浅谈商业广告的对等翻译[J]. 湖北经济学院学报，2008，（3）
[15] 戚云方 2003.广告与广告英语[M].浙江. 浙江大学出版社
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Appendix
Translate the following Chinese ad into English appropriately
1. “给你一个新的选择”（中国铁通）
2. “给我一个机会，还你一个惊喜”（嘉亨印务）
3. “拥有完美肌肤的秘诀”（丁家宜化妆品）
4. “上有天堂，下有苏杭”（旅行社广告语）
5. “给你一个精彩的视界”（某显示器广告）
6. “柔韧细致，时刻照顾”（某餐巾纸广告）
7. “精彩的瞬间，永恒的回忆”（某相机广告）
8. “罗莎；李宁；安踏；康佳；格力”
9. “衣食住行，有龙则灵”
10. “百闻不如一尝”
11. “随身携带，有备无患；随身携带，有惊无险”（速效救心丸）
12. “她工作，你休息（某洗衣机广告）
13. “不同的肤色，共同的青岛”(青岛啤酒)
14. "天然天地.共享伊利"（伊利广告语）
15. “青青大草原，自然好牛奶” （伊利广告语）
16. “蒙牛，自然给你更多”
17. “原来生活可以更美的”(美的空调)
18. “我的世界，美的未来”（美的电器）
19. “天上彩虹，人间长虹”
20. “我们的名声是吹出来的”（电风扇广告）
21. “红玫相机新奉献”
22. “轻身减肥片”
23. “本品可即购即食，食用方便”
24. “清明前精心采制”（君豪牌绿茶）
25. “新天地”（楼盘名称）
26. “红玫相机新奉献”
27. “今日的风采，昨夜的绿世界。”（绿世界牌系列晚霜广告）
28. “中原之行哪里去？郑州亚细亚。”
29. “商场清仓大甩卖，我损失，你得益”
30. “一席尊天下”（别墅）
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