On The Advertisement Translation From The Perspective Of Cultural Approval

Great opportunities together with great challenges are brought to the development of Chinese economy with the globalization of the world economy. As one of the biggest markets in the world, China is gaining more and more attention. To share this market is the dream of businessmen all over the world. Meanwhile, those Chinese enterprisers with a broader sight have been thinking about selling their products to international markets. A successful advertisement translation could also help a lot in developing a new market and consequently, bring rich profits to the enterprise.However, different people with different cultural backgrounds always hold different views toward consuming because of their different habits of using the language and different criterion of value. An advertisement which achieves a great success in one market could possibly suffer a heavy loss in another market. Consequently, a wonderful advertisement translation should be based on getting the cultural approval from the target consumers. In order to achieve the approval, a qualified translator is critically required. He should have a deep understanding of the two languages, cultures, be familiar with local advertising laws. He should also be a qualified advertiser who has rich knowledge on advertisements, and a learner always keeps an eye on the changes and development of the world. In addition, he should have a deep understanding of different customs of different people. In a word, the translator should be both a linguistic expert and an advertiser.Consisting of four chapters, this thesis analyzes the basic strategies of advertisement translation in view of cultural approval. As the necessary background knowledge, definitions of advertisement and culture are given in the first and second chapters, together with the relevant knowledge like formation of advertisement, function of advertisement language and the relationship between languages, cultures, translation and advertisement translation. As an indispensable element of culture, a language is also the carrier of culture. An advertisement translation without taking cultural difference into consideration is not likely to achieve great success. In Chapter III, a detailed comparison between Chinese and western culture from linguistic, value, laws and customs perspectives is extended. On this basis, basic strategies for advertisement translation in view of cultural approval are analyzed in Chapter IV. By analyzing ample authentic examples, the author tries to show the principle to select an approach, such as literal translation, transliteration and free translation. The author points out, free translation, such as addition, abridgement,parody and adaptation should be applied when literal translation and transliteration could not convey the same implication of the source text.In the last part of the thesis, the author made the conclusion that whether it is possible to minimize and even eliminate the cultural difference so as to achieve the cultural approval from the target consumers is the only criterion in selecting an appropriate translation strategy. The requirement for a qualified translator is reemphasized: he should have grounding in both of the languages and cultures, and have abundant advertising knowledge.Last but not least, limitations of the thesis are listed: Because of various differences in various aspects of culture, cultural approval is impossible to be achieved in some circumstances. In this sense, restrictions of advertisement translation do exist. On the other hand, culture is so wide a concept that not all of the contents are covered in this thesis. What we discussed are only several basic contents of the culture. Furthermore, although translation strategies are various, only several of them are analyzed in this thesis. There is still an important problem could not be ignored: the consumer's attitude is always changing with the development of the culture. Therefore, the translation strategy should always be adjusted.The author hopes that this thesis may help to gain more and more attention toward advertisement translation in view of cultural approval, and to some extent, shed light on translators who are working hard in this field.