On the Translation of Chinese Advertising Language

This paper probes into the strategies and methods of Chinese-English advertising translation, and points out the necessity of correctly understanding advertising words in Chinese-English advertising translation. At the same time, it studies the cultural phenomenon and market function of advertising words, and draws the conclusion that advertising translation is not only the translation of language, but also the translation of culture. More importantly, it is different from other translation styles and has a strong advertising effect.

Keywords: advertising slogan; Advertising statement; Translation; Culture; market efficiency

The translation of China's advertising language is actually a cultural translation. Because China's advertising culture is very rich. In contemporary China under the concept of "harmonious society", the Confucian cultural concept in China's advertisements is very common. Chinese advertisement is a special practical style. Chinese-English translation should show the meaning, shape, spirit and function of the original advertisement, which is generally realized by some rhetorical devices or unique methods, so that customers or potential customers have a desire to buy. Common rhetorical devices, such as pun, antithesis, rhyme, word games, using allusions, improvising words, analogy, etc. It makes people feel that wisdom is found in humor, novelty is displayed in plain, and some even give people a poetic feeling. From the phonetic point of view, advertising language has a strong sense of rhythm and catchy words, which can often produce a blockbuster, refreshing, intriguing and unforgettable effect. The characteristics of advertising language can be summarized as "attraction, creativity, persuasiveness and influence". Advertising establishes its own unique image through various aspects of patterns and language, and expresses the personality characteristics of a commodity or service in a unique and unique way, which is beyond the imagination of ordinary people and reasonable.

When translating Chinese or English advertising texts, it is not enough to just translate the superficial information of the texts. Language translation should not only follow faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance, or "fluency" or "transformation", but also convey the meaning of the original text. In addition, in order to highlight the individuality of advertising words, some skills and means should be used. Only in this way, can the translation achieve the purpose of saying what it says, conveying the spirit and expressing the meaning, and achieving the effect of unity of meaning, spirit, form and taste.

This paper analyzes the English translation of Chinese advertisements from the aspects of Confucian cultural thought, puns, antithesis rhyme, word games, allusions, improvisation and analogy.

1 Fully understand the deep cultural connotation of advertisements and use remedial strategies.

Example 1 the benevolent is close to the mountain, and the wise is close to the water.

This is a slogan quoted by the housing development company from Confucius. In fact, the Analects of Confucius published by FLTRP is "Wise people enjoy water, while good people enjoy mountains" [1].

The advertisement gives a beautiful description of this landscape: the endless blue clear lake is fascinating, and the rolling hills behind it are the sustenance for people to yearn for nature and advocate health.

Translation: (1) A good man is near the mountain, but a wise man is near the water. Although translation is "Da" and its structure is more rigorous, literal translation is obvious and not catchy to read. (2) A gentleman loves mountains, while a wise man loves springs. Although translated as "Da", its structure is more rigorous, but gentlemen, especially gentlemen, are slightly inadequate compared with villains; In addition, the fountain gives people a feeling of artificial water, which is out of the original intention, although it is catchy to read. (3) Good people prefer the mount' n and the fountain' n. Compared with the translation (2), the mount' n, wiseman the fountain' n is delicately omitted, which is catchy to read, but it is still artificial. Referring to arthur waley's translation, we can draw the conclusion that smart people like to live by the water, while good people like to live by the mountain.

According to the meaning of "like" and the principle of rhetorical structure balance or tendency balance, the second half of the sentence is not translated in the order of the original Chinese, and the above translation is given in the form of double ellipsis (although the pace is different), which has no conjunction with old English and expresses the purpose of housing marketing together.

Example 2: The car advertisement of a developer in a residential area reads: "Show utmost forbearance and live next door".

This is Confucius' "The benevolent is beautiful. If you choose the unkind, how can you know that it is not a blessing?" Variant of [1]. What is a harmonious community? When buying a house, how to measure whether it can be "benevolent"? In Confucius' view, "benevolence is beautiful" only needs to "choose a neighbor to live". Therefore, Meng Mu doesn't have to move again. With good neighbors, Yan Hui can also be satisfied with "eating and drinking a spoonful".

Arthur waley translated Confucius' words into: Confucius said that kindness endows the neighborhood with beauty. How can a person be called a wise man when he is free to choose but doesn't like living among good people?

For Confucius, in the present words, it is to choose a harmonious community when buying a house. If you don't choose a harmonious community to live in, how can this be considered wise? Although the number of words and structure have changed, arthur waley's translation is slightly longer, which does not meet the requirements of short and concise advertising texts.

Translation: (1) inner goodness is beauty, and you choose your neighbors to live together. This translation basically meets the requirements of the original text, but it does not correspond to the original text in form and has not been remedied. (2) Being good inside is beautiful, and choosing neighbors to live with their families. The first half of the sentence rhymes with "I" in Family and "I" in Beauty, which makes up for the shortcoming that Chinese cannot be translated in four words, but the second half of the sentence is too long and the logic is very reluctant. According to the above situation, the translation is: the beauty of your neighbors comes from their kindness, and caring for them is definitely your wise choice. This translation remedies the original text in several aspects: First, from the perspective of sound step, both sentences have 10 step, and the rhyme ends with [s]. In addition, through temporary synthesis, the word "Goodchoice" similar to "good choice" is created, and then the number of words is equal (7), forming an approximate and dual rhetorical phenomenon.

2 fully understand the product, using analogy and transformation.

Example 1 Dabao skin cream slogan: "If you want good skin, use Dabao in the morning and evening".

(1) Good skin comes from Yu Dabao. This translation is very concise, although the meaning is not much different, but it is not like advertising language. The rhyming and catchy features of antithesis in the original text are completely absent. (2) Using Dabao in the morning and evening can make your skin look better. This translation is exquisite, but the pun meaning of "sooner or later" is not reflected. At the same time, Dabao series has "day cream" and "night cream", and the original translation only uses lowercase "morning and night", so it lacks the functions recommended in advertisements to some extent.

(1) Apply "Dabao" in the morning and evening to make your skin soft and bright. Dabao, you will like it sooner or later. There are puns and rhymes. Puns are embodied in Morning and Night. According to the product characteristics and the survey of users, consumers generally use it in the morning and evening. Therefore, the idiom "day and night" in English is similar to a pun. At the same time, rhyme is achieved by using softness and brightness, and Dabao-you will like it sooner or later-makes a meaningful supplement. (2) Make your skin soft and bright and apply "Dabao" in the morning and evening. Dabao, you will like it sooner or later. For (1), the infinitive is advanced and used as an adverbial of purpose. Apply guides imperative sentences, introduces potential consumers who don't understand the product or want good skin, and realizes it.

Example 2: "Bao dominates the world and spreads his wings to overwhelm the crowd."

This advertisement makes full use of two idioms that people often use to praise someone or something, which means superior. The word "Bao" dominates the world, in which the word "Bao" is homophonic, while the word "Yi" is a temporary pronoun, but it rhymes with vowels [chi] and [ji]. In fact, if advertisers tell customers or potential customers, our restaurant features abalone and shark's fin, which are delicious and competitive. It is not difficult to translate this advertising word. The translation is as follows: (1) Abalone is our foundation; Shark fin is the best of the best. This kind of translation basically reflects the meaning of the original text, but it is not fully reflected, and it is not catchy to read. (2) Abalone conquers everything; Shark fin is the best. Although this translation is a good choice in semantics, structure, rhyme and pace, it is based on -al [? : l] at the end, there is a deep feeling in reading. In addition, from the perspective of advertising jurisprudence, it is suspected of unfair competition. Therefore, from another angle, the analogy is transformed: abalone-fresh. Absolutely. Shark's fin.-Great. Go out and talk. It has played down the "all-encompassing" of Chinese. Because from the original text, it is similar to "technical pressure" and is a semantic repetition. On the contrary, abalone is extremely delicious, and "wings are better than people" sincerely says that shark fins are outstanding. Rhetorically, alliteration and rhyme are used to make up for the lack of Chinese puns, and dashes and adverbs are independent sentences, which increases pause and language momentum.

3. Establish a sense of serving the target language readers and use methods flexibly.

When translating advertisements, we should have a strong sense of translation, that is, we should think of foreign readers in our minds. Therefore, words containing Chinese Pinyin should be dealt with seriously. The LongCard in the following example cannot be written as long card.

Example 1 The slogan of China Construction Bank Longka: "Where there is a dragon, there is spirit."

When translating dragon cards, we usually imitate the couplets of MasterCard, and at the same time turn "Long" into italics to distinguish it from English long. By the same token, some things that foreign readers may feel vague or misunderstood should be explained as clearly as possible.

Translation:( 1) Your daily life is very busy, and our long card can make it easy. This is a quite appropriate translation, which sums up "basic necessities of life" with daily life and rhymes with [Zi:]. Better step up.

Your life is very busy every day, and our dragon card will make it easier for you. Replacing can with will makes translation more humane, including function and initiative. Nevertheless, this paper thinks that the original "basic necessities of life" refers to these means of consumption or payment, and does not focus on busyness and busyness, but on convenience. Therefore, I tried to translate the last sentence as follows: it is inconvenient for you to carry too much cash. Then, I study the latter sentence and refer to Liu Yuxi's "Humble Room Inscription": The mountain is not high, but the immortal is famous. The water is not deep, and the dragon is the spirit.

Dragon is a symbol of the Chinese nation, but it is synonymous with monsters in western mythology. Therefore, it seems inappropriate to translate it literally into dragon. Although italics are used to distinguish the length of English, they can still cause misunderstanding when read. Therefore, this paper discusses whether it is possible to use the spelling of loong in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and double-writing oo means long sound. Many translation comments about loong are obtained from websites related to "Dragon". Wang Yuxuan and others think that dragons should be translated into Loong, on the one hand, it can avoid the embarrassment of conflict with western culture; On the other hand, oo is pictographic, that is, it seems that both eyes are watching the world [2]. As early as 2004, some Taipei scholars suggested that "Dragon" should be translated into English Loong, which is an important measure to protect China's traditional culture. Huang Ji believes that the translation of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's name into "Lee Hsien Loong" is an example [3]. In addition, he thinks that the word "Ling Ze" means that the success of your daily life is closely related to Longka, which also means that Longka plays an extraordinary role and is convenient and quick to use. Therefore, the translation is as follows: Longka settles your daily payment in an instant. Paymem means to pay, while in flash means to finish in a short time, which eliminates the inconvenience and risk of carrying a lot of cash. One card will take you all over China. Therefore, the reference translation is as follows: it is inconvenient for you to carry a lot of cash, and the dragon card can solve your daily payment in an instant. Judging from the sound step, the two sentences are equal, with -ash as the rhyme. At the same time, the inversion rhetoric in the previous sentence emphasizes the inconvenience of carrying cash out, which leads to the necessity of using dragon cards.

Example 2 "Don't be cheated".

This is the slogan of a pawnshop. If you only ignore pronunciation, people will have different understandings, and translation will become superficial, such as the following translation: (1) Even if you are cheated, you will not lose. By studying the sentence structure of advertisements, it is considered that it is reasonable to use concession conditional clauses, and the contradictory sentence meaning of "being cheated does not lose money" is translated. Some people object that the word "pawn" is not reflected. If it is put on English advertising pages, English readers will be confused or even misunderstood. In view of this, we can draw another translation: (2) If you go to the pawnshop, you won't lose money. This paper thinks that going to the pawnshop is to exchange things for money, or to buy cheap things without losing money, which is worth it. However, the pun is gone. There is another translation: (3) Go to a pawnshop, and you won't be fooled. You won't be cheated if you go to the pawnshop. Such translation should be said to embody contradictory skills, but the target language readers may have questions: is pawnshop a place to deceive people?

After studying the above three translation examples, it is considered that all of them can partially accept this translation method, and after careful consideration, it seems that translation 3 is more convincing from the advertising effect. However, from the point of view of compactness, catchiness, pun and service for readers, it seems inappropriate. In addition, several translation examples are limited to superficial words, and if we jump out of this limitation, we may get better translation. By using the reverse translation method, this paper tries to give the following translation: it will be worthwhile to go to the pawnshop. This translation refers to the translation form of Dabao Advertising Translation (II), pointing out positively that pawnshops are worth doing, and the implication is not to suffer. In order to read it fluently, we tried the following translation: Go to pawnything, and you will find it worth doing. The sentence structure-sound step (6) of this translation is the same: "rhyme-sound" and [I] are consistent. In order to make the target language readers not misunderstand, it is worthwhile to pawn anything after jumping out of the original sentence. Although there is no choice of "no loss" and no pun, the persuasive function of advertising is well expressed by various means such as imperative sentences, ending rhyme and synchronization.

The translation of advertising language from Chinese to English is a very difficult task, especially from Chinese to English. Some advertisements that play word games or have strong cultural connotations cannot even be translated into each other. If you want to translate well, you must practice again and again. After a long and arduous effort, you should avoid looking at the text and meaningful literal superficial translation. It should also be pointed out that in order to achieve the proper commercial effect, when translating advertising texts, people who are proficient in English language and culture and familiar with Chinese-English translation skills must be invited to translate, and the translation results will be verified by people from English-speaking countries. It is not easy to create good Chinese advertising words, but it is even more difficult to translate good Chinese advertising words into good English. Some business people should give up the idea that translation is not creation, and really understand the importance and difficulty of advertising language translation, as well as the value and benefits that good translation can bring.

References:

[1] Persuade. The Analects of Confucius [M]. Arthur waley. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 1998: 38, 39, 74, 75.

[2] Wang Yuxuan. "Dragon" should be translated as Loong [db/ol]. /blog/log/showlog.jspe？ site2id =2547

[3] Shen and Xu Mingjun. Advertising English and examples [M]. Beijing: China Radio and Television Press1995: 73-77,226-233.

[4] Cui Gang. Advertising English 3000 sentences [m]. Beijing: beijing institute of technology press1993:12,37.

[5] Ding Hengqi. Three-dimensional thinking in advertising text translation [J]. Translated by China, 2004 (1): 75,76.

[6] Chinese-English idiom dictionary [M]. Beijing Commercial Press, 1982: 242.

[7] Gu. Treasure house of English poetry appreciation [M]. Tianjin: Tianjin People's Publishing House, 1998: 12-37.

Translation of Chinese advertising slogans and phrases

Wang Yanfei 1, Yu Ting 2

(1. Department of Foreign Languages, Liaoning University of Science and Technology, Anshan114051; 2. School of Applied English, School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University, China 1 16002)

Abstract: This paper probes into the translation strategies and skills of some Chinese advertising slogans and phrases, and points out the necessity of correctly understanding these slogans and phrases. At the same time, the author also studies the cultural and marketing functions conveyed in these advertisements, and draws the conclusion that advertising translation is not only the translation from one language to another, but also the translation of culture. In addition, more importantly, it is different from other styles of translation: it is a translation that has a strong marketing effect.

Keywords: advertising slogan; Advertising phrases; Translation; Culture; Marketing effect

(Received on July 12, 2006)