Creative Treason Of Chinese Renderings Of English Brand Names

With the quick and overwhelming development of economic globalization, business activities are becoming more a trend than ever before. Brand names are more often than not metaphorized into the gold name card of products and it's self-evident how important to do a good job in translating brand names. Although in recent years, China has witnessed satisfying achievements in brand name translation, there are still a lot of problems, some of which have even caused severe failure to promote the sale of products. So it is necessary, in every sense, to find or establish some translation theory to guide brand name translation in case of any more failure. Though in both business and academic circles a lot of research work has been done to discuss brand name translation, much simply lays stress on practical translation strategies, most of which are based on a mere descriptive analysis of examples rather than on a theoretical foundation. As for guiding translation theory, Functional Equivalence of Semantics or Pragmatics, Linguistic or Cultural Adaptation and Socio-semiotic Approach etc. have been proposed, but in practice these theories fail to cover all the brand name translation. There are always some warmly-accepted translated brand names against the proposed guiding theory.So this paper aims at finding a practical translation theory to guide brand name translation with special reference to Chinese renderings of English brand names. Through a series of analyses, the paper comes to the conclusion that brand name translation, in nature, is a process of building new signs in the target language, with message transference as the core. Hence, the whole process of brand name translation is a process of creative treason. Also, adaptation approach is raised to guide the Chinese translation of English brand names.