A Brief Analysis of Translation Principles in English Advertisements

游丽

【Abstract】 Advertising English， as an application language， has become universal and dependent. In this thesis， the author summarizes 3 translation principles in English advertisements， which provide the reference to the advertising translation.

【Key words】 English advertisement translation principle translator

Advertising， as an effective competition method， plays a more and more evident role in promoting the sales and taking up the new market. The principles of English advertisement translation can be generalized as “three principles”. These various principles are not against each other，which are mutually complementary and mutually integration in nature.

1. Modification Principle

The development of advertising language posed a severe challenge to English ads translation. Some ads require the translator to break the old tradition and bold innovation to improve the quality of translation. There are two reasons to allow the modification. The first one is the purpose of ads is to induce consumers to buy products， the text is only a means. So the translation does not be limited the equivalence of text. The second one is that the ads language is generally vivid and is the essence of language. There would be no superb translation without bold modification. It can be said that other principles described below are more or less containing alternative ingredients.

2. Concise Principle

In order to concise， to attract the attention of more readers， easy for readers to recognize and remember， ads writing should follow the “KISS” principle—“keep it short and sweet”. In English ads， the words are simple and most are the kind of oral type. The Chinese ads are often using the modifier to strengthen the voice and to indicate the characteristics of the product. A large number of examples of E-C and C-E are adopted to show that in line with the concise principle， ads language translation should strive to use the simplest language to express the most complex meaning so that it could make it easy to identify and remember.

3. Equivalence Principle

Translation is to use the close and most natural equivalence word in the target language from the semantic to the style to reproduce the information of original language. So the translation should put the equivalence as the foundation. Accordingly， commercial ads translation should realize the semantic equivalence， social cultural equivalence and style equivalence. The first one is Semantic Equivalence. This is the most basic and most important equivalence. From the word to chapter， the translator must first assure the meaning of the translation units in the context. To achieve semantic equivalence， translators should pay attention to avoid ambiguity and the error of literal translation. Another one is Social Cultural Equivalence. Translation itself is to introduce the foreign cultures. Because of the constraints of cultural differences and the language forms， the English words and the Chinese words do not have some pairs of equivalence. The equivalence of social cultural factors should be considered in translation.

References

[1] Newmark， P. Approaches to Translation[M]. Shanghai： Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press， 2001.

[2] Guidere，M. Translating Ads[M]. Paris： Harmattan， 2000.

[3] 常文梅. 英文广告的语言特点与翻译技巧[J]. 郑州航空工业管理学院学报（社会科学版）， 2013（02）.