以功能对等理论为指导的广告翻译

1、摘要随着经济的充分发展，经济的全球化趋势同益明显，广告在现代社会中的作用越來越重要，因而对广告翻译也捉出了越來越高的要求。但是，尽管人们已经 对广告翻译进行了大量的实践活动，然而我国对广告翻译的理论研究远远满足不 了社会的需求，广告翻译尚未得到充分发展。广告是一种跨语言、跨文化的交流活动，对输入国消费者的心理、信仰等产 生直接的冲击，从而影响商品在目标市场的占有率和销量。中英语言和文化中的 差异决定了广告翻译是i项非常灵活而复杂的工作，在众多的翻译理论中，奈达 的功能对等理论提出了这样的概念：译文的接受者对译文信息的反应应该与源语 言接受者对原文的反应基本相同。这一理论止好符合了广告翻泽的特点

2、，即译文 应与原文具有相同的劝说功能。从这个角度來说，功能对等理论应该是指导广告 翻译的最佳理论。本文通过研究分析论证功能对等是指导广告翻译的最佳理论原 则之一，在功能对等的理论基础上，着重讨论如何处理广告翻泽屮所涉及的语言 和文化差异：另外还结合实例提出常见的翻译策略。第一章中，作者首先介绍了翻译的一般理论，接着详细阐述了奈达的功能对 等理论；第二章主要介绍了广告的基本知识，以及广告本身所涵盖的语言特点和 文化因素，为后一章节的广告翻译作了铺垫。第三章作者首先论证了功能对等理 论对于广告翻译的可行性，通过分卡厅、探讨，认为奈达的“功能对等”理论非常 适合于广告翻泽。并在此基础上分析了应用功能

3、对等理论为指导，广告译文之于 原文在文体，内容以及形式上的总体耍求。第四章是全文的重点所在，说明了h 前广告翻译的主要策略。在第四章中，作者首先说明了广告翻译应当达到两个层 次的对等，即语言层次的对等和文化层次的对等。在功能对等理论的指导下，为 了达到最贴切的自然等值，作者在具体分析典型的广告翻译实例基础上，提出了 归化转换的翻译策略。最后一章中，作者对全文予以归纳、概述，并指出了文章 不足之处和今后进一步研究的方向。关键词：功能对等，广告翻译，翻译策略viabstractswith the full development of the economy and the economic gl

4、obalization trend becoming increasingly evident, advertising is playing a more and more important role in modem society,as a result, there is an increasingly higher requirement in advertising translation. however, despite the fact that people have taken a great deal of practical activities in the fi

5、eld of advertising translation, the chinese theoretical research of advertising translation still far failed to meet the needs of the community, advert ising translation has not yet been fully developed.advertising is a cross一language, cross一cultural communicative activities, having a direct impact

6、on the consumer psychology and beliefs of the importers, and thereby affecting the share and sales of commodities in the target market. because of the language and cultural differences between english and chinese, the advertising translation is a very flexible and complex task in so many translation

7、 theories, nida" s functional equivalence theory puts forward such a concept： the reaction of the receptors in the target language should be substantially the same as the receptors in the source language. this theory is consistent with the characteristics of advertising translation, that is, th

8、e target text should have the same persuasion function as the original text. from this perspective, functional equivalence theory should be a best guiding theory of advertising translation. while pointing out through analysis that the functional equivalencc theory is one of the best guiding principl

9、es for advertising translatiorb this thesis focuses on how to deal with the language and cul tural differe nces involved in advert is ing translat i on, besides in the end,common strategies of translation are given on the basis of examples.chapter one first introduces the general theory of translati

10、on, and then elaborates on nida' s functi onal equi valence t heory. chapter two in eludes the basi c knowledge of the advertising and advertisement , as wel 1 as the language features of advertising,so as to pave the way for the latter chapters. in the third chapter, firstly, thefeasibility of

11、nida" s functional equivalence theory in advertising translation is fullyvttelaborated through analysi s and di scussi on, and based on this, the wri ter further discusses the overal1 requirements for advertising translation in style, form and content. chapter four shows the current strategies

12、of advertising translation. in thischapter, the author states at the outset that the advertisements should be translated totwo levels of equivalence, that is, the language level and the cultural level. under theguidanee of functional equivalence theory, in order to achieve the closest natural equiva

13、le nee, the author proposes strategies of adaptation based on specif ic examples of typical advertising translation. the final chapter outlines and summarizes the wholetext, where the author points out the inadequacy of the thesis and the direction offurther study.keywords： functional equivalence, a

14、dvertising translation, translation strategies introductionas china is deepening its opening up to the outside world, especially after joining wto, the international economic activities develop rapidly and the international advertisements grow vigorously. there is a strong need for efficient interna

15、tional advertising communication. thus the amount of advertising translation keeps increasing. as a specialized and important area of translation, advertising translation has its own features and rules, which deserve an intensive and systematic study. we all know that a successfu1 advert!si ng trans

16、lation can influence the customers imperceptibly but enormously, and it can arouse peoplej s interests in buying the products and bring about profit for a company. while on the other hand, failed advertisement will not only cause eco no mic losses but also directly influe nee the image of a company

17、even a country. tncommensurate to its ever growing importa nee, adver tising translation st i 11 rema ins an un der explored field as a bra nch inthe discipl ine of tra ns 1 at ion, the study of advertising tra nslation, especially that between the english and chinese languages, is far from satisfac

18、tory in accordancc with its n eed. un til no w, no systematic theoretical research on this issue has bee n sufficiently conducted. there are only a small number of papers making a summary ofthe experience achieved from the advertising translation practice, among which the majori ty i s published in

19、col lege journals instead of chi nese key journals. many of thearticles are descriptive rather than analytical, dealing with specific aspects of advertising translation, such as translation of rhetoric, slang, brands and slogans, andaesthetic properties and so forth- this thesis, adopting an analyti

20、cal approach, di scusses the appl i cat ion of nida' s fun ctional equi vale nee theory i n advertisement translation. instead of focusing on the specific techniques, it tends to focus on thegeneral principles and general translation strategies that should be followed. in gen oral, it consists o

21、f four chapters with in troduct i on and con clusi on： chapter ono first introduces the genera! theory of translation， and then presents nida' s functionalequivalenee theoryt its development, content and essence. in chapter two, basic knowledge of advertising has been discussed in great detail,

22、including the development of advertising , definition of advertising and advertisement , classificationof advertising, purposes and functions of advertising, and features of advertising language which have been analyzed from three aspects, namely, lexically, syntactically and rhetorically- based on

23、the first two chapters, it is thus safe to drawthe conclusion that the applicat ion of the functional equi valenee in advertising translation is practical and feasible, therefore in the third chapter, the writer firstelaborates on the feasibility of nida，s functional equivale nee theory in advert is

24、i ng translation through analysis and discussiorb and then under the guidancc of nida， sfunctional equivalence, the writer further discusses the overall requirements for advertising translation in style, form and content. chapter hour is the most important part of this thesis , which shows the curre

25、nt strategies of advertising translation. sincenida" s functional equivalence theory proposes that translation shall be target languageoriented and target culture oriented, strategies of adaptation are definitely reasonableand unavoi dable. in this chapter, a number of examples are quoted to il

26、 lustrate the application of nida， s functional equivalenee in advertising translation. the conclusionsummarizes the whole thesis, and the author points out the inadequacy of the essay and the direction of further study.2chapter one literature reviewany factual analysis and practical application nee

27、d a systematic theory as the backup. with regard to the field of advertising translation, the author wi 11 first of allreview briefly the notion of equivalence and nida' s functional equivalence theory, as the guiding theory in dealing with advertising translation.1- 1 notion of translation equi

28、valencethe first significant statement on translation was made by cicero(l 06bc-43)in the first century bc, proposing “not to translate word for word, but to translate sensefor sense”. since then, translation theories have developed for more than 2000 years. the term '"equivalence" fir

29、st appeared in j r. firth' s writing when he stated that ''theso一called translation equivalents between two languages are never really equivalent/'(firth, 1 957). with the development of linguistics and the linguistic-oriented translation studies in the west, “the concept of translat

30、ion equivalenee has been anessenti al i ssue not only in translation theory over the 1 ast 2000 years, but al so inmodern translation studies” (wilss, 200 1: 1 34). translation is the replacement of arepresentation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in asec ond langu

31、age” (meetham & hudson, 1 969： 7 13). the mai n goal of t ranslation i s toestabl ish a par ticular type of corresponde nee between the source text and the t ar get text. the nature of correspondence has been referred to as faithfulness or''fidelity'or more predom inan tly, to the n

32、oti on of u equi vale nee". therefore, equi vale nee is a central concept in the translation theory. but to gain a full equivalence in translation isonly ideal for all translators. since uthere are, properly speaking, no such things asidentical equivalents" (belloc, 1 93 1: 37) , one must

33、try to find the closest possible equivalenee in translation. generally, studies of translation equivalence could be categorized into the following types： dreferentiai or denotative equivalence where source language and target language words supposedly refer to the same thing in the real world； 2)con

34、notative equivaence where source language and target language words trigger the same or similar associations in the minds of native speakers of thetwo languagos； 3)quantitativcscheme equivaleneo where relationships of lexical equivalcnce, in particular in the area of terminology, are distincted as o

35、ne-to oneequivalence, one一to-many equivalence, oneto-part-of-one equivalence or nil equivalence； 4)text一normative equivalence where source language and target1 anguage words are used in the same si mi lar con texts in their respective languages； 5)textual equivalence where source language and target

36、 language information flows are similar and the cohesive roles of source language and devices in their respective textsare more or less the same； 6) cultural equivale nee where source language and target language cultural information are commonly shared by their respective readers. these six categor

37、ies of translation equivalenee mentioned above can be regarded as equivalence in different degrees, with regard to di fferent levels of presentat ion and atdifferent ranks. however,such classification seems uncontrollable. according to eug cne nida, equi vale neo can be gen erally categorized into t

38、wo types, of which ono is formal equivalence and the other is fun cti on al o equi vale nee. accord ing to nida, formal equivalence refers to "a faithful reproduction of source text form elements, inwhich the form equivalence is more important than the communicative effectiveness of the target

39、text”，wh i 1 e fun cti on 且 1 equi vale nee "focuses on the effectiveness of thetarget text, denoting equivale nee of extra linguistic communicative effect” (nida, 1 964： 1 59) for a translator, "not only mastery of forms of the language is important, but also mastery of forms in order to

40、accomplish the functions of language” (brown, 1 987) mastery of vocabulary and structures is of no use if the translator cannot usethe forms for the purpose of transmitting and receiving thoughts, ideas, and feel ings betwee n the translator and the t arget language reader ship or between the wri te

41、r of thesource language and the reader of the target language- whi1e forms are the mani festali ons of language, functions are the real i zat ion of those forms. moreover, with regard to the field of advertisement translation, of whi ch the source text hasclearly specific function, the realization o

42、f functional equivalence between the sourcetext and the target text seems more applicable. owing to these reasons, the thesis willapply functional equivalence theory into advertisement translation. for further research, the author will introduce the theory of functional equivalence.41. 2 nida' s

43、 functional equivalenee theoryone of nida' s most important contributions to translation theory is the concept offunctiorrnl equivalencc， which was first put forward as dynamic equivalenee as opposed to formal equivalcnce in his book towards the scienee oftrans 肠 rng in 1 964.the concept of func

44、tional adequacy in translating has been described in a number ofbooks and articles asv dynamic equivalence.1.2.1 dynamic equivalenee and functional equivalencebefore giv ing further illustrati on on fun cti onal equivale nee theory, it is necessary for us to first discuss about two terms, that is, &

45、#39;'dynamic equivalence'' and "functionalequivalence". what is the relationship between the two?as a matter of fact, functional equivalence originates from dynamic equivalence. according to nida, basically,functional equivalence has been described in terms of dynamic equivalen

46、ce” (nida1 986) the essential idea of dynamic equivalence was first mentioned by nida in his article principles of translation as exemplified by bible translating. tn his attempt to define translating, nida wrote： "translating consists in producing in the receptor language the closest natural e

47、quivalent to the message of the source language, first in meaning and secondly in style.'，it con tains three essential terms： 1) equivalent, which points toward the source language message； 2)natural, which points toward the target ianguage, in accordanee with nida' s viewpoint," the be

48、st translation does not sound like a translation3)closest, whichbinds the two orientations together on the basis of the hi 曲 est degree of approximation- in toward a science of translating, nida(l 964) first postulated his concept of dynamic equivalent as follows： in such a translation (dynamic equi

49、valent translation)one is not so concerned with matching the receptor-1anguage message wi th the source1anguage message, but with the dynamic relationship, that "the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that existed between the original receptors and the

50、 message八 a clear definition of dynamic equivalenee was given in 1 969, whon nida clearly defined dynamic equi vale nee in his textbook the theory and practice of translation as ''i n terms of5the degree to whichthe receptors of the message in the receptor language respond to itin substantia

51、lly the same nuinner as the receptors in the source language. ” in from one language to another (nida&waard，1 986), the expression dynamic equivalence was replaced by functional equivalence. but essentially there is not much difference between the two concepts. the reasons why nida uses function

52、al equivalence to replace dynamic equivalenee is that the expression dynamic equivalence has 1 ed to some confusion, "since the term dynamic has been understood merely in terms of something which has impact and appealtherefore, in order to avoid this misunderstanding and to emphasize the concep

53、t of function, "it has seemed much more satisfactory to use the expression functional equivalcnce in describing the degree of adequacy of a translation".1.2.2 essence of functional equivalence theoryit was not until the twentieth century that functional approaches to translation were inven

54、ted. throughout history, translators observed that different si tuations cal 1for different renderings. reiss argues, translation should be go ver necl primarily bythe functional aspect which predominates, or in the new terminology, by the original，s"skopos”' (nord, 200 1： 6). functional eq

55、uivalence theory, put forward by eugene nida, wel 1 embodies the spirit of functionalism. the reason for his substitution dynami c equivalence wi th functi onal equi valenee is partly due to ''stress on the concept of function" (nida1 986). according to nida, translating means conimunic

56、ating, and this process depends on what is received by persons hearing or reading a translation. "judging the validity of a translation cannot stop with a comparison of corresponding lexical meanings, graminatical classes, and rhetorical devices. what is important is the extent to which recepto

57、rs correctly understand andappreciate the translated text" (nida, 1 997： 1 1 6). therefore/'the relative adequacy ofdifferent translations of the same text can only be determined in terms of the extent towhich each translation successfully fulfills the purpose or function for which it isint

58、ended. in other words, the relatively validity of each translation is seen in thedegree to which the receptors are able to respond to its message(in terms of both formand content) in comparison with 1) what the original author evidently intended would 6be the responsc of the original audience； 2)how

59、 that audioncc did, in fact, respond” (nida, 1 976： 64). we can see that nida attaches great importance to the role of receptors in evaluating translation. by examining the response of the reader, for whom a translation is intended, one can make a more objective judgment of translation. without cons

60、ideration for the monolingual reader, translation scholars andpractitioners are likely to make wrong assumptions about the translation. nida?sfunctional equivalence theory put emphasis on cultural factors in translation. in nida, sv i ew, ''the most serious mi stakes in tra nslating are usual 1 y made not