Keywords: advertising slogan; Advertising statement; Translation; Culture; market efficiency
The translation of Chinese advertising language is actually cultural translation. Because China's advertising culture is very rich. In contemporary China under the concept of "harmonious society", Confucian cultural concepts are common in China advertisements. Chinese advertisement is a special practical style. Chinese-English translation should show the meaning, form, 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, use of allusions, impromptu words, analogy, etc. It makes people feel that wisdom is found in humor, novelty is displayed in plainness, 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 patterns, language and other aspects, 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 not only follows faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance, or "fluency" or "transformation", but also conveys 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 effect of keeping words, conveying ideas and achieving the 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 article The Analects of Confucius published by FLTRP is "Wise people enjoy water and good people enjoy Leshan" [1].
The advertisement gives a beautiful description of this landscape: the endless blue and clear lake is fascinating, and the rolling mountains behind it are the sustenance for people to yearn for nature and advocate health.
Translation: (1) Good is near the mountain, but wise is near the water. Although the translation is "Da" and the structure is rigorous, the literal translation is obvious and not very catchy to read. A gentleman loves mountains, while a wise man loves springs. Although the translated name is "Da", the structure is more rigorous, but the gentleman, especially the gentleman, is slightly insufficient compared with the villain; 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 "N Mountain" and wise people prefer "Fountain". Compared with the translation (2) "N Mountain, Wise People", n is exquisitely omitted and 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 original Chinese order, and the above translation is given in the form of double ellipsis (although the speed of speech is different), and there is no conjunction and in old English, together with the purpose of housing marketing.
Example 2: The car advertisement of a developer in a residential area reads: "Different people have different opinions, and the wise have different opinions".
This is Confucius's "benevolence is beautiful, choosing not benevolence, how do you know?" Variant of [1]. What is a harmonious community? When buying a house, how can we measure whether we 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 "a spoonful of food and a spoonful of wine".
Arthur waley translated Confucius' words into: Confucius said that kindness endows the neighborhood with beauty. A person who can choose freely, but doesn't like living in beauty, how can he be called a wise man?
For Confucius, in the current words, it is to choose a harmonious community to buy a house. If you don't choose a harmonious community to live in, how can you be wise? Although the number of words and structure have changed, arthur waley's translation is a little longer, which does not meet the requirements of short and clear advertising text.
Translation: (1) inner goodness is beauty, and you choose your neighbors to live together. This kind of translation basically meets the requirements of the original text, but it does not correspond to the original text in form and does not make any remedy. (2) Inner beauty, choosing neighbors to live with their families. The first half of the sentence rhymes with [i] in Family and [i] in beautiful, 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 it is a good choice for you to never forget their conviction. 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 "good choice" similar to "good" is created, and then the number of words is equal (7), forming an approximate and dual rhetorical phenomenon.
2 fully understand the product and use analogy and transformation.
Example 1 Dabao skin cream slogan: "If you want good skin, use Dabao sooner or later".
(1) Good skin comes from Yu Dabao. This translation is very concise, although there is not much difference in meaning, but it is not like advertising language. The catchy rhyme of the original antithesis is not shown at all. (2) Applying "Dabao" in the morning and evening can make your skin really happy. 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 evening", so it lacks the function recommended in the advertisement to some extent.
(1) Apply "Dabao" in the morning and evening to make your skin soft and shiny. Dabao, you'll like it, sooner or later. There are puns and rhymes. Pun is 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 analogous to a pun. At the same time, rhyme is realized with softness and brightness, Dabao-you will like it better and make a meaningful supplement sooner or later. (2) In order to make your skin soft and bright, you should apply "Dabao" in the morning and evening. Dabao, you'll like it, sooner or later. For (1) infinitive advanced, used as an adverbial of purpose. Apply guides imperative sentence, introduce potential consumers who don't understand the product or want good skin, and realize it.
Example 2: "Bao dominates the world, and the wings are overwhelming."
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 and the word "Yi" is a temporary substitute, 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 is delicious and competitive. It is not difficult to translate this advertising word. (1) abalone is our foundation stone; Shark fin is the best of the best. This 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 terms of semantics, structure, rhyme and pace, it is based on -al[? : l] Finally, it has a deep feeling of reading. In addition, from the perspective of advertising jurisprudence, it is suspected of unfair competition. So, from another angle, the analogy conversion: abalone-fresh. Absolutely. Shark fin.-great. Come 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 semantic repetition. It is that abalone is delicious, and "wings are superior to 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 the awareness of serving the target language readers and use flexible methods.
When translating advertising language, we should have a strong "translation consciousness", that is, think of foreign readers in our minds. Therefore, words containing hanyu 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 a spirit."
When translating dragon cards, we usually imitate MasterCard's couplets, and at the same time turn "dragon" into italics to distinguish it from English dragons. In the same way, some things that foreign readers may find vague or misunderstood should be explained as clearly as possible.
Translation: (1) Your daily life is very busy. Our long card can make it easy. This is a very appropriate translation, which sums up "basic necessities of life" with daily life, and rhymes with [Zi:]. It is better to strengthen the steps.
Your daily life is very busy, and our long card will make it easy for you to cope. Replacing can with will makes translation more humane, including both functionality and initiative. Nevertheless, this paper believes that the initial "basic necessities of life" refers to these means of consumption or payment, not focusing on busyness and excitement, but focusing on convenience. Therefore, I tried to translate the previous sentence into this: Is it inconvenient for you to bring too much cash? Then, I study the latter sentence and refer to Liu Yuxi's My Humble Room Inscription: If the mountain is not high, there will be immortals, and then it will be 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. So this paper discusses whether the spelling of loong in Hong Kong and Taiwan can be used, and double writing oo is long sound. Many translation comments about dragons are obtained from websites related to "dragons". Wang Yuxuan and others think that dragon 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 two eyes are looking at the world [2]. As early as 2004, some Taipei scholars suggested that dragons should be translated into English as Loong, which is an important measure to protect China's traditional culture. Huang Ji believes that the name of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has been translated into "Lee Hsien Loong", which 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. So the translation is as follows: Longka instantly settles your daily payment. Paymem means payment, and in a flash it means completion in a short time, which saves the inconvenience and risk of carrying a lot of cash. One card in hand, travel all over China. It is inconvenient to carry more cash, and Longka can solve your daily payment instantly. Judging from the sound step, the two sentences are equal, with -ash as the rhyme. At the same time, the rhetorical device of the last sentence emphasizes the inconvenience of carrying cash when going out, which leads to the necessity of using dragon cards.
Example 2 "Don't be cheated".
This is a pawn shop slogan. If you only ignore pronunciation, people will have different understandings, and translation is superficial, such as the following translation: (1) Even if you are fooled, 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 is not a loss" 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 and even misunderstood. In view of this, we can draw another translation: (2) Go to the pawnshop, and you will lose nothing. This paper holds that going to the pawnshop is to exchange things for money or buy cheap things, which will not lose money and is worth it. However, the pun is gone. There is another translator: (3) Go to a pawnshop, and you won't be fooled. Go to the pawnshop and you won't be fooled. Such translation should be said to embody contradictory techniques, but the target language readers may have doubts: is pawnshop a place to deceive people?
After studying the above three translation examples, it is considered that all of them are partially acceptable, and after careful consideration, it seems that translation 3 is more convincing from the perspective of advertising effect. However, from the point of view of compactness, catchiness, pun intended 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. Using the reverse translation method, this paper tries to give the following translation: going to the pawnshop will be a valuable job. 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 smoothly, we try the following translation: Go to pawnything, and you will find it worth doing. The sentence structure-step (6) of this translation is the same: "rhyme-sound" and [I] are the same. 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 advertisements is well expressed through imperative sentences, endings, synchronization and other means.
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 the literal superficial translation that makes sense to read the text. It should also be pointed out that in order to achieve the proper commercial effect, people who are proficient in English language and culture and familiar with Chinese-English translation skills must be invited to do the translation, and the translation results must be verified by people from English-speaking countries. It is not easy to create good Chinese advertising words, and it is even more difficult to translate good Chinese advertising words into good English. Some business people should give up the concept 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, Xu Mingjun. Advertising English and examples [M]. Beijing: China Radio and Television Press,1995: 73-77,226-233.
[4] Cui gang Advertising English 3000 sentences [M]. Beijing: beijing institute of technology press,1993:12,37.
[5] Ding Hengqi. Three-dimensional thinking in advertising text translation [J]. Chinese Translation, 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.
On the Translation of Chinese Advertising Slogans and Phrases
Wang Yanfei 1, Yu Ting 2
(1. Department of Foreign Languages, Liaoning University of Science and Technology, Anshan, Liaoning114051; 2. School of Applied English, School of Foreign Languages, Dalian University, Dalian 1 16002, China)
Abstract: This paper probes into some translation strategies and skills of Chinese advertising language, and points out the necessity of correctly understanding them. At the same time, the author also studies the cultural and marketing functions conveyed by these advertising slogans and phrases, 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 market effect.
Keywords: advertising slogan; Advertising phrases; Translation; Culture; Marketing effect
(Received on July 12, 2006)