On Dynamic Adaptation To Cultural Context In Translating English Trademarks Into Chinese

There is a close correlation between trademarks and commodities. As a product of commodity economy, trademark is a commercial symbol arising from commodity economy.With the manufactory expansion and economic development,more and more foreign commodities land at China and so do Chinese commodities. In order to survive in the keenly competitive market,a product needs not only good quality and an exquisite package, but also a sounding trademark. Well translated trademarks can contribute a lot to the good reputation of the companies and their products, while poor translations of trademarks often result in costly failures, and even damage the reputation of the companies. Taking the studies concerning this issue can arouse people's serious consideration of good English translations of Chinese trademarks and thus it can help to develop the competitive competence of Chinese companies in the international market.This thesis is to probe into the influence of cultural factors on trademark translation, to study the special requirements of translation and the corresponding translating techniques and to expound the guiding effect of theories on translating practice. It is built on Versehueren's theory of linguistic adaptation—cultural adaptation to approaching the effects on cultural elements, translation criteria and translation research.Firstly, the author of this thesis makes some research on previous studies about this topic and gives a brief introduction to the focus and purpose of the research as well as the organization or structure of this thesis. Then the concepts of trademarks are introduced,followed by a discussion of the importance of trademarks translation and the commonly used methods in trademark translation . Thirdly,the relationship between language,culture and translation acts as a starting point for the study of this thesis while functional equivalence provides an effective way of evaluating good translations of trademarks. The Theory of linguistic adaptation is explored in depth so as to facilitate the understanding of trademark translation as a process of continuous adaptation to various influencing factors. Fourthly,the thesis focuses on cultural adaptation in the process of translating trademarks, hence a discussion starts from the cultural adaptation and its importance in translation practice. Besides, in trademark translation , adaptation to various cultural elements can help to achieve desired translation versions .It is also pointed out that functioning of cultural adaptation could be only regarded as a dynamic process in trademarks translation. Through quite a lot of illustrations , case studies and detailed analysis , the author of the thesis arrives at the conclusion that the functioning of cultural adaptation which is a dynamic process is crucially important in trademark translation. This research can help to achieve functional equivalence in translation and overcome the cultural barriers to successful translations of trademarks, It can also provide some suggestions for further research in the future .