Analysis Of Cultural Default And Translation Compensation Techniques In Advertising Translation Based On Translationalaction Theory

Advertising, that is, means publicizing widely. In recent years, advertisingtranslation has been studied and explored in depth from different perspectives and hasabsolutely gained considerable achievements. It is not difficult to find out thatnumerous scholars have applied functional translation theories to advertisingtranslation, most of which invariably focus on functional equivalence and Skopostheory and leave translational action theory untouched upon. As one of the mostimportant German school of functional translation theories, translational action theorywas put forward in1984by Manttari, shifting its focus from the source language tothe target language and laying more emphasis on function and culture than ondominant linguistics and language form. Since advertising is aimed at the targetaudience, advertising translation attaches great importance to the target-text receiversas well. Hence it can be seen that translational action theory plays a practical andsignificant role of guiding advertising translation. Under the guidance of translationalaction theory, this dissertation opens up a new angle of view for the study ofadvertising translation.First of all, this dissertation primarily introduces four core concepts oftranslational action theory and makes an intensive analysis of different participantsinvolved in translational action, including the initiator, the commissioner, thetranslator, the source-text producer, the target-text user and the target-text receiver.From the perspective of translational action theory, translation is regarded asintentional, intercultural, interpersonal interaction and text-processing action.Accordingly, it demonstrates the feasibility of the application of translational actiontheory to advertising translation.Secondly, on the basis of detailed analysis of the definition and formationmechanism of cultural default, this dissertation expounds the main causes of culturaldefault in advertising translation from intentional, intercultural, interpersonal andtext-processing perspectives. From intentional interaction perspective, different targetaudiences between the source advertising and the target advertising lead to culturaldefault in the translation of advertising. From intercultural interaction perspective,cultural default arises in advertising translation due to differences between thesource-text culture and the target-text culture. Form interpersonal interaction perspective, different cultural background knowledge of each interactive participantbrings about different degrees of cultural default in advertising translation. Fromtext-processing action perspective, cultural default becomes an unavoidable existencein advertising translation owing to different linguistic features on lexical, syntacticaland rhetorical levels.Finally, this dissertation proposes the necessity of translation compensation withregard to cultural default in advertising translation and further probes into appropriatetranslation compensation techniques based on translational action theory whichinvolves explicit translation techniques, implicit translation techniques and thecombination of explicit and implicit translation techniques. Explicit compensationtechniques are mainly classified into literal translation with annotation andtransliteration with annotation. Literal translation or transliteration is applied topreserve the aesthetic value of the source advertising and specific annotations outsidethe text are added to compensate the default cultural background knowledge for thetarget readers. Implicit compensation techniques are mainly categorized intocontextual amplification, paraphrase and adaptation. Patterns of behavior in the sourceculture are brought to the cultural awareness of the target readers within the text inorder to make the target readers acquire immediate and coherent comprehension ofthe source advertising. The combination of explicit and implicit translationcompensation techniques is exactly the combination of annotations outside the textand compensation within the text that can not only reproduce specific cultural imageswithin the advertised text but also deliver the original information through annotationsoutside the advertised text. All these translation compensation techniques strive foroptimal translation and cultural equivalence to the greatest extent.