论文总字数：32888字

摘 要

在现代社会,广告扮演了越来越重要的角色,它已是人们生活中不可或缺的一部分；它存在于人类社会的每一个角落,影响着现代社会的每一个人。总的来说,广告既是商品信息的载体,也是一种文化形式。作为文化中最有活力的一个因素,广告蕴含并反映着社会文化,同时也受到了社会文化的影响和制约。本文将着重于探讨影响中西广告语言中的文化因素的几个方面。目的在于通过对比研究,挖掘出中西广告中的文化内涵,并希望以此来加强人们在汉英广告翻译过程中的跨文化意识。社会文化影响制约着广告语言及其表达,广告语言则蕴含或反映社会文化。探讨中西方思维模式,哲学观念,文化心理和道德观念反映在广告语言中的差异,对于更好的理解和赏析广告语言,设计既要符合广告表达基本原则,又适合民族文化特征的广告语言具有十分重要的作用。

从广告角度,分析中西方文化在世界观,价值观,思维方式及审美心理等方面存在的差异,揭示广告和文化之间的亲密关系,说明广告不仅是了解文化的一种手段,更是文化的代言,是跨文化商品交换的一个重要的文化产品。

关键词：中西广告语言；文化翻译策略

Contents

1.Introduction……………………………………………...............……..…1

2.Literature Review………...…………………………...................…..……1

2.1 The definition of advertisement…………….....………….................…....1

2.2 The purposes of advertisement…………...……………….................…...2

2.3 The function of advertisement....................................................................3

3.Studies on advertising language and cultural factors in advertising......4

3.1 Studies on advertising language………………………....….......…….….4

3.2 Studies on cultural factors in advertising………………………...…........5

3.3 Studies on advertising translation…………......…………………….........5

4.The cultural differences in Chinese and English advertisements............6

4.1 Oneness vs. dividedness between man and nature………................…..…7

4.2 Collectivism orientation vs. individual orientation……....…...........……..7

4.3 Indirect vs. direct expression………………………………….............…..8

4.4Advocating tradition and static lifestyle vs. seeking change and dynamic lifestyle............................................................................................................10

5. Principles and strategies of Chinese-English advertising translation...11

5.1 Principles for advertising translation..........................................................11

5.2 Strategies for Chinese-English advertising translation...............................12

6.Conclusion…………………………………………………………....…....12

Works Cited………………………………………………………....….........14

1. Introduction

The thesis starts with a literature review on advertisement, advertising language, cultural factors in advertising and advertising translation. Furthermore, by citing and analyzing plenty of Chinese and English advertisements, the cultural differences between them are explored. Chinese culture is characterized by the philosophical viewpoint of “Oneness between Man and Nature’’ and collectivism while Western culture by “Dividedness between Man and Nature” and individualism. Chinese people are implied, imaginative and tend to think in circular way; they used to adopt indirect expression and show great respect for authorities, while in Western countries, people tend to have a linear way of thinking, and they like to express themselves in a direct way and seek for personal values. Besides, Chinese people attach great importance to tradition and static lifestyle while Westerners often pursue change and dynamic lifestyles. Based on the above analysis, the discourse explore the principles and strategies of Chinese-English advertising translation. Plenty of examples have cited that unconventional translation gravely have impact on market of Chinese products in other countries. Therefore, when translating Chinese advertisements, people should take cultural background and social values of the target language countries into consideration, and make greatest efforts to transmit the hope-for consequence of these advertisements. Only in this way can Chinese advertisements and products be accepted and appreciated by consumers in Western countries.

2. Literature Review

2.1. The definition of advertisement

The definitions of advertising may vary from different perspectives. Advertising initially meant ”news”, and after the 15^th century, it developed into “to attract one’s attention to something.” Moreover, in the 16^th century, it became “to make universally known.”

It was not until the 18^th century that advertising became a complete commercial activity. In English, the word ’’advertise’’ has its origin in “advertere” in Latin, which means to inform somebody of something’’. With the speed development of society, languages changes and the meaning of ”advertise’’ extended to attract people’s attention to certain information. Up to now, lots of specialists have defined the word in various versions of its use.

2.2 The purposes of advertisement

Advertising is aimed at transmitting the information to customers and prospective customers. The intention of advertising is to convince consumers that a company"s goods, ideas or services are the best, enhance the image of the company, point out and make a motivation for products or services, show new uses for established products, announce new products and programs, strengthen the salespeople"s individual information, attract consumers to the product, and to hold existing consumers. It is universally known that advertising is used to inform, persuade, and inform the target consumers of the goods, ideas or services. Undoubtedly , the fundamental purpose of advertising is to promote the goods, ideas or services. Firstly, the purpose of a good advertisement is to attract attention. That is to say, when a commodity comes on the market, the advertising objective is to make people to pay attention to it. Only when the advertising is noticed by the consumers, the following steps are possibly to come true. Secondly, advertising has to convince the readers that the product will give them a need which they have not felt before. Thirdly, advertising must motivate the desire of the potential consumers to buy the advertised product, service or idea. Afterwards, advertising must convince the customers that the specific brand advertised is superior to other similar brands. Ultimately, advertising should stimulate the consumers to take actions to try or buy what is advertised. When consumers take actions, advertising finally accomplish its purposes.

No matter how you express the information, the idea is the same: the ultimate purpose of an advertisement is to convince the prospective consumers to take actions to buy a certain product , service or idea. The more effective and persuasive advertisement is, the more possible the potential customers will be convinced to buy the advertised product, service or idea.

2.3 The function of advertisements

Advertising is both praised and criticized for its role in marketing products and its effect on society. For several years, critics have slandered advertising for a wide range of err, some real, and some imagined. The result has been increasing steadily in plenty of consumers and business organizations. In any case, advertising does play a very essential role in both reflecting and forming our society. Five different functions have been concluded for advertising. They are brief-discussion beneath.

2.3.1 The marketing function

In the wake of sales promotion, public relations and personal marketing, advertising is one of the tools employed by a business or an organization to communicate with its consumers. While advertising is only one element in a company’s entire promotional progress, it is the most distinct one.

2.3.2 The communicative function

Advertising is a form of universal communication. It deliver different types of market information to fit buyers and sellers in the market place. Advertising both informs and transmit the information by creating an image that goes beyond straight direct facts.

2.3.3 The economic function

The two major schools of thought concerning the effects of advertising on the economy are the market power school and the market competition school. According to the market power school, advertising is a persuasive communication vehicle used by marketers to attract consumers’ attention from the price to the product. On the contrary, the market competition school regard advertising as a origin of information that stimulate consumers’ price sensitivity and competition.

In fact, we know little about the true nature of advertising in the economy. An advertising professor, provides a different perspective. He sees the economic function of advertising as “helping society to achieve abundance by informing and persuading members of society with respect to products, services, and ideas.” On the other side, he declares that advertising assists in “the development of judgment on the part of consumers in their purchase practices” (Wells, 1995:14).

2.3.4 The social function

Advertising has a quantity of social functions. It informs us of new products and teaches us how to use these information. It helps us compare products and characteristic then make decisions. It is universally know that advertising is the reflection of social culture, scientific and technological level and standards of consumption.

2.3.5 The educational function

Advertising, as an educator, enhance the adoption of the new and untried field, accelerates technological advances in industry and the realization of a full life for all of us. Whereas advertising must be more than educational to be successful. When people be stimulated to action, whether that action is the purpose of advertising is fulfilled.

3.Studies on advertising language and cultural factors in advertising

3.1 Studies on advertising language

Lets draw attention to the influence of culture difference between China and Western culture. With China"s accession to the World Trade Organization, the nation has speeded up the process of opening up to the outside world. Advertising language is vital to achieving advertisements’ purpose. Plenty of linguists have applied various approaches for the study of advertising language features. The social culture influences and restricts advertising language and its expressions. At the same time, advertising language contains and reflects the social culture. To be more specific, philosophical viewpoints, cultural values, way of thinking, cultural psychology and religious belief obviously have grave influence on advertising language. And if advertising language reflects the social culture, it will be well appreciated and highly evaluated by readers or consumers, In China, with the speed development of market economy, advertising is becoming more and more essential. Lots of scholars began to focus on the study of English advertising, and their studies almost involved all aspects of advertising.

3.2 Studies on cultural factors in advertising

We all know that different countries have different cultures, and culture plays a very vital role in communication, especially in advertising. The biggest difference between foreign advertising and domestic advertising is that foreign adverter needs to deal with people from different cultures. People from different cultural background, their languages, religions, values, ways of thinking, custom are all different form each other. For this reason, what we should think about is not only goods and services, but also words and actions which have different meanings from different cultures, because these may let your customer misunderstand. In other words, the trade which works in a specific cultural environment may not adapt in another culture. In foreign advertising, Chinese enterprises must pay attention to a variety of environmental and cultural factors, analyze and adapt to these different cultural environment. Different cultural environments endow languages with different cultural meanings. In brief, advertising culture is not an isolated social phenomenon.

As the communicative media, advertising culture not only spreads the product information to consumers but also confer a cultural enjoyment and speeds up the process of cultural communication. As far as we know, the grave effects of the existence of those cultural factors are not disclosed in the above-mentioned studies.

3.3 Studies on advertising translation

Advertisement is an important component in our daily life. In order to achieve some goal or effect, advertisers always use pun to make the advertisements attractive, interesting and lively. Actually, translation is a kind of attempt to over come barriers in international communication. In advertising, an advertiser sometimes depends on translators’ professional view on the target culture to design and revise the advertisements. Moreover, plenty of scholars analyzed the characteristics of English advertisement language and style, discussed several main translation strategies, and suggested the principles of English advertisement translation such as, literal translation, free translation, etc. Advertising translation from Chinese into English should not only transfer the original meaning, but also convey the communicative effect of advertisements and the response of target consumers should be taken into account firstly. And these are closely related to cultural background and social values of people in different countries. When translating a advertisement, we should not only address words written in a certain time and space, but also take the cultural angle of the advertisement into account.

Therefore, we should mainly attempt to explore the cultural differences and connotations in Chinese and English advertisements through contrast analysis, and discuss Chinese-English advertising translation strategies from cultural perspective.

4.The cultural differences in Chinese and English advertisements

Moreover, due to the different cultural background, the function of advertisements has been weakened on different levels. There is no doubt that it reflects the most effective way to achieve the international advertising purpose is to be constantly sensitive to cultures of different countries. The following part will focus on the differences between Chinese and Western cultures in advertising.

4.1 Oneness vs.dividedness between man and nature

Chinese traditional attitude towards nature is ”Nature and human are in oneness”, while Western world advocates ”Dividedness between Man and Nature”. That is to say, nature influence human spirit, and man is characterized by nature. Freedom of personality might be the most essential one among Westerns’ values which originated from Western ancestor’s religious belief. Now, it has developed into the freedom and liberation for seeking personality. Some Chinese advertisements meet the culture psychology of Chinese people, and create many desirable advertising words. For instance:

天有不测风云,我有人生保险。(ad for PICC) In this famous advertisement, the product is connected with the personal security. The security in the human world are highlighted , which describe a picture of oneness of human and nature, and designs a harmony of "security” and life. It makes readers feel it necessary to insure their life. Through this strengthen and convince, the product becomes really appealing, and it arouses the consumers’ rosy imagination and desire to purchase the insurance. At the same time, it meets the advertisers’ intention.

Although in Western culture believe the supernatural power from God that creates the universe and God has arranged everything for everyone beforehand, people still emphasize the capacity to change and even control the nature. In fact, Western culture attaches importance to diversity of matter, and it stresses the difference of nature, the change of nature, personal freedom, individual development and enterprising spirits. The idea dividedness between man and nature strengthen human’s power and knowledge, and emphasize the role of science, technology and enterprising spirits. Actually, Western people believe man should be the individual of spirit and should evaluate himself independently.

Obviously their advertisements are influenced by such viewpoint in which individual freedom, self-development and creative ability of man are highlighted. Moreover, these advertisements encourage people to change the world and conquer the nature.

4.2 Collectivism Orientation VS.Individual Orientation

 Collectivism is more popular in China while individualism in Western. Chinese often owe a success to group. Facing praise, they appear very modest. Under the similar circumstance, Americans are more likely to tend to individualism and will accept the praise directly. Individualism refers to the tendency of people to immediate look after themselves and family, so neglect the needs of society. Collectivism extent to which individuals perceive themselves dependent, more collectivist and more integrated into groups. Generally speaking, Western people are more individualistic, while Chinese people are more collectivistic. To some extent, the individualistic people prefer to show their personalities in public to distinguish them from others, because they believe they are the unique ones in the world. Nevertheless, the collectivistic people prefer to follow others, and make them belong to a given group and gain the sense of belonging. While the Chinese attach importance to the families and the collectivism, Western people seems to take individualism.

Western people claim that everyone is born free but to be real free, one needs to rely on oneself. Nowadays, with the rapid development of China’s advertising, some Chinese advertisements tend to be individualized, especially those commercial advertisements that take young men as target consumers. For instance:

我的地盘,听我的。(ad for M. Zone)

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