Translation skills of advertising slogans

The quality of commercial advertising slogans often determines the success or failure of the entire advertisement. The creation and translation skills of commercial advertising slogans are relatively high. This is because advertising slogans or slogans must be attractive. It can attract consumers to continue reading the main text of the advertisement, and it must also reflect the advertising nature and simplicity. In layman's terms, an excellent advertising slogan should be original, catchy, lingering, and unforgettable. Therefore, in the translation of commercial advertising slogans, adopting flexible translation techniques is the key to the success of the translation.

The following introduces several commonly used translation techniques: From the perspective of functional equivalence, in order for English advertising brand slogans to attract the attention of consumers in the Chinese market, advertising must be translated according to Chinese language habits. The original English text of the slogan is translated into Chinese. This translation method is called domestication method. The existing naturalization methods mainly include the following methods

(1) Four-character structure method. This structure is the most balanced and stable phrase structure in Chinese. Especially for commercial advertising slogans, this structure is more concise and powerful than a complete sentence, and it is full of rhythm.

Example 1. Trust us for life - AIA translation: Financial stability, trust for life. (AIA)

Example 2 Poetry in motion． dancing close to me Translation: dynamic poetry, dancing close to me. (Toyota Motors)

(2) Seven-character structure method: Examples of using the seven-character structure are as follows:

Example 1. In Touch with tomorrow - Translated by Tsohiba: Show the newness of tomorrow realm. (Toshiba Electric)

Example 2. What s new panasonic 一一Panasonic Translation: Panasonic always has new ideas. (Panasonic) In the process of translating commercial advertising slogans, the syntactic and rhetorical characteristics of the original sentence should be basically maintained. The translated text should retain the style of the original text in terms of wording, sentence structure, and rhetorical characteristics. Literal translation of declarative sentences can preserve the image and effect of the product. good.

Example 1. The choice of a new generation ~ Pepsi translation: the choice of a new generation. (Pepsi-Cola)

Example 2. let's make things better - Philips Translation: Let's make things better. (Philips Electrical Appliances). This translation does not lose the information conveyed by the original English text, but also retains the influence and appeal of the original text. In the translation of commercial advertising slogans, commonly used rhetorical methods include rhyme, antithesis, personification, metaphor, exaggeration, etc., which are highly artistic. This is a clever comprehensive use of Chinese word categories, word meanings and sentence patterns.

Example 1, Intel Inside - Intel Pentium Translation: Give the computer a Pentium "core". Intel Pentium Computer (Anthropomorphic)

Example 2, Essence of Living Beings, Energy for Life． Translation: Absorb biological essence and radiate life potential. (Dual) Tatistic translation is a translation method that focuses on the "flexible use of idioms, famous sentences or proverbs". The translation of commercial advertising slogans uses English proverbs, poems, and imitates language forms and expressions that are popular among British and American people, which can make up for the loss of the original text in meaning, structure, style, and image during the English translation process of advertising, and can easily arouse strong excitement. , thereby promoting product sales.

For example: He laughs best who runs longest. Translation: Whoever runs last will laugh the best. (Tire Advertisement) This advertising slogan imitates the translation of the British proverb "He laughs best who laughs last", which highlights the excellent wear-resistant quality of tires and has a very good publicity effect.

Translation of commercial advertising slogans It is the cross-lingual transformation of cultural information in advertising slogans.

Therefore, translators should give full play to their imagination and creativity, explore the cultural connotations in advertising slogans, adopt flexible translation techniques, and convey the effective information of the original text smoothly and clearly, so as to achieve the effect of similarity in intention, spirit and form. , realize the expected function of advertising.