论中西方文化差异对商务广告翻译的影响

论中西方文化差异对商务广告翻译的影响

摘要

中国加入世界贸易组织后，商务广告在我们的日常生活中更是频繁出现。广告的创意来源于文化，中西方文化的差异导致了广告人的文化价值观和思维逻辑的不同，因此广告的创作方式与表达方式也有差异。广告作为一种信息传播手段，需要考虑到公众对信息的接受心理和习惯。把握中西文化的差异并加以利用是广告成功的本质和关键。如何通过翻译把一个商务广告准确而又贴切地传达给拥有着不同文化的受众，这个课题值得研究。

关键词：文化差异；广告；翻译

On Cultural Differences in Advertisement Translation

Abstract

We are embraced by all kinds of commercial advertisements in our daily life since China has entered into the WTO. The idea of an advertisement comes from culture, so the culture difference may lead to different cultural values among different advertisements. As a widely used medium of communication in modern society, an advertisement needs to take the cultural differences into consideration. How to communicate a commercial advertisement to people of different cultural backgrounds correctly and appropriately deserves to be investigated.

Key words: cultural difference; advertisement; translation.

On Cultural Differences in Advertisement Translation

论中西方文化差异对商务广告翻译的影响

1. Introduction

There is more and more acute marketing competition today. Under this circumstance, an advertisement of good quality will be necessary if you want to make your products competitive and attractive to the consumers among millions of other competitors. Besides, a successful advertisement is also a very important part in world-wide business.

Chinese economy has already melted into the world market.

A good translated advertisement will not only convey the information in accuracy and reap a good advertising effect, but also stimulate receptor’s cultural and appreciating association, which will be of much help to the cultural communication, thus it is also an impulse in cultural diffusion.

We can't deny that most of the private enterprises haven’t realized how to create an English advertisement and searched for help from an inexpert translator instead of professional agency. This leads to a poor quality of the advertisement translation. Some of the translation principals know little about English; therefore the quality of the translated advertisement will not be assured. Many translators do a very poor job with various intolerable mistakes.

With the development of economy, trans-national advertising will become more and more frequent. Therefore, successful advertising language must be able to impress people and create a lasting and strong memory in people’s mind. Writers and translators of advertisements should pay attention to the features of advertising language, cultural differences and translation principles.

This article mainly focuses on the influence of advertisement translation due to the cultural differences between China and western countries and what we should do if we are dealing with an advertisement translation job.

2. The Overview of an Advertisement.

In this section, I will mainly focus on the topic about the functions, the features and the standards of an advertisement. How to classify so many kinds of advertisements will be mentioned too.

2.1 The definition of an advertisement

The word “advertise” stems from the Latin “advertere”,meaning “to make known to the public”.

We live in a world full of advertisements. What on earth is an advertisement?

One of the famous definitions is that “An advertisement is a message or an announcement that informs or influences people. It can use words, pictures, music or film to convey its message. Advertisements are not only made and paid for by business, but also by individuals, organizations and associations that wish to inform or educate the public.”①