A Study Of Strategies In Translating Commercials From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

With the development of international trade and acceleration of economic globalization, commercials and their translation have become an important part of modern life. Successful promotion of products, especially newly developed products depends heavily on commercials. Commercials can also help consumers have a better understanding about the quality and the property of products of the companies, and the services they provide, so the quality of the translation of commercials affects the international sales and images of the products directly. So a scientific study in this field has practical significance to the research of the translation of commercials. Translation of commercials is a learning and so many scholars are interested in it, however, the present state of commercials translation is not satisfying and some theories concerning commercials translation are not effective enough.Sperber and Wilson proposed relevance theory in their book Relevance: Communication and Cognition in 1986. Based on the communication and cognitive pragmatics, the theory gives scientific explanation on the relationship of cognition and communication. Inspired by relevance theory, the author holds a view of applying relevance theory to the comprehension and translation of commercials. Relevance theory maintains that communication involves two processes: ostension and inference, it also provides a new vision to human communication and a new approach for us to study and solve translation and commercials problems. Translation and commercials can be both regarded as communication. The author holds that there are two communication processes between the translator and the advertiser and the translator and the target readers. It is aimed at adopting proper strategies in translating commercials from the perspective of relevance theory.Comparative analysis is adopted in this thesis. The strategies are chosen through contrast between different commercials. Six translation strategies are discussed under the guidance of relevance theory. The ultimate purpose of the commercials can be achieved after correct inference through employing proper strategies.This thesis falls into four chapters: After an introduction is chapter one, which is an overview of relevance theory; Chapter two is an overview of advertisements and the function and characteristics of commercials; Chapter three is about comprehension of commercials and the translation of commercials; Chapter four is about the present state of the translation of commercials and the analysis of strategies. The commonly employed strategies and some special techniques are classified through comparatively analyzed. The last part is conclusion, in which three basic conclusions are as follows: (1) relevance theory can explain the translation of commercials; (2) we can have a better understanding about the process of translation; (3) techniques of translation should not be fixed, they should be employed flexibly.