中英广告翻译中的文化差异

Cultural Differences in English-Chinese Advertisement Translation

中英广告翻译中的文化差异

学生姓名：***

所在系别：____外国语言文学系

所学专业：英语

完成时间： 2014年5月

Contents Abstract (i)

摘要 (ii)

I. Introduction (1)

II.The Relationship Between Culture and Advertising Language (1)

2.1 Language and Culture (1)

2.2 Advertisement and Culture (2)

2.3 Advertisement Language and Culture (2)

III. Culture-Specific in Advertisement Translation (2)

3.1 Differences in related cultural background (3)

3.2 Differences in cultural value (3)

3.3 Differences in numbers (3)

IV. The Principle of English-Chinese Advertisement Translation (4)

4.1 Understand target language culture adequately (4)

4.2 Balance the relationship between metaphrase and paraphrase (4)

4.3 Adopt transliteration and free translation (4)

V. Conclusion (5)

Bibliography (6)

Abstract

As Mark Twain says that many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising, advertisement has become one of the most important product of culture in the modern age. It is a form of communication that typically attempts to persuade potential customers to purchase or to consume products or service of a brand. Especially, advertising language is characterized by cultural and age background.

Advertising has gone through five major stages of development: domestic, export, international, multi-national and global. Nowadays, since the economic globalization, the relationship between advertisement and culture become more closely. This paper gives a detailed analysis of culture-specific in advertisement translation and then probes into some effective methods of its translation

Key words: advertisement translation; culture difference; language

摘要

马克吐温曾经说过，很多微小的事物通过广告而使其功能扩大化。在当今世界，广告已成为最重要的文化产品之一。它是一种试图去引导消费者消费产品或服务的一种典型的交流形式。广告语言有典型的文化特征。

广告经历了五个重要的发展阶段：国内化，向外发展，国际化，多国文化交融，全球化。如今，自从经济全球化以来，广告与文化的关系变得日益密切。本篇文章主要针对广告翻译中的文化进行详细的分析以及探讨一下翻译的一些重要策略。

关键词：广告翻译；文化差异；语言

I.Introduction

American Marketing Association defines advertising as the nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media. However, whatever the strategies advertiser takes, language is an essential carrier of inspiration. There are many unsuccessful cases of advertisement translation which lead no sale for product. The main reason is that the translator doesn't have adequate understanding of target culture, and is limited by superficial meaning of the text. In order to attract the target especially non-domestic consumers, it is a significant task to be aware of the differences between Chinese culture and western culture, and the key to translate advertisement is to have the same strong influence on the people who read the translated version.

II. The Relationship Between Culture and Advertising Language

2.1 Language and Culture

There are various cultural types such as national culture and foreign culture, while they have common feature that almost each culture exists in a form of language. Although lots of factors result in the formation of culture, its spread relies on some certain forms. The practice indicates that language use is heavily tinted with its culture. We can infer that a language not only expresses facts, ideals, or events which represent similar world knowledge by its people, but also reflects the people’s attitudes, beliefs, world outlooks etc. In a word, language expresses cultural reality.

2.2 Advertisement and Culture