The translation of advertisements is different from other texts. The most important translation principle is to achieve functional equivalence, thereby realizing its commercial value. This article aims to provide some reference for advertising translation through a brief analysis of the characteristics, translation principles and methods of advertising English.
As a special way of information dissemination, advertising, in addition to its own commercial value, has increasingly evolved into a culture due to its high artistic characteristics and is inseparable from people's daily life. With the development of globalization, exchanges between countries are increasing day by day, and the circulation of goods is also an inevitable result. Therefore, the translation of advertising has emerged as the times require. As a special applied style, the translation of advertising has its own principles and characteristics. When translating English advertising text, the translator must achieve translation equivalence to the greatest extent and realize its commercial value to the greatest extent.
1. Characteristics of Advertising English
The vocabulary and structure of advertising words are generally relatively simple, but the form is flexible and diverse, the connotation is rich, it has its own distinctive and unique style, and it is persuasive. It can cater to the psychology of advertising audiences and stimulate their purchasing desires and behaviors.
1. Vocabulary characteristics of advertising English
Advertising is very particular about the use of words, paying more attention to aesthetics, and often uses vivid and innovative words. For example, the advertisement for LG mobile phone "Ichocolateyou" cleverly uses the word "chocolate" and transforms the noun into part of speech, comparing the mobile phone to chocolate. Since chocolate has great appeal to most people, especially young people, and is also a symbol of romance and fashion, many people affectionately call this phone "chocolate", which shows the charm of advertising words.
2. Advertising English sentence structure characteristics
In terms of sentence structure, advertising language also has its own characteristics. Advertisements generally use simple sentences, imperative sentences, and omitted sentences. For example, Anta's advertisement "Weare the champion." Although this statement is simple, it reflects the quality of Anta's products and the brand influence of its products, with a bit of the positive spirit and domineering spirit of sports. A Sprite ad: "Obeyyourthirst." Makes you crave it when you feel thirsty. In addition, advertisements are also good at using exclamations, questions, conditionals, repetitive sentences, etc.
3. Characteristics of rhetoric in advertising English
Rhetoric can greatly increase the appeal of language, deepen readers’ impression of the product, and has a certain persuasive function. Therefore, advertising slogans are also very particular about rhetoric, often using puns, personification, metaphors, rhymes, contrasts, repetitions and other techniques to make advertising slogans more novel and vivid. For example, a wine advertisement "The Unique Spirit of Canada." The word "spirit" is cleverly used in the advertisement, which is a pun and unique.
2. Translation Principles of Advertising English
As a special style, if Advertising English still takes "loyalty" as the first principle, it will be difficult to achieve its original advertising effect. In addition, due to cultural differences, it may be counterproductive and cause certain economic losses. It is necessary to be familiar with the aesthetic psychology of foreign people and avoid the translation of equations. The trademark of a dry battery exported from my country is called "White Elephant", which was once translated as "whiteelephant". It should be said that there is nothing wrong with this translation. As everyone knows, awhiteelephant is often compared to "useless and cumbersome things" or "heavy" in English. burden". No matter which translation technique is used, translation that can achieve functional equivalence is what is needed for advertising translation.
3. Translation Methods of Advertising English
1. Literal Translation
The so-called literal translation refers to the premise that it does not violate the language norms of the target text and does not cause wrong associations. Below, both the content and the form of the original text are retained in the translation, especially the metaphors, images, national and local colors of the original text, etc. Literal translation is not the same as semantically faithful translation. Such as: Goodteeth, good-health. This is the advertising slogan of Colgate toothpaste, translated into Chinese as: "Good teeth, good health." Both in content and form, it retains the simplicity, rhyme, and neat contrasts of the original text. Another example: "Focusonlife" is translated as: "Focus on life". "Justdoit!" translates to "Just do it." Feelthenewspace.
"is translated as "feeling a new realm". These translations are relatively straightforward, catchy, and easy to remember. These advertising words are deeply rooted in people's hearts, and the products are naturally more popular.
2. Transliteration method
The transliteration method is more suitable for translating some new words that have no equivalent in Chinese. More than half of them are used for proper nouns such as personal names, company names, and product names. In addition, they also include trademark names created by advertising designers such as: Parker, Sony, Kodak, Hilton, Haier, Phillip, Nike, Adidas, and Santana all use the transliteration method. These translations are fast-paced and have certain foreign cultural characteristics and sentiments, so they have been accepted by the majority of Chinese consumers. It should be noted that the Chinese characters used in transliteration should be unified so that consumers can clearly understand the specific product name to avoid confusion during consumption. For example, Polaroid, a primary imaging camera produced in the United States, has had several translations in China: "Polaroid" and "Polaroid". , "Polaroid" and "Polaroid" and other translations, the one that was finally settled and widely circulated was "Polaroid", which is short and concise, and fully reflects the characteristics of the product's one-time imaging. < /p>
3. Free translation method
The free translation method does not stick to the form of the source language, but makes necessary modifications to its rhetorical methods and sentence structure. Both English and Chinese languages ??have their own vocabulary. , syntactic structure and expression, coupled with differences in cultural background, so when there is a conflict between the original content and the translation, free translation can be used, such as Can'tbeattherealthing. The irresistible temptation - the American Coca-Cola Company advertisement. Another example is Goodtothelastdrop. Fragrant and full of meaning - Maxwell Coffee. Intelligent interpretation, everywhere - the advertising slogans of Motorola mobile phones have the same meaning, and the translation is more in line with the language and language of the target language consumers. Cultural habits are more likely to be accepted.
4. Re-creation
As the name suggests, this method is basically out of the scope of translation and is a special re-creation for advertising style and purpose. Due to gender considerations, advertisements in the source language often need to be reprocessed and created in order to achieve their commercial purposes. For example, the translation of Nokia's advertisement "Connecting People" is not "faithful" to the original text, and does not adopt the vocabulary or structure of the original text. , but has been re-processed for the Chinese audience, reflecting the technological nature of Nokia products and the people-oriented humanistic spirit. Another example is that the Chinese translation of the "The Way Ahead." advertisement has basically broken away from the translation framework and belongs to the category of re-creation. Chinese text. However, the requirements for the translator are higher, because the translation has reached a high level in terms of word choice, sentences and rhetoric, so as to ensure the artistic conception and commercial value of the translation.
Advertising. There is no fixed pattern for English translation. Therefore, it is a more complex job. To translate advertisements well, you need not only methods and techniques, but also solid basic language skills, a rich cultural background, and long-term accumulation of translation practice.