湖南自考英语毕业论文：在广告翻译中的文化差异

“Smoothness” means to use smooth and natural Chinese expressions that Chinese customers can accept to give the information about a product. Whether the translation of an English advertisement is excellent or not depends on the response of its receivers. Only when the Chinese readers’ response to the translation is similar to the original readers’ response to the original advertisement, will the translation achieve the purpose. To achieve this, the first step is to translate the original with smooth Chinese expressions. “Precision” is also demanded by the advertisement’s function. If the meaning of the original advertisement was altered in the translation, the customers would be misled by the Chinese version.

“Consciousness” means the translator should use informative and concise diction and sentence structure. The education levels of the readers are varied, so far too complicated of difficult diction o r sentence structures in translation may take it hard for its intended readers to comprehend its information.

2.3 Linguistic Characteristics of English Advertisings and Relevant Translation Techniques

2.31 Lexical Characteristics of English Advertisements

The two words and phrases of advertisements are colorful and lively, and the only purpose of choosing a word in writing an advertisement is to “promote products”. Therefore, these phrases are usually intriguing and appealing. The lexical characteristics of English advertisements can be summarized in the following aspects:

a.     The Abundant Use Of Modifiers

In advertisements, there is an abundant use of modifiers to highlight the merits a product, to describe vividly the special features of the product and to enhance its appeal to the prospective customer.

Famous world-wide gourmet cuisine. Excellent daily specials and mouth-watering desserts.

世界有名的美食烹调，精美的每日特色饭菜和令人垂涎的点心。

This is an advertisement of an restaurant. We can see the adjectives account for one half of the word used in the advertisement. They show the restaurant’s features to its customers.

b.     Intentional Wrong-spelling

Intentional wrong-spelling in English advertisements can arouse people’s sense of curiosity about the advertisement and impress people deeply. For example: Drika Pinta Milka Day.

This is a milk advertisement. The normal form of the expression should be: Drink a pint of Milk a Day. 一天请喝一品脱牛奶。

c.      The Use of New Coined and Strange Words

Advertisement often invents new and strange words to highlight product’s characteristics: novel, and original, so that they can satisfy the consumers who are fond of following fashion. When we translate these new coinages and strange words into Chinese, we should bring our imagination into full play because we can’t find their equivalents in dictionary

The Orangemostest Drink in the World.

This is an advertisement of soft drink. “Orangemostest” is made up of “orange+most+est” “Most” and “est” are both the superlative suffixes of adjectives. Her they are compounded with “orange” to highlight quality and purity of this advertised beverage. Its Chinese version is: XX橙汁，带给你世界一流高品质、高纯度的享受。

2.32 Syntactical Characteristics of English Advertisements

a. The Rich Use of Concise and Short Sentences

Conciseness is a common characteristic of most advertisements.

Their sentences are generally short and succinct. This is because complex sentences are not easy to understand and they will dull readers’ interest in the advertisement, while brief and short sentences are vivid, eye-catching and readable. So we also use short Chinese sentences to translate such advertisements.

  Coca-Cola is it.

还是可口可乐好！

Fresh up with Seven-Up!

请饮七喜，倍添精神。

b. The Plentiful Use of Elliptical Sentences

The plentiful use of elliptical sentences in advertisements is in compliance with the principle of consciousness. Besides, elliptical sentences can emphasize the key information in the advertisements.

You’ll enjoy relaxed sunny days. Warm crystal clear lagoons, cool, green foliage. Waterfalls. Flowers. Exotic scents. Bright blue skies. Secluded beaches. Graceful palms. Breathtaking sunsets. Soft evening breezes. And food that simply outstanding.

你会享受这阳光明媚的轻松日子。温暖、清澄的环礁湖，清凉、碧绿的树叶，瀑布，花丛，异样的芬芳，明亮的蓝天，幽静的海滩，优美的棕榈，壮丽的日落，轻柔的晚风，还有那绝妙的食物。

2.4 Cultural Differences in Advertising Language

2.41 The Implicit Way versus the Direct Way

In Chinese traditional culture, there is a public feeling that the words should be conservative and implicit. Because the unsaying words are very meaningful and can achieve an ideal state. In the Chinese article, there are some words that seem unrelated, which highlight the theme. To some extent, there are a few words about the peculiarities and the functions of the products. For example:自己人，不玩虚的，贵府酒。鹤舞白沙，我心飞扬。朋友情谊，贵乎至诚相处，互相支持帮助。啊，滴滴浓香，意犹未尽。

In all, Chinese nation think highly of friendship. So these means mentioned above can achieve the sympathetic. The advertisements get the goal.

2. 42 The Imagery Pattern versus Abstract Pattern

In Chinese traditional culture, the mode of thinking is belonging to the imagery pattern most of time. To some extent, the abstract pattern is little. Chinese people often put their feelings in the concrete objects and things. When a person sees an object, he or she will think of another familiar person. This is common sense of Chinese people. So the advertisers often show a comparably concrete sense or an analogy, in order that the readers can think of the products easily.

   The thought of western people are used to be leaping and thoughtful. They prefer the abstract thinking pattern to the imagery pattern.. So they often utilize the creative language, and give the readers a kind of novel ideas in order that the consumers can get a profound and favorable impression.

2.43 Respect of Authority versus Respect of Self-performance

The authority has a great power to affect the purchase of the consumers. So this is one important feature of Chinese advertisements. The advertisers often enumerate the honors and certificates and let them occupy a pivotal position, when the advertisers introduce the products to the readers. For example: ISO9001国际体系认证、“中国环保质量信得过重点品牌”称号,中国驰名商标，中国名牌，国家免检产品。

But different from Chinese advertisements, English advertisements have this kind of expressing way rarely. Because they have the successful realization of self-value.

2.44 Different Social History Background

So if only the advertisers design the English advertisements by taking the consumer’s essential interests as the based and by taking the idea of self value realizations as the goal, The culture center is the personal value. Western people treat the official position as the very common thing. Western culture pays more attention to the personal value and self interest. It may lead to the dissimilarity in advertising translation. When Japanese company Toyota firstly entered into the Chinese market, they created an advertisement slogan” Where there is a way for can there is a Toyota. ” This has borrowed from China’s colloquialism. But if publicized in the United States may understand that the first sentence of Declaration of Independence is “All men are created equal”, by using this borrowing sentence, Toyota made its declaration that the quality of their cars is much better than others.

3. Conclusion

We can see many advertisements in our life. Enterprises promote their products effectively by different kinds of advertisements; people can also get some useful information about products in this way. However, import and export trade have formed that the products from any other parts of the world have showed for all people. The products which represent high Tec knowledge and quality become the best choice for many people. The Chinese products also export to many foreign countries. It can solve inconvenient aspects to pay more attention to the cultural appearance in translation of advertisements.

Advertising is one of the marketing strategies in the international business activities. Advertisement exists everywhere and it influences us everyday. According to a statistics, one third of the present day newspaper’s space is used for advertising in England. Advertisement is a widely used medium of communication in business activities in our daily life. If we want to do a good job on English advertisement translation, it is necessary for us to know something of advertisements’ characteristics. We should pay more attention to the relationship language and culture.

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