A Descriptive Study Of Chinese Translation Of Foreign Cosmetic Brand Names:a Corpus Approach

With the acceleration of steps of economic globalization, whether Chinese translation of foreign cosmetic brand names is proper and good becomes more and more important. So it is very necessary to make an objective and scientific study on Chinese translation of foreign cosmetic brand names. DTS originated in the1950s and gained a great development in the1980s in the western world. Its main feature is to describe and analyze translation facts existing in the real world and finally sum up the rules and factors that restrict and affect translation in the certain historical period and cultural system. In this thesis the author will make a descriptive study of the Chinese translation of foreign cosmetic brand names by a corpus approach in the expectation of finding the translation norms to be conformed to in the process of Chinese translation of foreign cosmetic brand names and thus guiding Chinese translation of foreign cosmetic brand names.In Chapter One, the author introduces DTS and discusses its origin, development, methodology and merits. Besides, the author also carries out a general survey to translation norm theory. In Chapter Two, the author gives an overview about the definition, formation and function of cosmetic brand names. In Chapter Three, the author discusses DTS’ enlightenment on the research of Chinese translation of foreign cosmetic brand names and has a discussion respectively from emphasis on target text and translators’ conformity to translation norms. In Chapter Four, firstly the author concludes words of high frequency and analyzes their characteristics through the established corpus. Then the author carries out a detailed analysis about the total syllables and sound effect of Chinese names of foreign cosmetic brands. After the analysis, the author brings forward a hypothesis of translation universal and tries to use cases sampled from the established corpus to prove its correctness. In Chapter Five, according to the analysis above, the author puts forward the translation norms translators actually conform to in the process of Chinese translation of foreign cosmetic brand names. In the end, the author hopes that the thesis can provide some valuable suggestions for Chinese translation of foreign cosmetic brand names.