Research On The Pun Translation In English Advertisements From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Nowadays, advertisements have flooded our daily life and, to a certain degree, greatly reshaped our society. To achieve the aim of sales promotion, ad-makers rack their brains to persuade those potential customers to pay for their products or services willingly. Hence, the prime significance of the persuasive power using the advertising language should never be discarded. Many experts and scholars have paid more attention to the information carrier—the advertising language from different perspectives than ever before, namely, from the perspective of semiotics, language styles, Relevance Theory and so on. Punning in advertisements is always where the scholars’ interests lie because it serves as an effective and efficient way to whet the potential customers’ appetite to buy and to help advertising language adapt to the potential customer’s mental world and social world more naturally.This paper mainly focuses on how to successfully both convey the original meanings and fulfill the intentional pragmatic functions of the puns used in English advertisements in the process of pun translation on the basis of Adaptation Theory, with the aim of offering help in the production and interpretation of the advertising language, a nearly fixed register nowadays.The Adaptation Theory, proposed by Jef Verschueren in1999in his famous Understanding Pragmatics, has made a significant impact ever since its birth. This pragmatic theory has profound theoretical and applicable value of many linguistic phenomena. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the translation of puns employed in advertising language within the framework of Adaptation Theory and show explanatory power of the theory. To explore these issues, this paper uses qualitative research method to investigate many famous advertisements from network media, representative magazines, newspapers and academic books.Analysis of this paper shows that creativity in the process of pun translation of advertising language is not the deviation from Yan Fu’s standards of translation "faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance", and in the judgment of translation creativity should never be seen as the opposite side of faithfulness, as long as it can fulfill the persuasive function and better adapt to customers’material, social and mental world. The persuasive power of the advertising language and the realization of other pragmatic functions come from the adaptation to the potential customer’s mental world and social world while the use of puns serves as best means to realize the adaptation. The interpretation and translation of puns employed in advertising language should also be carried out within the framework of the theory.Adaptation Theory also has strong theoretical interpreting ability in explaining what ad-makers have done in advertising language to adapt to the potential customer’s mental world and social world. Pun exploits different meanings relevant to words or phrases used in ads, literal or implicit, usually arousing a humorous effect or some entertainment in its readers and audiences. Good feelings about the product will help form an irresistible temptation in consumers to make an easy decision to spend their money.The research significance, through the analysis of specific examples of punning in the advertising language, from the perspective of Adaptation Theory, lies in the fact that readers, translators and even ad-makers can make clear the exact magic of the persuasive function of puns in the advertisements and receive useful guidance in the pun translation of English advertisements. In the pun translation of advertising language, the adaptation to the target language readers’mental and social world will promote both the conveyance of information and the fulfillment of pragmatic functions, with the intention of sales promotion and publication of products realized.