广告翻译中的文化差异

Abstract Nowadays, with the commercialization of society and the globalization of world, the role of advertising becomes more and more important .Meanwhile ,the advertising translation is receiving more and more attention ,especially the trademark translation .However ,the advertising translation is far more from satisfactory. The advertising translation is still in the level of literal translation .This paper discusses some issues on cultural difference in advertising translation, especially from the perspective of the use of languages and values. Actually language is the carrier of culture, and culture is reflected by people’s values .

Key words : advertising translation ,cultural difference, language ,value

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Advertising originates from the Latin word “advertere” which means” attracting the target consumers and lead them to the scheduled way ”.E.S.Lewis proposed four principal requirements for successful advertising ,which is “AIDA principle” consisting of “Attention”“Interest””Desire””Action”. And the “AIDA principle” is achieved by the way of “Verbal” and” Non-verbal” ,while the basic way is by language.

Language difference in advertising translation is from the following three aspects: First of all, Chinese people prefer the words like 雅，柔，玉,露which reflect the meaning of “comfortable”, “refresh” ,and so on. Many female makeup is translated by this way, for example “雅芳”for Avon and”玉兰油”for ”Olay” .It may give our Chinese people a feeling of refreshment and confidence, so these products are popular with Chinese people. And the common toothpaste “Colgate”is translated into “高露洁” which makes people feel that the toothpaste do make my tooth clean and white. In fact ,the Chinese characters are pictographic characters and every single character has its unique meaning while the alphabets have meanings when they are combined together. It is like that every single Chinese character can be pictured in your mind. The famous brand “Benz” is translated into the word”奔驰”and when the Chinese people here the word, they will conceive a picture of a car running quickly and at ease.

Secondly ,Chinese people may have some taboos and try their best to avoid some words which means unlucky .However ,many overseas adverting may ignore it .When

the Dior named its newly perfume ”Poison”, they don’t realize that the literal translation meaning in Chinese is a bad word and everyone try to avoid it. So it is a barrier for many translator. If it is translated into”毒药”，will Chinese people buy it. Actually it is just the core of the perfume ,which means the males will not say no to those females who use this kind of perfume. At last, a genius translator translates it into”百爱神”.Firstly, it is translated according to the pronunciation of the word. Next, it reflects the core meaning of the perfume which is uncontrolled. At last the Chinese characters“百”and ”爱”is preferred by Chinese people . In a word ,advertising is the shortest way connecting the consumers and the products. To sum up, products are meant to sell so we have to cater to the consumers’need, which in advertising translation is that the word must be accepted by consumers. Here are some successful advertising translation. ”Pepsi-cola”is translated into”百事可乐”which shows the meaning of “If you drink the cola, you will go smooth everyday” and it is just the wish of Chinese people, so why don’t we drink more? Carrefour is translated into”家乐福”。Actually the literal meaning of Carrefour is the crossroad and it means even noting in china .However ,the three Chinese character “家乐福”is totally different in Chinese which means happiness if you go shopping in Carrefour.

At last ,Chinese people prefer to use some rhetoric in language and they pay more attention to the sentence pattern of the advertising. For a long time ,Chinese people like to write poem which has strict rule in form. “Fresh up with Seven-up” is translated into “君饮七喜，提神醒脑”which is called antithesis .Antithesis is always used in poems and it makes the sentence have rhyme and is easy to pronounce and remember. Actually , the advertising should owe both the Attention value and the Memory value.”Double Delicious, Double your Pleasure “ is translated into “双份美味，双份愉悦”.To tell the truth ,when I hear the advertising ,I’ll have the attention to taste and I can remember the advertising word even I just read it once. The advertising of Maxwell is “Good to the last drop”. If we translated into “好到最后一滴”,it can’t attract the consumers but if it is translated into “滴滴香浓，意犹未尽”，it is totally different. The advertising itself makes you smell and taste the coffee. And the sentence is cater to the taste of Chinese people.