Translation of Trademark 商标词的翻译

Translation of TrademarkCONTENTS Abstract (i)摘要 (ii)1 Introduction (1)2 The theory of functional equivalence (2)3 The sources and characteristics of trademark (3)3.1 The sources of trademark (3)3.1.1 Name-related trademark (4)3.1.2 Geographical name trademark (4)3.1.3 Exotic trademark (5)3.1.4 Fabricated trademark (5)3.2 The characteristics of trademark (6)3.2.1 Loyalty (6)3.2.2 Symbolic meaning (6)3.2.3 Advantageous remembrance (7)3.2.4 Clarity and coherence (7)4 Fundamental values in trademark translation (7)4.1 Information value (8)4.2 Cultural value (8)4.3 Appreciation value (8)4.4 Commercial value (9)5 Fundamental methods in trademark translation (10)5.1 Transliteration (10)5.2 Literal translation (11)5.3 Free translation (11)5.4 Additional translation (11)6 Conclusion (13)Bibliography (15)Acknowledgements (16)ABSTRACTWith the development of globalization, more and more products from China are walking into the international market. The name of trademark is of great importance in the image of a brand, so trademark translation is the fundamental task to build a worldwide brand. As a result, trademark translation seems even more urgent and important. A good trademark should be fluent to read, refreshing to see and easy to remember. The different characteristics of different language and the existence of different cultures make translation a recreation process. This paper firstly introduces the theory of Nada’s functional equivalence, and then analyzes the sources and characteristics of trademark; in addition, four basic standards should be followed in translation. They are information value, cultural value, appreciation value and commercial value. Finally this paper proposes four essential translating methods in trademark translation. They are transliteration, literal translation, free translation and additional translation. Therefore, in order to express a good trademark the four basic standards should be obeyed and the four basic translating methods should also be applied. In this way, the goal of attracting consumers will be realized as quick as possible.Key words: trademark; translation methods; value摘要随着全球化的进程加快，越来越多的中国产品进入国际市场。

商标名称是树立品牌形象的重要内容，做好商标名称的翻译工作则是树立全球品牌形象的首要任务，因而商标的翻译工作显得尤为紧迫和重要，一个好的商标应该做到朗朗上口，清新优美和便于记忆。

不同特点及民族文化差异的存在使得商标翻译必然成为一个再创造的过程。

本文以奈达的功能对等理论为基础，通过对商标名称的来源及特点进行分析，进而提出了翻译过程中需要体现的四项基本价值，即：信息价值，审美价值，文化价值和商业价值。

最后，文章阐述了商标名称翻译的四种方法，即音译、直译、意译和增译。

因此，一个好的商标在翻译的过程中要依据以上四项基本价值，运用恰当的翻译方法，来达到其吸引顾客的目的。

关键词：商标；翻译方法；价值1. IntroductionWith the incessant increasing of the multi-international commodity trade, trademarks become more and more international, especially in the modern society of economic globalization, for opening up overseas market and setting up the whole world of brand of image, more and more enterprises attach importance to trademark translation, to help a commodity to find a foothold in the marketplace. Being one kind of important means of promotion and instrument in marketing and sales, the trademark, has an important effect on achieving the goal of enterprise. Every trademark implies its cultural connotation, the producing and accepting of a trademark is actually the process of intercultural communication. The effect of communication depends on how the trademark is translated.Trademark is the name of products, the agent of brand image. The quality of a trademark good or bad, being widely accepted by public or not, can not completely influence the future of the products and the fate of companies, but it will have a major impact on the product. Trademarks always determine the success or failure of the product. In modern information society, particularly in nowadays when China is developing international trade and economic relations, trademarks take on a dual mission of economics and cultures, and play a great role. And in which translation of trademark occupied the position that can not be ignored. Therefore, translation of trademark becomes an important and meaningful work. Concerning this, how to translate a trademark good, appears to be very crucial.Unlike little variety of products was available of the past，now the market provides a feast for p eople’s eyes with various commodities. Facing so many choices，the consumers naturally consider not only quality but also other factors. Before buying things，people cannot help questioning: “Will the quality be good since its trademark is so ordinary? What’s this commodity for since the meaning of name is vague? Who are willing to buy this as it sounds bad and possesses inauspicious meaning?" Everyone would like to buy things with both trustable quality and distinctive trademark which can satisfy the consumers' psychology of good wish and stimulatetheir desire to buy it. Although many people think that only the quality of products is important to the sales in the international market, successful translation of trademark as well as trademark itself is more necessary to attract consumers and make higher sales.2. The theory of functional equivalenceNida put up with “functional equivalence” to replace “dynamic equivalence” in the book The theory and practice of translation, which coauthored with Charles Tabor in 1969.He explained:Translating means communicating, and this process depends on what is received by persons’ hearing or reading a translation. Judging the validity of a translation can not stop with a comparison of corresponding lexical meanings, grammatical classes, and rhetorical devices. What is important is the extent to which receptors correctly understands and appreciates the translated text. Accordingly, it is essential that functional equivalence be stated primarily in terms of a comparison of the way in which the original receptors understood and appreciated the text and the way in which receptors of the translated text understand and appreciate the translated text (P116）.Someone may hold the view that functional equivalence translation is a kind of translation that is not accurate for its deviating from the original in style. However, the accusation of functional equivalence translation in this reason equals to the explanation of “accurate” in a strict way. If you want to have the exact meaning of “accurate”,you must rely on the fact that either the reader in target language or in original language can give a basically identical response to the accepted information. That is to say it is the functional equivalence translation that makes the readers in different languages gives a basically identical response. If you can understand the word “accurate” in this way, it is no doubt that functional equivalence translation not only can make the translation work easily understood by readers, but much more accurate.Nida considered that translation serves for the ordinary readers or the languageembracers. The evaluation of the translation work must combine with readers’ reaction. As well as the contrast between the above reaction and the reaction the authorship to original work. General speaking, these two reactions mentioned above indicate that whether the translation work can get a satisfied result in evaluation. It is request that translation work should make readers and authorship give a basically identical reactions not an exactly identical reactions in dynamic equivalence translation since various differences exist between original language and target language ranging from culture to historical background.The so-called functional equivalence refers to the original language speakers have the roughly same feeling with the target language speaker when they accept information. In other words, translators must try their best to reconstruct the original la nguage information with the method “cultural equivalence” in semantic and stylistic. What’s more,translators should not pay attention to original words’ linguistic structure or formal correspondence but original words’ meaning and connotation in the proce ss of translation. If you want to realize “functional equivalence” in trademark translation, these following tips should be highly emphasized: first, customer is God. As a kind of popular and influential artistic form, trademark translation should be based on consumer’s appreciation ability and easily acceptable verbalism. Second, translators should take advantage of translated language and objectively functional equivalence. In view of the existence of cultural differences between original language and target language, mechanical form equivalence is able to make vivid trademarks in original language become meaningless in translated language. If translators want to realize the functional equivalence in trademark, they must take advantage of translated language to make reconstruction. The final purpose of trademark translation is using the most ordinary language style and approximately cultural equivalence to translate the original trademark so as to cause the similar reaction between the consumers in both translated language and original language. 3. The sources and characteristics of trademark3.1 The sources of trademarkThe sources of goods always are associated with the founder of the enterprise and its birthplace. Different commodities have different connotations because of different geographical and cultural conditions. The combination and understanding of goods is a right way and a prerequisite for the translation of trademark. Throughout the forms of trademarks, trademark names can be named according to people’s names, names of places, exotic names and fabrication.3.1.1 Name-related trademarkTrademarks named after enterprises, the founder of the company, product or invention patent holders is the international norm. Such as Ford(福特), Benz (奔驰), Cadbury (吉百利), Sassoon (沙宣), Li Ning (李宁), the famous car “Audi”is translated into“奥迪”, “Cadillac”is“卡迪拉克”in Chinese, “Ford”is“福特”.Those translated names often do not have special meaning, but they keep and express the style of the original ones. In addition, they can reflect foreign culture by transliteration. When named trademarks, sometimes, names of gods from myths and legends are also chosen, or names from literature, film and television works, such as NIKE (耐克) is a victory of the goddess of Greek mythology, ANGEL (安琪儿) refers to the messenger sent by God. Another kind is word trademark which applies ordinary words to make people easily associate with the product because most words have figurative meaning. Therefore, to those trademarks, the normal way is to translate literally so that it will stimulate the consumption because of good association to be reminded whenever consumers see this product. Literal translation can keep the characteristic of the original names, and directly and accurately express the information that original ones intend to. For instance, Apple, as a trademark of computer, is translated literally into“苹果”. This name sounds very cordial and close to buyers and it's proved that “Apple” does sell well.3.1.2 Geographical names trademarkTo name a trademark according to its birthplace is often widely used as an important means. For example, luxury hotels Shangri-la (香格里拉) from the well-known British writer James Hilton’s literary works, “Lost Horizons”in the fictitious names, its original site is in the territory of Yunnan Province in China, it ispermanent year-round spring, a beautiful area and a desirable “ideal world”. Another example Cashmere (开斯米) is named after the place Cashmere, NOKIA (诺基亚) is a small town in northern Finland, and the first Nokia was built here. These are: Champagne (香槟) from the French champagne named after the place of production; Tsingtao Brewery (青岛啤酒); Shanghai Sweater (上海羊毛衫), and so on.3.1.3 Exotic trademarkTrademark term from foreign words is the result of different cultures exchange, such as LUX (力士) from the Latin, meaning “daylight”. The trademark leads people to connect “sun and a healthy color” immediately. Another example shampoo (香波) from the Hindi Campo, which means “massage”. The term specifically refers to shampoo, refers to shampoo in the right direction: gently knead by hand, at the same time massage on the scalp. In the eighteenth century, British colonialists invaded India, brought this word in English, written in Shampoo. SONY(索尼) derived from the Latin Sonus, which means “voice”.3.1.4 Fabricated trademarkTrademarks designed according to certain intentions, with some accordance and subjective imagination is an important way to name trademarks. Those words that are invented to express some information according to certain principles and intentions, attains the largest proportion in vocabulary of trademark. The construction of those words normally concerns several fields such as marketing, industrial design and psychology since the word-formation is various, translators must flexibly interpret. For these words, transliteration is still one way, but it must be accompanied with other means such as literal translation or paraphrase. Take “Bubble Yum” for example, Yum originally means “tasty”, and here is paraphrased into “百宝”(meaning treasure). Moreover, it sounds similar to “Bubble”. Added with the literal meaning of bubble(泡泡糖)，the final translation appears as “百宝泡泡糖”，In this way, it's more vivid for consumers to have knowledge of this brand and more able to guide consumption. Another example is Kodak (柯达), the mark reminds us of the moment to press the shutter with a dynamic voice; Haier (海尔) has a similar voice with the English word“higher”, which means higher and better; Supor (苏泊尔) has a similar voice with the English word “super”, which means excellent.3.2 The characteristics of trademarkThe trademark of commodity stands for a kind of commodity, just as one’s name, and enjoys a widespread reputation, with the ceaseless expansion of the commodity exchange: many famous trademarks in the world have already become the intangible assets and enormous wealth of enterprises. These successful brand names have something in common as follows.3.2.1 LoyaltyMany trademarks have some connections with the goods themselves more or less, than often be reflected on their denotations. For example, “京客隆” (the trademark of a chain supermarket in Beijing), first it reflected the location of its headquarters, then “客隆” shows that it is a walk of service, only there are quite a few of guests, it would be very profitable. Another example, “Ivory” is a kind soap, it demonstrates the purity of the products, and can make the clothes clean just like the quality of “ivory”. The trademark “Li Ning”(李宁) is designed according to its first Chinese Pinyin formation. “L” and “N” is colored in red printed; it is beautiful, modern and energetic. It fully contains the spirit of sports. What is more, the trademark represents the flying flag, the burning torch of youth and energy. Another example, the trademark “Wal-Mart”(沃尔玛), “mart” has a meaning of “market”, this helps customers know clearly the selling scope of this brand.3.2.2 Symbolic meaningFor example, the noted male finery brand “Goldlion”, English meaning is “a golden lion”, the translator is to make a commodity have a sense of magnificence, satisfy people honing for good fortune and pursing luxury, so “gold” was reserved original meaning, but the lion was translated by transliteration means, with both held together: well-known brand in China “金利来” come into being. The brand is not only brilliant, but also conveys the most favorable auspices. Although the meaning of “金利来” is hardly compatible with its original meaning, their tenet influence and effect are unanimous.3.2.3 Advantageous remembranceA good trademark should be fluent to read, refreshing to see and easy to remember. For example, the Chinese translation of “BMW” is “宝马”, which is the world famous automobile enterprise. Another example, “Reebok”, a kind of sports clothing, which is easy to remember for its simple syllables, which also reflects athletes’agile and beautiful movements, its Chinese equivalence “锐步” also conveys the same meaning. Such similar translation as “Hisense”(海信)、“Forever”(永久), “Blue Bird”(青鸟)、“Marlboro”（万宝路）and so on.3.2.4 Clarity and coherenceLike other names, trademarks pursuing brief, clear and loud. Beauty in meaning, form and pronunciation should be advocated in language expression. The name of trademark, a symbol of certain goods, has more detailed requirements in these aspects. One of the most classical examples is a cosmetic’s brand “Estee Lauder”, which originated from New York, whose Chinese name “雅诗兰黛” is elegant fresh. We can not help associating elegant and namby-pamby with female. Moreover, “雅诗兰黛”itself accords with Chinese, which is featured by four words and pay more attention to lingering charm, so that it reads delicately, elegantly and fluent, and the four words fit together well so that they forming a united whole.Clarity means the trademark should be well explained and easy to understand. Such as the famous brand “Safeguard”(舒肤佳), it was constituted by “safe” and “guard”, the combine of these two words makes consumers have the association security and protection. The similar examples as “Double Happiness”(双喜), “Good Company”(良友), “Fanta”(芬达), and so on.4. Fundamental values of trademark in the translationCustomer is God. As one kind of the art facing the extensive consumers, the translating of trademark needs to base itself on consumer’s appreciation, and to translate the trademark with a kind of plain language which is accepted by the masses. There are four kinds of fundamental standards of value that we should pay more attention to in the process of trademark translation.4.1 Information valueThe translation of trademark should realize the equivalence of information value, that is to say, translators should keep the form of translating, the language brand and commodity content in harmony. For example, “Dove”, this brand, is a brand of a perfumed soap and also a chocolate brand as well. Therefore, translators differentiate them by adopting the two different words. When translating the former (the brand of perfumed soap), it is translated into “多芬”, taking the meaning of smooth skin and fragrance. Accordingly, the latter (the chocolate brand) is translated into “德芙”, which is consistent with its advertising wordings---“milk is strong and scented as silk feels”.4.2 Cultural valueThe design of brand must be compatible with legal rules and custom in those countries and regions, and respect its state sovereignty and national traits, which has already become the common principle that the enterprise brand designs in every country. The brand is not only the effect after using, and its effect on marketing and sales. Trademarks Act in some countries make some peculiar regulation according to their customs. The brand translating of the export commodities should pay attention to consistency with every traditional society culture, and do not go against local customs and habits and religions belief of every country, especially taboos. For instance, the “白象”plate battery that our country exports sells well in Southeast Asia, because “the white elephant” is the mascot of Southeast Asia area. But no people care for it in European and American marketplace, because its English meaning means useless and tiresome. The “蓝天” of plate toothpaste in our country has been exported to the USA, its translated name “Blue Sky”has become enterprise collecting the bond not returning due to the meaning of frustration and melancholy. Therefore, there is no doubt a problem in process of selling.4.3 Appreciation valueAesthetically speaking, once people start to focus on the brand, they will expect it exceedingly. Such as rhyme in poetry, parallel in article and the object reputation in film picture composition, all embody above-mentioned and make oneself be rich inthe aesthetics feeling at the same time. In fact, the brand translation is dependent on to a great extent this mentality. Demand for the brand translation in the meaning is not only high, but also in the word number, tone of voice, level and oblique tone. For instance, the “Fiyta”, which was translated into “飞亚达”, is the role model of the combination tone with meaning. And the “Oil of Ulan”, “Ulan” translated into “玉兰”(Magnolia), Magnolia is not only a flower which favorites by Chinese people, but also a symbol of noble, elegant, and to realize the value of skin care products , at the same time, it gives a sense of beauty, with it, the skin will generally bright and clean as jade, as fragrant orchid.Another example is the famous shampoo brand “Rejoice”, which was translated into “飘柔”, This translation of the word beyond the literal meaning of the original trademark “pleasure, joy”, which transmits the characteristics of the products most vividly, makes consumers have the association after using it, your hair will supple and elegant as silk.Now let's draw some examples from the translation of trademark words of foreign cosmetics. We find that on the basis of similar pronunciation translators often choose the characters which may arouse Chinese consumers' favorable association such as “娇、丽、雅、柔、滑、适、碧、洁、芳、雪、诗、芬、倩”and the like. Chinese people often associate these characters with women's beautiful faces and soft skins, so the Chinese versions will certainly achieve the similar vocative functions of luring women to buy the cosmetics. The following are some successful examples.Avon(cosmetics) ---------------------雅芳BASICS(facial cream) --------------白斯娇丽Biore(facial cleanser) ----------------碧柔MARY KAY(balancing moisturizer)--玫琳凯Hazeline(facial cream) --------------夏士莲The combination of partials and meanings as a translation technique can indicate the characteristics of the products and translated trademark words are musical for people to listen to and speak of. It can be adopted to achieve the informative, aesthetic and vocative functions of trademark words, so now it is widely used to translate trademark words which are made up of proper names or coined words.4.4 Commercial valueBrand translation needs to have demonstrated enterprise or the product characteristic, and the peculiarity that the brands translators can make the enterprise brand become eminent in brand by the thousands and tens of thousands, and attract a consumer easily. The brand translation should provide a hint for consumer on the products efficacy and quality. When the beverage “Sprite”appeared in the marketplace, firstly, it was called “事必利” in Chinese, according to the custom that people in Hong Kong and Macao pursue the fortune. But the result of sales was not satisfactory, and then it was switched over to “雪碧”, which left the ice-cold impression on consumers and was accepted by the consumers. A kind of brand “Rejoice”(飘柔), which is a kind of hair care commodity, is sold by the USA company P&G, meaning that if you choose it, your hair becomes elegant, which not only demonstrates commodity properly and quality, but also leave fine aftertaste to all consumers.5. Fundamental methods in translating trademarksFrom one kind of language to another kind of language, the brand translation needs to reserve the original cream and accords with consumers’ mentality. What different from other literature translations is that above-mentioned purpose should be realized by translating a word, that is to say, translators need to employ comprehensive language in language, sales and aesthetics. In the process of translation by transliteration and free translation, translator pays attention to the words choice of tone and signification related to the original work, in order to acquire satisfactory effect. Fundamental method falls into several methods as follows.5.1 TransliterationTransliteration is the translation method using one kind of language to read and write the word or phrase or another kind of language being pronounced, which is used widely in the brand translation. Pure transliteration has aesthetic feeling of original brand and bring consumer into a kind of exotic atmosphere. Such as Motorola (mobile phone), Sony (electrical equipment), Kodak (film), Fen Bide (medicine), Sharp (color television), though these are uncomfortable expression habit in Chinese, it is full ofexoticism, novelty and uniqueness, which is popular with Chinese customers. It can be seen that transliteration having reserved original brand name meter rhythm, attracts the extensive consumers with full-bodied exotic features. Transliteration can keep the whole world brand image compatible better at the same time. This kind of examples is numerous, the most famous example is the American brand “Coca-Cola”, which is translated into “可口可乐”, it keeps the syllable and sonority of the original work, and makes it clear that it is kind of beverage brand, which makes the word of no specific meaning vivid and dramatic and endless and endless savor. And “可乐” has already become the beverage pronoun in modern society. It can be seen that its permeation in culture.5.2 Literal translationAccording to the feature of source language and target language, literal translation refers to reserve the content and form of original brand name as much as possible. In the process of translation brand, when source language and target language reach consistency of the function, which is the simplest and the most effective method. In the process of actual translation, it astonishes us in the degree of the consistency between Chinese and English. Such as “Microsoft”, which is translated into “微软”. It just conforms to the product of Microsoft Company. Another example is “Blue-Ribbon Beer”, translated into Chinese is “蓝带”. “Blue-Ribbon”has the meaning of “masterpiece and excellent works”, “maximal honor” and “first-class”, in the meantime, and matches with the azure ribbon brand picture. There are not works more than “Blue-Ribbon Beer”, why not use it? And the following are some examples to see what kind of translation is literal translation.Apple---------------苹果; 熊猫----------------pandaCamel--------------骆驼; 凤凰------------------------PhoenixGreen Shield-------绿盾; 小天鹅--------------Little SwanIvory----------------象牙; 蜂花------------------------Bee & FlowerCrown---------------------皇冠; 钻石-----------------------DiamondJaguar----------------------美洲虎; 红鸟--------------------------Red Bird5.3 Free translationBecause of the difference of bilingual culture between Chinese and English these two languages, if the translator unilaterally lays emphasis on reserving the original form, it may possibly lead to distort its meaning and reach the equivalence between the information and aesthetics from original name and translated trademark name. Considering cultural factor, it is difficult for translator to translate some automobile brand name. For example, “Blue Bird”is translated into “青鸟”but not “蓝鸟”, because there is not so called “蓝鸟”in China, but “青鸟”makes people associate poems of the Tang dynasty “蓬山此去无多路,青鸟殷勤为探看”(李商隐<无题>).What is more, it has the meaning of high speed both in English and Chinese. 5.4 Additional translationAdditional translation is that by comparison the original language during translating and then adds the necessary word, phrase, clause or sentence so that the expression of the translation of semantics more consistent with the original, to the spiritual essence of the meaning of line, it is the so called the line of three significant Alleged, made in and the pragmaticIn trademark translation, additional translation refers to base on the content and service of commodity and frame another name without concerning the form and content of original brand. Its essence has already isolated itself from the connotation translating. Additional translation is only a process of recreation to a great extent, it requires the translator has higher language attainments. Since it keeps unification with the original brand and is not broadly in practice in business affairs, which is a kind of supplement to the regular translation method. But when transliteration, literal translation, free translation all are difficult to represent the original brand connotation properly, additional translation is therefore likely to play a magic role in translation. Among theme, chewing gum brand “箭牌”, which has high notability and good reputation, is one of the most excellent works in translation. The English brand name of “箭牌” is called Wrigley (first founder’s name), the translated name of Chinese is aiming at directly conveying the arrow shape reorganization element of long history brand. And the brand of “彩虹”of Shanxi Province in China, at first it was translated into Chinese Pinyin “CAIHONG”, at first it was not understood by human beings in。