A Functionalist Approach To The Translation Of Trademark Words

In the modern society, as an essential component of advertising, the trademark plays a more and more important role. Along with the development of Chinese economy and the deepening of China's economic reform, people come to realize the importance of good trademarks and their appropriate translations in the process of promoting sales. It is not only necessary but also urgent for us to make a study of the translation of trademark words.It is acknowledged that a successful translation of trademark words involves wide knowledge that includes not only linguistics, translatology, but also marketing, psychology, aesthetics, cross-cultural communication and the like. The translation of trademark words is in fact a cross-cultural translational activity. However, our theoretical study of the translation of trademark words is not thorough or systematic enough to meet the demands of the society. Translation strategies based on traditional translation theories can no longer satisfy the objective requirements of the translation of trademark words, because the translation of trademark words is a practical translation with a high value of commerce and its ultimate purpose is to induce the consumers to buy the products. If the translation of trademark words cannot achieve such a purpose, it could not be regarded as a successful translation. When analyzing the basic strategy of the translation of trademark words, translators should take the special purpose of trademark words into consideration.From the angles of the functions and purposes of trademark words, the author makes an analysis of the translation of trademark words. And the analysis is based on the functionalist translation theory raised by the German school.As an important complement to translation studies, the functionalist theory has given a new perspective to the study of the translation of trademark words. According to Vermeer's Skopostheorie, the prime part of the functionalist translation theory, translation strategies are determined by the purposes and functions of the target texts. On the basis of the above theoretical study, the author makes analyses of the classification, designing principles and the characteristics of trademark words. Then the author makes a study of the basic functions of trademark words which include the informative, aesthetic and vocative functions and points out that the ultimate purpose of trademark words is to stimulate the consumers to make purchases. And in the latter part of the thesis the author makes a practical study of the examples of the translation of trademark words to analyze how the functionalist approach with the target-culture orientation is applied to the translation of trademark words.