Abstract:Advertising has become an important means of commodity promotion. Many new products and services of the businessmen are mainly introduced to the potential customers through advertisements. In order to attract customers, many businessmen use a lot of creative words in their advertisements. Having a thorough grasp of linguistic features of advertisement is helpful to improve one’s comprehension and taste in advertising English so that one can translate English advertisements more effectively. This paper analyses the language features of English advertisements discusses appropriate translation methods for English advertisements through examples. Advertisement translation should bring the roles of advertisements into full play and show the charm of language adequately so as to reflect the economic value of advertisements.

Key words: advertisement; linguistic features; translation

Table of Contents

Abstract

中文摘要

1.Introducion-1

1.1 The definition of advertisement-1

1.2 The functions of advertisement-1

1.3 The aim of advertisement-2

2. Linguistic Features of English Advertisements-3

2.1 Lexical features-3

2.1.1 The use of monosyllabic verbs-3

2.1.2 The use of emotive adjectives-4

2.1.3 The use of compound nouns-5

2.2 Syntactic features-5

2.2.1 Imperative sentences and Interrogative sentences-5

2.2.2 Simple sentences and elliptical sentences-6

2.2.3 Exclamatory sentences-7

2.3 Rhetorical devices in advertising English-8

2.3.1 Metaphor-8

2.3.2 Personification-8

2.3.3 Pun-9

3. The Translation Methods of Advertisements-11

3.1 Literal translation-11

3.2 Free translation-12

3.3 Transliteration-12

4. Conclusion-14

References -12

Acknowledgments -12