论文总字数：30737字

摘 要

随着经济的快速发展，市场竞争的形势越来越严峻，商标的价值竞争也不容小觑。本课题从文化差异的角度探讨英语商标的汉译。通过中西文化的对比分析，特别是从民族心理，文化价值观以及翻译美学等方面，探讨文化对商标翻译的影响，商标翻译对于消费者和生产商的影响。文章强调的是中国市场的接受度，并在此基础上进一步探讨英语商标汉译应遵循的原则，如简洁原则，独创原则等，希望通过有效翻译，英语商标能够更好地融入新的市场。

关键词：商标翻译；文化差异；品牌

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………1
2. Literature Review…………………………………………………………2
3. Features of English and Chinese Trademark………………………2
4. Influence of Culture Differences on Trademark Translation……..4

4.1 In terms of national psychology ………………………………………….4

4.2 In terms of cultural value…..……………………………………………......5

4.3 In terms of aesthetics……………………………………………………...6

1. Rules of Trademark Translation…………………………….7

5.1 To be simple and concise……………………………………………………8

5.2 To be novel and attractive…………………………………………………9

5.3 To be sensible and beautiful………………………………………………9

6. Conclusion………………………………………………………………..10

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………...12

1. Introduction

With the quick development of economy, many small-scale enterprises have owned their own trademarks, which should be printed to represent their companies. Since a commodity wants to win the competition in the market to have a large share, trademark counts a lot as its own quality. And how to make an impressed and acceptable trademark and what should be paid attention to are two initial questions to consider about. However, different countries have different cultures, so the rules and methods of trademarks translation are significant when making an official trademark. Some people may not be familiar with the concept of trademark, and they hold that consumers will buy their products without the translation of trademark. These enterprises take great pride in product itself, instead of considering the study of consumer psychology. In this era of information industry, enterprises should have strong brand awareness. Trademark is an important thing in business, which is seen as the image of one company frequently. For instance, “Dove” is translated into “多芬”, which sounds like a nice-smelling product in Chinese. This trademark just shows that its product is trustworthy, now. Therefore, the trademark translation should be taken into account. Accordingly, contemporary scholars begin to study the trademark translation in a new angle. Nowadays, more and more Chinese translators have paid their attention to the trademark translation studies. Enormous amounts of articles on this field are published in Chinese influential academic journals. For example, Yu Haiyan and Gong Maoting released “A Brief Analysis of Trademark Translation from a Cultural Perspective”(Yu Brief 140) in Overseas English and Yu Xiaowei issued “Influence of Cultural Differences on Advertisement Translation and Trademark Translation”(Yu Influence 157) in Overseas English. Nowadays, there are many foreign goods pouring into the Chinese market, and the trademark translation becomes increasingly important. Owing to the differences of geographical location, customs, religion and costumers psychology between foreign countries and China, the cultural differences take an important role in the trademark translation. So, we can discover the importance of the trademark translation from the perspective of cultural difference. This paper attempts to explore some cultural differences in the trademark translation reflected in society, customs, value systems etc., then some rules, modes or strategies would be put to use in trademark translation.

1. Literature Review

Since the development of economy is rapidly growing, the translation of the trademark is more and more noted. According to Leech(1983), linguistics developed a new branch named pragmatics. And it attached great importance to the understanding and application of language, especially how to use it in a specific language environment. From pragmatics, we can learn that translation should transfer the meaning of the source language and the culture connotation. And this leads to another topic, functional equivalence or we call it, pragmatic equivalence. Eugene A. Nida(1951), a famous linguist and translator produced the concept of equivalence, and improved it to functional equivalence. He said the react of message receptor in the target language ought to be as good as that in the source language. Intercultural communication is also not to be ignored. It is firstly put forward by Edward T. Hall(1959) in “The Silence Language”. He divided culture into high text culture and low text culture. This is of significance in study of trademark translation, because when selling a product in a foreign market, the first thing is to know the relevant culture of target language. In China, Bao Wen wrote an article named“On the Implementation Methods and Justifications of the Translation of Trademark Homonymy”(Bao 110) in Chinese Translators Journal. And in his opinion, the trademark can be obtained from the homophonic meaning of the original version.

The authors and theories mentioned above have greatly developed the translation of trademark, and there are many authoritative theories that I haven’t mentioned. This thesis is based on these and analyzes the content of the English-Chinese trademark translation in the perspective of culture difference and strives to summary some rules and approaches from studying the problems existing nowadays.

1. Features of English and Chinese Trademark

According to The Oxford English Dictionary, trademark is a name, symbol or design that a company uses for its products and that cannot be used by anyone else. Another dictionary named Collins English Dictionary defined it as a name or symbol that a company uses on its products and that cannot legally be used by another company.

Judging from the above, there are some features of trademark. First of all, trademark is a symbol marked in the product to represent a brand. This means that trademark must be designed carefully to show the image and enterprise culture of a company or a brand, and this kind of symbol is sometimes the only thing that people can remember at last in their mind. There is a typical example in Chinese. Speaking of the social software, Chinese always think of “Weibo” at first. Although many companies own their social software, Weibo wins the market for one of the reasons, which is the cordial feeling of its trademark. And now, Weibo becomes a very influential trademark in China and it is social software with the largest number of users in China. And this feature is also applied in foreign market. Secondly, trademark is under the tutelage of law and an important form of commercial property. Wherever it is, trademark is a name of legal significance. No matter in Chines market or in foreign market, there are many companies with small or even without scale using the trademarks alike other big and famous companies to confuse the consumers and sometimes to attract people, which want to save money. What’s more, some of those small companies will use the famous trademarks directly. This is illegal. At this time, the legal significance of trademark can be reflected. And the last point is that it can help differentiate the product and producers from the similar items. This can be seen as the most important feature. Product with a proper trademark is easy to be distinguished from commodity of the same classification of other trademarks. For example, we have many choices when buying a mobile phone. The functions and styles of those mobile phone brands are of small differences, but because of the trademark, they have different values with different prices. Consumers can distinguish the products of different companies from the different trademarks.(Zhu 6)(Li 66-69)

From the above points of view, the features of the trademark show the importance of it. In the translation of English trademark into Chinese, we should take notice of keeping these characteristics in abreast.

1. Influence of Culture Differences on Trademark Translation

“No language in the world can escape from human culture.” Yu Haiyan and Gong Maoting mentioned this in their article.(Yu Brief 140) Language, which shapes actions, perceptions and thoughts, plays a large and significant role in the culture. Seen in this light, language comes from culture and it influence culture. It mirrors the characteristics of a nation, in which history, cultural context, thinking model, lifestyle, beliefs and values are richly included. Language is slowly taking shape in the development of a specific culture or various cultures mixed. What’s more, as an advertising language, the trademark also embodies culture and is heavily culture-loaded. Trademark looks like a reflection of different social and cultural backgrounds rather than a mechanical translation from word to word. This translation is an information dissemination and communication activity. This kind of activity is between two groups of different cultural backgrounds. In international trade, it is not difficult to find that the products of the same trademark are popular in one nation, while those of the same trademark are neglected in another area. Its invisible inner obstacle comes from the culture differences between different nationalities, and at this time it is the culture that takes effect in the target market to a great degree to achieve a successful promotion and sale. In the process of translation, we should not only understand the literal meaning of words, but also know their cultural meaning, which requires us to fully understand the impact of cultural differences on trademarks.

4.1 In terms of national psychology

National psychology is the psychological characteristic of a nation. It is accumulated by national culture in the long-term evolution process. Due to the ecological environment, historical evolution, religious beliefs, political and economic reasons, the psychological characteristics of each ethnic group must be different, which may result in a variety of values, associative meaning and consumer psychology. A company in Germany produces a kind of car called Benz, which is translated into “奔驰” in Chinese, according to the method of the combination of transliteration and free translation. This shows a completely different understanding of Chinese and Western culture. This trademark gives Chinese a feeling of high speed and this is a common word that shows cordial feeling. And the translation basically retains the original pronunciation of the trademark. So, if this factory has a plan to build up overseas market, its trademark will bring many setbacks and problems in the future. Comparing the trademarks of local goods, they will find their goods more intimate and choose to buy it. Not to mention, the logo of our product may be a lively dragon. Another example is that a copier produced by MD, an American company, uses its original name “Watchdog copier” as trademark. The product is highly popular after it was released in the European and American markets. But after putting into the Chinese market, people felt confused and puzzled because in Chinese culture, dogs are often used as derogatory images and rarely used as trademarks. Consumers in China often refused to buy it and some of them may consider this product as a product of low quality. As it is talked in the second part about the features of trademark, during the process of translation, the translator should think of the representation of trademark. Since this name can show the national psychology of its home country, the trademark should be both acceptable in foreign market and show its national psychology. “Yahoo” is a very famous search engine. Its original name is a sound to express surprise from a monster of human’s body in Gulliver’s Travels. And in Chinese version, “雅虎” gives people a feeling of an elegant tiger. And this translation makes the engine sound cuter and an efficient product. So this gives a big challenge for translators in English-Chinese trademark translation to notice national psychology in the export market as well as to strive to exhibit the domestic culture or enterprise culture.

4.2 In terms of cultural value

Values are the key to the entire cultural system, including people"s attitudes to time, wealth, achievement and innovation, so it directly affects people"s consumption behavior. The Western individualism is general, and this kind of value orientation shapes their national character as independence, explicitness, innovation and pursuit of achievement. The Chinese collectivism holds value as introverted thinking, implicitness, modesty, frugality and highly thinking of tradition and history. Chinese pursue traditional cultural values and integrate them into life. American multinational company, “Protectoramp;Gamble”, is a very big commodity producer, whose trademark is translated into Chinese as “宝洁”, which sounds like cleaning in Chinese, though its former meaning is protecting ourselves and taking a risk with something. There are many products in this company with various trademarks and their Chinese translations embody a warm and peaceful cultural value of daily life and home. For example, “Rejoice”, translated into “飘柔”(Fu 149), reminds us of the pleasure of using it; “Safeguard”， translated into “舒肤佳”, reminds us of comfortable sensation when taking a bath; “Tide”, translated into “汰渍”, reminds us of the convenience when you can wash away the stain easily. From all above, quite different from the western people, the Chinese designers and manufacturers often adopt trademarks that create pleasant images and feelings in people’s mind and value. And the most typical product is a feminine care, “Whisper”. This trademark means speak in a low voice and it graphically displays that this kind of commodity is of privacy. “Whisper” has a new name of different meaning in China, “护舒宝”. The Chinese translation directly reveals the function and effect of it and the translation remains the secret of this commodity, as well. In other words, these three characters represent mystery and romanticism, which is in accordance with the implicit beauty of Oriental women. In this example, the trademark translation maintains the original meaning of the trademark and adds the value of consumers in the target market at the same time. Because of the perfect translation, “Whisper” sells well in Chinese market and can be easily distinguished from other similar goods. To gain success in Chinese market, some studies on the culture value differences are necessary for the translators.

4.3 In terms of aesthetics

Different nations have different appreciations of beauty. The same thing is beautiful to some people, but the others may have the opposite view. Someone holds that the appreciation of beauty is too personal, but in fact people of the same country or the same area sometimes share the same thought of one thing. African may adore the people in black skin and some people in Asian countries prefer those in white skin. There is a very famous multinational restaurant, “McDonald’s”, holding trademark as “金拱门” in Chinese to replace the translation of another title of the brand logo “Golden Arch”, but from the perspective of Chinese people, its name is very strange and has no sense of design. At this time, people will say this trademark lacks beauty. Aesthetic psychology is an important social and cultural factor. Translators should cater to the aesthetic psychology of the majority of a nation, and the translated trademarks will give people a sense of beauty and stimulate consumption. In the procedure of trademark translation, most translators take this factor into account. There is another good example of ladies’ cosmetics called “Cleanamp;Clear”, which is translated into “可伶可俐” in Chinese, adding a sense of lovely and pretty little girl and giving consumer a feeling of beauty. This is a typical case of giving consideration to differences between China and the West. “IKEA” is a trademark of furniture brand, and is translated into “宜家” in Chinese with connotations of suitable homes. As an old saying goes in China, “宜室宜家”, this trademark reveals the picture of home when returning to your house, and this is what consumers want in “IKEA”. This translation also reflects the beauty of artistic conception. Too many examples to be listed here, it is easy to find the regular rule of trademark translation in the perspective of aesthetic differences. Translators firstly realize that this kind of translation is aimed to attract the consumers, to compete in the big market and to show the product in few words. Thus, the trademark after translation must be unique, but not strange; beautiful, but not common; representative, but not wordy. From above all, the trademark translation must be a very hard work.

1. Rules of Trademark Translation

During the process of trademark translation, translators have encountered many problems and those problems leave an adverse influence on trademark functions. To make it easy when translating trademarks, people have devoted themselves to study for many years. Recently, there are some important rules and approaches of translation, rules such as simple and concise, original and creative, and fresh and attractive, also approaches such as transliteration, free translation and the combination of these two methods. According to many theories, the language used in commercials belongs to vocative function type. When translating trademark into another language, we should pay attention to many details, which consists of the rules of trademark translation. Trademarks are translated in different ways. However, their designers have the same goal of arousing the consumers’ desire to shop and try to maintain this consumption desire to continue supporting the commodity of these companies. Also, the language of the trademark translation could also have the informative and aesthetic function as it is said before. From the research of some different types of trademark of many countries,some common approaches are usually employed in the process of the trademark translation. Taking these familiar translation methods as examples, this paper further expounds how to pay attention to cultural differences in the trademark translation.

5.1 To be simple and concise

It is comfortable to the consumers that they see a trademark with few words but these few words fully express the features and advantages of this product. As it is said in part two,one of the features of the trademark is to be a symbol marked in the product to represent the brand, the trademark is the first thing that consumers remember before they use the product. In the eyes of trademark functions, being simple and concise should be considered as the basic principle. Since there are too many trademarks in the market, it is difficult for consumers to choose one from them, especially the unfamiliar ones and the new ones. And at this time, most consumers will ignore or forget the trademarks, which are not easy to remember. So when you want to do a trademark translation into another country or just make a new trademark, the rule is universal and being simple and concise should be your fundamental principle. Because it is sometimes only a glance that consumers leave on the goods, long and wordy trademarks never have advantages in the competition.

From the investigation, the author identifies that many foreign companies pay more attention to this respect. “Microsoft” is a software programming and is translated into “微软”, and this is a trademark that simply expresses the high-tech and a modern feeling. And in this case, the approach is free translation, which is a common method in the trademark translation according to the meaning of the original trademark. It adopts methods flexibly and creatively to develop the advantages of the target language. “Micro” in Chinese is “微” and “soft” is “软”.(Zhao 192) Another example is the baby stuff called “帮宝适” with its original name is “Pampers”. In Chinese market, this trademark is very competitive, for the reason that the solely three character means helping babies feel comfortable. Therefore, moms can easily be attracted by the trademark when they are looking for baby stuff. And this kind of translation is called transliteration, which tends to pay attention to the transmission of culture. It refers to the method of translating the original language pronunciation of the trademark, in accordance with the original target language pronunciation, without violating the language norms of the target language and causing false association or misunderstanding. The pronunciation of “Pampers” in Chinese sounds like “帮宝适”, so this kind of translation is popular in the international market.

5.2 To be novel and attractive

Most of the time, the quality of the trademark depends on whether it attracts consumer’s attention or not. A fresh trademark can make consumers willing to accept the indigestible meaning of a product and want to know more about the brand at the first glance.(Shi 63) From that moment, the competition starts. Recently more and more companies spend a lot of money on applicant trademark design for a special and unique one. For example, a famous sports brand “PUMA” holds its Chinese trademark as “彪马”. In fact, puma in English is a kind of lion in America area and we can see that from its logo, which looks like a jumping lion. In China, people always see the horses as an animal with high speed and they think that horses represent a strong and healthy feeling, and more importantly, this kind of translation also basically retained the original pronunciation of the brand. When consumers walk into a big market with various sports brands, this name is fresher for them and is an eye-catching sight.

This translation is the combination of transliteration and free translation and it is the most popular approach of trademark translation. And this translation requires that it can convey both form and spirit from those two methods. It has a high demand of translators because it puts the psychological and cultural orientation of trademark translation at first place. Trademarks are commodities that show national culture to the world and promote the exchange and integration of East and West cultures. Moreover, this translation also need express the functions and characteristics of products in the similar pronunciation.

5.3 To be sensible and beautiful

It is known to us that trademark has a sensible and beautiful translation is an add-on, particularly those with nice meaning and deep cultural connotation association.(Zhang 28) In the part 2, the features of trademark show that trademark can stand as the image of the product and enterprise, consequently a more sensible and beautiful translation is much more attractive than other type of translation. If the picture or image that the trademark sends to consumers is very wonderful, people will be more willing to buy the product or be stimulated the desire of shopping. Everyone likes beautiful things, as well as trademarks. There are many examples in this area. “LONGINES” is a watch brand and is translated into “浪琴表” in Chinese. This sounds like very romantic and beautiful. Also, it is easy to be classified into the combination of transliteration and free translation and this trademark perfectly describes the sense and beauty of this brand. Another example is “ COCO ESSENCE”, a brand of hair washing and skin care. The original name conveys its high quality. However, it is called “遇见香氛” in Chinese and this makes us feel like having a free and romantic travel in the garden full of flowers. And the charming fragrance is the elite of its products, representing women of elegance, beauty, charming and attraction. And this name is translated in free translation, because the Chinese version looks like a new brand. However, this so-called new brand gives us a fresh and sensible feeling and also makes us feel the high quality of this brand. From those two examples, a good trademark translation always considers sense and beauty as its last move to win.

1. Conclusion

The trademark is short and simple-meaning, so the translation is always very difficult. And it costs a lot of work. The trademark serves to help consumers choose goods of certain quality and credibility. These products make the consumers able to notice that whenever they purchase a product identified by a particular trademark, they will be assured of the same quality and culture. So, in the trademark translation, translators must understand the linguistic and cultural differences between commodity producing countries and commodity sales target countries, such as national psychological difference, cultural value differences and aesthetic differences. While the trademark translation is a very complex process of words arrangement, how to make the order right or how to make the title attractive are the problems that translators should face when translating. Translation should be flexible to keep up with the local situation and dealt with each case on its merits. By using applicable translation techniques with proper rules, such as simple and concise, novel and creative and sensible and beautiful, the cultural characteristics of the original trademark should be preserved to the maximum extent. When it comes to specific approaches of trademark translation, there are transliteration, free translation and the combination of transliteration and free translation. And with the development of the worldwide economy, more and more products will be exported and imported, thus, this study can count a great deal.

The author tries to explore the influence of culture differences and rules of the trademark translation and help the translators solve the problems in trademark translation. It is still many problems waiting for the translators to deal with. The positive thing is that the author discusses the above and endeavors to list some approaches. Due to the limited level, the author does not cover every aspect of trademark translation, however, the research in the future is worth looking forward to.

Works Cited

Fu Qiangwei. “On the Methods of Trademark Translation from the Perspective of Functional Equivalence Theory” Overseas English, 2018:No.366, 154-155

Yu Haiyan and Maoting Gong. “A Brief Analysis of Trademark Translation from a Cultural Perspective”.Overseas English,2018:No.367,140-141.

Yu Xiaowei. “Influence of Cultural Differences on Advertisement Translation and Trademark Translation” Overseas English, 2014:No.285,157-158

鲍文：《论商标谐音创义翻译的实现方法与实施理据》·《中国翻译》，04（2016）：110-113.

[Bao Wen. “On the Implementation Methods and Justifications of the Translation of Trademark Homonymy”Chinese Translators Journal04（2016）：110-113.]

李卿：《农产品商标英译现状调查与优化策略——以青岛市农产品商标译名为例》·《对外经贸实务》，05（2017）:66-69.

[Li Qing. “Investigation and Optimization Strategy of English Translation of Agricultural Trademark --Taking Qingdao Agricultural Product Trademark as an Example”Practise in Foreign Economic Relations and Trade 05（2017）:66-69.]

时宇娇：《我国出口农产品商标英译存在的问题及优化策略》·《对外经贸实务》，01（2019）：62-65.

[Shi Yujiao. “Problems in the Translation of Trademark of Agricultural Products for Export in China and its Implementing Strategies”Practise in Foreign Economic Relations and Trade 01(2019):62-65.]

张佑明：《商标翻译中译者的营销意识》·《中国科技翻译》,04（2016）：26-29.

[Zhang Youming. “The Translator"s Marketing Consciousness in Trademark Translation”Chinese Science amp; Technology Translators Journal 04（2016）：26-29.]

赵冬生：《归化原则与互文内涵二度重写下的商标品牌翻译研究》· 《黑龙江高教研究》，07（2012）：191-194.

[Zhao Dongsheng. “A study on the Translation of Trademark under the Rewriting of the Domestication Principle and the Intertextualism Connotation”Heilongjiang Researches on Higher Education 07（2012）：191-194.]

朱亚军《商标命名研究》.上海：上海外语教育出版社,2003

[Zhu Yajun Research on the naming of Trademark. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press,2003]

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