Abstract

With the deepening trend of globalization, the advertisement translation has become prominent in the marketing strategies. As the purpose of advertisement is to introduce properly their products and attract more consumers to buy their products, it is important to know well the cultural differences between different countries. Appropriate advertisement translation will promote the sales, and the inappropriate advertisement translation will inhibit the sales. Therefore, we need to further explore the ways to translate advertisements, and make the target consumers have similar response with that of the domestic consumers. In this respect, this thesis will concentrate on the comparing the differences of English and Chinese advertisements, and the corresponding translation methods. Hopefully, this will provide some useful suggestions for future research.

     This thesis is composed of five parts. The first part is the introduction, introducing the research background, research significance, literature review and the thesis structure. The second part is advertisement translation. The third part is the differences of Chinese and English advertisement, presenting the differences in respect of thinking modes, value orientations, cultural backgrounds, religions and customs, and social and political systems. The fourth part presents the translation methods of Chinese and English advertisement, in particular, this part demonstrates the literal translation, free translation, equivalent translation, transliteration and creative translations in detail. The last part is the conclusion of this thesis, providing the findings as well as the limitations of this thesis.

Key words: Comparison; Advertisement translation; Translation methods

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1 Introduction.1

2 Advertisement Translation-4

2.1 General understanding of Advertisement Translation-4

2.2 Basic Principles of Advertisement Translation-6

3 Differences of Chinese and English Advertisement-8

3. 1 Thinking Modes-8

   3. 2 Value-orientation. .9

3. 3 Religion and Custom-10

3. 4 Social and Political System-11

4 The Translation Methods for English and Chinese Advertisement13

4.1 Literal Translation-13

4.2  Free Translation-14

4.3 Equivalent Translation-14

4.4  Transliteration-15

4.5 Combination of Transliteration and Free Translation-16

   4.6 Creative Translation.16

5 Conclusion-18

Bibliography-19

Acknowledgements-21