Commercial Gains VS Interlingual Consistency-On The C-E Translation Of Chinese Trademark Names

Since its entry into the WTO, our country has quickened the pace of stepping in line with international standards in such fields as economy and trade. As a noted part of the product or service, trademark names are closely related to various kinds of economic activities and people's daily life. However, the translation of Chinese trademark names into English has not received enough attention as other proper names such as geographical names and human names. As a result, a lot of confusion and inconsistencies have arisen. On one extreme, for example, some people are exclusively concerned about commercial gains derivable from what they believe to be good translated names to the total neglect of formal interlingual consistency between the source trademark names and the translated versions; on the other extreme, some view the accuracy of name retrieval across languages as the sole standard for trademark name translation, producing the translated versions that are hardly favored by the consumers in the target market. All these confusing phenomena, we believe, may be best accounted for by resorting to Vermeer's Skopostheorie.Though trademark names belong to proper names, they display some differences from such proper names as human names and place names due to their unique characteristics and functions. Similarly, as a kind of practical translation, trademark name translation is not simply the transference of language and culture. It also has a lot to do with marketing and legal factors. In other words, the translation of Chinese trademark names is a cross-disciplinary activity whose ultimate purpose is to produce functionally adequate versions.The majority of the previous studies on trademark name translation focus on the factors of culture and the concrete translation skills. The present author approaches the issue from the perspective of Skopostheorie in order to shed some helpful insights into the research.