Cultural Equivalence In The Translation Of Brand Names

After China entered WTO and with the trend of globalization, brand names play an increasingly important role in the society, and how to translate brand names has become more and more practical and significant. People come to realize the importance of good brand names and their proper translations in the process of promoting sales and cultivating foreign markets. Thus, it is not only necessary but urgent for people to make a study on brand names and their translation. Like any other translations, the translation of brand names is also a kind of form of intercultural communication which involves language rules, culture and psychology, aesthetic interest, values and other factors.At present, many Chinese translators have done research on this topic. But their work is still far from enough as far as the cultural aspect of brand names is concerned. Besides, these studies fail to provide naturally acceptable renderings of brand names from the view of cultural equivalence. Owing to the limitations of the previous studies and the significance of brand name translation, this paper attempts to make a thorough and systematic study on this topic from a cultural perspective. Therefore, through the overview of brand names, this paper proposes Nida's "functional equivalence" as the principle for the translation of brand names. And according to the principle, it also puts forward some approaches to cultural discrepancy, and some flexible methods are adopted to transfer cultural image in the translation of brand names so that cultural equivalence can be achieved. And they must be used cautiously, complementarily and flexibly in order to provide successful translations which reproduce the informative, aesthetic and vocative functions of the original ones in target markets. However, although there are cultural discrepancies in the translation of brand names, it does not mean that these barriers can not be overcome. Since Chinese and English not only show dissimilarities, but also share many similarities in culture, brand names are translatable.In general, brand names are translatable, though certain losses or distortions can hardly be avoided in translating. And guided by appropriate theoretical principle and flexible methods, these losses can be reduced to the least with the translators' efforts. The response of the receptors of the target language to the translation of the brand names should be equal to that of the receptors of the source language. According to the point of views of principle of equivalence theory, Cultural obstacles in the receptor language should be surmounted; meanwhile, the translated brand names should achieve a perfect unity among sound, form and meaning, and conform to people's aesthetic interest and psychology to attract more consumers.