A Study On Commercial Advertisement Translation From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

With the deepening of economic globalization and intercultural communication, advertising has become an indispensable way to introduce products or services into international markets and promote sales. In this process, advertisement translation necessarily plays a vital role in developing overseas markets, since a successful advertisement translation can help a lot with propagating products, stimulating purchase, and consequently, bringing profits to enterprises.On the basis of previous studies on commercial advertisement translation, the thesis attempts to introduce relevance translation theory, elaborated by Ernst August Gutt on principles put forward by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson, into advertisement translation study. Since differences in cognitive environment between the sender and receptor in the communication may lead to a failure of communication, differences in cognitive environment between English readers and Chinese readers are taken as major topics of discussion in the thesis, which also gives advice on how to select the most appropriate translation method to help the TT readers to get the intended contextual effect with minimal effort. Specifically, the task of the translator is first to recognize the optimal relevance envisaged by the initial sender and then transfer his understanding of the original advertisement to the TT readers in a way that is optimally relevant to them by correctly estimating their cognitive environment and ability.This thesis discusses the linguistic features of advertisements, namely, conciseness, novelty, smoothness and high aesthetic polish, and its purpose of attracting people’s attention, arousing prospective customer’s interests, stimulating their inner desire, and driving them to take purchasing actions. The linguistic features and purpose of advertising suggest that the translator need transfer the most appealing message with the fewest words. Under the guidance of relevance theory, this thesis discusses factors that should be taken into consideration in ad translation, such as differences in cognitive ability, linguistic habits, historical and cultural backgrounds, and psychological expectations, since these factors may affect the acceptance of the translated advertisement among target language customers. Given that translation methods adopted by the translator are crucial for target language readers to get adequate contextual effects with minimal effort (optimal relevance), this thesis further discusses some concrete advertisement translation methods. The author in the thesis applies direct translation and indirect translation as proposed by Gutt to analyze the cited advertisement examples in the study. The author further classifies direct translation into the direct translation of meaning and direct translation of rhetorical devices; and classifies indirect translation into amplification, omission, restructuring, loan translation, affirmation and negation, and creative translation.Whichever strategy to take, whether direct translation or indirect translation, the strategy is desirable as long as the translated advertisement can help the target language readers get the intended contextual effects with justifiable effort and drive them to make a purchase.