Functionalist Approaches To Advertisement Translation

With the rapid development of international business and multinational corporations, there is a growing need for effective international advertisement communication and translation. The amount of advertisement translation is already substantial and it keeps increasing. Advertisement translation has its own properties and demands a systematic study. However, incommensurate with its importance are the depth and width of its research. In other words, advertisement translation is still an under-explored field, and the traditional equivalence theories seem inadequate to meet the needs in this aspect. One reason is that advertisement is a very practical type of writing with high commercial or social values, and all the advertisements have one thing in common, that is, behind the superficial properties of an advertisement there always lies the essence of it: the author's intention to persuade target readers. If the translator rigidly adheres to the original form and content in advertisement translation, the translation may not produce the persuasive effect and may even lead to a failure. Therefore, more practical theories and more effective strategies in translating advertisements are called for.Functionalist approaches put forward in 1970s by some German scholars, including Katharina Reiss, Hans J. Vermeer, Justa Holz Manttari, and Christiane Nord, shed light on advertisement translation. This theory emphasizes the purpose of translation. Translation may be conceived as an action, and any action has its purpose. The prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose (skopos) of the overall translational action, and translation strategies and methods are determined by the purpose and the intended function of the target text (translation skopos). Functionalist approaches have opened up a new perspective for translation studies. It provides a theoretical basis for such unconventional translation strategies as abridgement, adaptation and imitation, etc. In this sense, functionalist approaches can effectively guide the translation of advertisement.The whole thesis falls into six parts. Chapter one is introduction, in which the reasons why I am attracted by this topic are explained and the background, the purpose and the scope of my research are expounded. Chapter two mainly introduces the advertisement and the translation of advertisement. Chapter three is the literature review. Chapter four is an exploration of the features of English and Chinese advertisements from the linguistic and cultural perspectives. Chapter five discusses the criteria and strategies of advertisement translation with the guide of functionalist approaches. The last part is the conclusion which summarizes the major ideas of the research and points out the limitations of the present research.