On-English-Ads-Translation-from-the-Perspective-of-Relevance-Theory英语专业论文.doc

中国某某某某学校

学生毕业设计(论文)

题 目:On English Ads Translation from the Perspective of Relevance Theory
姓 名 ： 00000000
班级、学号 ： 00000班、000000号
系 (部) ： 经济管理系
专 业 ： 商务英语
指导教师 ： 0000000
开题时间： 2009-4-10
完成时间： 2009-10-20

2009 年 10 月 20 日

30

目 录

毕业设计任务书…………………………………………………1
毕业设计成绩评定表……………………………………………2
答辩申请书……………………………………………………3-5
正文……………………………………………………………6-31
答辩委员会表决意见……………………………………………32
答辩过程记录表…………………………………………………33

课 题On English Ads Translation from the Perspective of Relevance Theory
一、 课题(论文)提纲
Ⅰ. 引言
1.1 研究目的及意义
1.2 国内外研究现状
Ⅱ. 理论框架
2.1 简介关联理论
2.1.1 关联理论的推理本质
2.1.2 关联原则
2.2 关联理论的翻译方法
Ⅲ.从关联理论来看英语广告翻译
3.1英语广告翻译的目的
3.2 英语广告翻译的本质
3.3 关联理论视角下的广告翻译
3.3.1广告翻译的策略
3.3.2广告翻译实例分析
Ⅳ 结论

二、内容摘要
广告是一种特殊的交际文体，具有明确的商业目的。因此，广告翻译的译文只有符合受众的语言特点、文化习惯、，才能激发消费者的购买欲望。英语广告翻译的目的是追求译文达到最大的语境效果，实现达到有效宣传产品，提高销量的目的。目前，对于广告翻译的理论研究，相对滞后。因此，本文拟用关联理论来分析英语广告的翻译，目的是分析英语广告翻译的实质，并且试图构建基于关联理论的翻译模式，以期指导译者进行英语广告汉译时灵活地选择翻译策略。本研究对于中国的翻译教学和译者的翻译实践提供了一些启示。
但其还具有一定局限,所以对未来相关研究的方向提出了建议。
关键词：英语广告；广告翻译；关联理论
三、参考文献
[1]Gutt.Ernst.August(2004)Relevance and Translation. cognition and
context［M］Shanghai. Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
[2]Nord.Christiane(1996)Translating as a Purposfu1 Activity.［M］
Manchester.St. Jerome Publishing.
[3]Ramos.F.Y(1998)A Decade of Relevance Theory.［J］Journal of
Pragmatics(30).247-262
[4]Tanaka.K.(1994)Advertising Language. A pragmatic approach to
advertisements in Britain and Japan［M］London. Routledge.
[5]Wilson,Deirde.(1998)Discourse. Coherence and Relevance. A Reply to Rachel Gina.［J］Journal of Pragmatics(29).57-74
[6]刘卫东.田贵森.广告翻译的最佳关联策略［J］.广西社会科学.9（2005）.156-159
[7]孟建刚.关联理论对翻译标准的解释力［J］.中国科技翻译.1(2001).9-11
[8]潘莉.从关联理论角度解读广告翻译中的变通［J］.山东外语教学.6(2003).78-87
[9]张景华.辨证性—关联理论的翻译本体论阐释［J］.天津外国语学院学报.1(2005).8-14
[10]赵彦春.关联翻译理论对翻译的解释力［J］.现代外语,3(1999):273-295

On English Ads Translation from the Perspective of Relevance Theory
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Abstract: As a special communicative text, advertisement has its definite commercial aims. Therefore, the translated adverts are supposed to cater to the target audience in their own language and cultural background, which can inspired their desires for purchase. The aim of ad translation is to accomplish the communicative intention of the original advertiser and yield adequate contextual effects in the target environment, which is to persuade the target audience (consumers) to purchase the advertised products or services, or to follow the advice in the ad. Among the current studies on this project, most of them dug into the pros and cons of specific translation strategies, but failed to find out an overall guiding theory for the general advertising translation practice. Therefore, the present study makes explorations of the ads translation from English to Chinese (abbreviated as E-C translation of ads) within the framework of Relevance Theory, with a hope to analyze the nature of ad translation, and develop a theoretical model covering the whole process of E-C translation strategies. Meanwhile the present research is likely to help us understand and appreciate advertising language and contribute to English teaching and learning in China, but the study with limitation of the research and suggestion for future research.
Key words: English advertisement； Advertisement translation ；Relevance Theory
Ⅰ. Introduction
Globalization of the world economy has singled out advertisement (hereafter abbreviated as ad) in the business world. The rapid spread of English ads in world market has initialed a lot of translation studies on it in the academia, which has always been a hot topic in the translation of practical English. The present chapter, first of all, introduces the purpose and the meaning of this research, and then reviews some previous translation theories as well as some relevant previous studies conducted by Chinese researchers.
1.1The Purposes and theMeaning of this Study
Review of the related existing literature of both theories and researches shows that both Western and Chinese researchers have contributed a lot to the study of the translation of English ads. But they still have their respective problems and weaknesses. In China theoretical study on the translation of English ads is still relatively retardant. Therefore, the thesis attempts to conduct a study on E-C translation of ads within the framework of RT, and it tries to answer the following questions:
(1)What is the translation of English ads in nature?
(2)How to develop a theoretical model covering the whole process of
English ad translation which can help translators to choose appropriate translation strategies.
Since the present study is conducted within the framework of RT, the concepts of RT adopted in this research will be introduced in chapter Two.
Using RT to study E-C translation of ads has both theoretical and practical significance. Theoretically, it testifies the applicability of RT in translation, which is propitious to conduct studies on the translation of some other types of texts. Meanwhile the present research is likely to help us understand and appreciate advertising language and contribute to English teaching and learning in China.
1.2 Previous Researches on the E-C Translation in Domestic and Abroad
Translation is a rather complex and yet a fascinating task.Since the 1990s researches on the translation of advertising materials have increased, along with the advent of globalization (Liu& Tian,2005).Many scholars home and abroad have tried to conduct researches on the translation of English ads from different perspectives.In the 1950s and 1960s, linguistic theory of translation became dominant in Western countries and the linguistic approaches basically regard translation as a code switching operation. At the beginning of the 1970s, the focus shifted from the word or phrase to the text as a unit of translation. The theory is represented mainly by Eugene Nida’s “equivalence” principle. Functionalist approach to translation emerged in the 1970s in Germany in the representative of Vermmeer’s Skopostheorie (1989).Because the advocators of this approach are German scholars, it is also called “German school of functionalism”.
Overseas advertising of consumer products and services has appeared in Chinese market, which draws more attention from Chinese scholars. Ad translation did not begin to catch Chinese scholars’ attention until the early 1990s when it still appeared rather primitive along with the premature advertising (Li&Ma, 2005).
As for translation strategies, Chinese scholars just advise one or two to the audience and use many examples to prove their suggestion. For example, Zhang (2003)considers that advertisement translation is a process of language transferring and cultural exchange, and many advertisement translations nowadays do not convey the exact meaning and cultural connotations, which leads to the failure and misunderstanding of the original advertisements. She analyses how cultural difference influences translation of advertisement, and puts forward several effective translation methods from the perspectives of language, social customs and purchasing psychology. Zhong (2004) proposes literal translation and free translation as the translation strategies for advertising translation. To sum up, most of them are trying to address how to translate English advertisements into Chinese, while none of them attempts to answer why to choose these strategies not others.
Review of the related existing literature of both theories and researches shows that both Western and Chinese researchers have contributed a lot to the study of the translation of English ads. But they still have their respective problems and weaknesses.
II. Theory Frame
This chapter will concentrate on two major issues: one part deals with RT, the theoretical foundations of the study, in which the inferential nature of RT and the principle of relevance will be introduced. The other part focuses on the RT approach to translation.
2.1 An Introduction of Relevance Theory
RT is a new approach to communication and cognitive pragmatics, however, RT has been successfully applied to translation (Romos, 1997). The following sections are about the outline of main assumptions of RT.
2.1.1 The Inferential Nature of Relevance Theory
According to Sperber and Wilson (2001), human communication is an ostensive-inferential process which is defined as follows:
Ostensive-inferential communication: the communicator produces a stimulus which makes it mutually manifest to communicator and audience that the communicator intends, by means of this stimulus, to make manifest or more manifest to the audience a set of assumptions.
The communicator and audience are assigned to different tasks to make a successful communication. On the speaker’s part, he is supposed to manifest his intentions’ while on the hearer’s part, he is supposed to infer the intentions behind this coded manifestness. Sperber and Wilson (2003) propose that the intentions which the communicator intends to manifest consist of communicator’s informative and communicative intention. A communicator who produces an ostensive stimulus is trying to fulfill two intentions, the informative intention, ‘make manifest or more manifest to the audience a set of assumptions; second, the `communicative intention, ‘to make it mutually manifest to audience and communicator that the communicator has this informative intention’ (Sperber&Wilson, 2001).In RT, informative intention are not of the same importance in communication. Understanding is achieved when the communicative intentions are fulfilled, namely, when the audience recognizes the communicative intention. Once the communicator’s communicative intention is recognized by the audience, the communication succeeds. The purpose of informative intention is to illustrate the audience’s communicative intention, namely, the real aim of the speaker’s manifested act is to arouse the reaction of audience to his communicative intention.
2.1.2 The Principle of Relevance
In accordance with RT, there are two Principles of Relevance: the First (the Cognitive) Principle and the Second (the Communicative) Principle (Sperber&Wilson, 2001).
Cognitive principle of relevance:
Human cognition tends to be geared to maximization of relevance.
Communicative principles of relevance:
Every utterance (or every act of ostensive communication) communicates a presumption of its own optimal relevance. It follows from the Cognitive Principle of Relevance that human attention and processing resources are allocated to information that seems relevant. It follows from the Communicative Principle of Relevance that a speaker, by the very act of addressing someone, creates an expectation of optimal relevance.
An utterance is optimally relevant when it is relevant enough to be worth processing, and is, moreover, the most relevant utterance that the speaker is willing and able to produce (Sperber& Wilson, 2001):
Optimal relevance:
An utterance is optimally relevant if, and only if:
(a)It is at least relevant enough for it to be worth the addressee’s effort to process it (that is, it provides adequate benefits to the addressee)
(b)It is the most relevant one (or it enables the addressee to find without unnecessary effort the meaning intended by the speaker) compatible with speaker’s abilities and preferences.
It is this claim to optimal relevance that guides the recipient in identifying the speaker-intended context for a given utterance in the following way. It makes the recipient expect that the contextual information needed for the correct interpretation is readily accessible. Hence the recipient begins the interpretation process from information most readily available to him at that time. Furthermore, He will assume that, when combined with the right context, the utterance will yield an interpretation that is worth the effort invested in processing it.
On these assumptions, the recipient will proceed with the interpretation process until he arrives at an interpretation that fulfils both conditions: it is derivable without unnecessary effort and yields adequate contextual effects. In other words, the claim to optimal relevance leads the hearer to accept the first interpretation consistent with the principle of relevance as the right, that is, the speaker-intended interpretation. Thus, the search for optimal relevance guides the hearer not only to the speaker-intended context but also to the speaker-intended interpretation.
2.2 Relevance Theory Approach to Translation
In 1991, Ernst Gutt wrote a book entitled Translation and Relevance:
Cognition and Context, in which he developed RT in pragmatics and19 expounded its application to translation. The significance of applying RT to translation lies in its explicit emphases on the study of the mental process of the translator and the adequate contextual effects in the source text and the target text (Mackenzie, 1994).
The application of RT entails that translation is seen as part of communication. The successful communication requires consistency with the principle of relevance and, as part of that, the use of the right contextual information when processing the utterance. The assignment of a particular act of communication to some category can be of help with this, but it is not a necessary condition for communicative success, because the communicator can inform his audience of introductory remarks, comments or the like in other ways.(Dahl,1998).When there is any doubt whether the translator's notion of translation is sufficiently similar to that held by the audience, he would do well to state clearly at an appropriate place how he has understood the task as a translator.
As one form of communication, translation is primarily an ostensive-inferential cognitive process the object of translation studies is the mental mechanism of people as communicators. The two basic claims of RT applied in translation declare that under the same condition, the greater the contextual effects, the greater the relevance; the greater the effort needed to derive them, the lower the relevance will be. So the optimal relevance is the translator's aim and the target readers' expectation.
RT considers translation as "inter-lingual interpretive use"(Gutt, 2001). Usually linguists define translation as a process of transforming signs or representations into other signs or representations, and translation is basically20 seen as a code-switching activity. Within RT, translation is analyzable as a variety of interpretive use: the translator produces a target-language text, the translation, with the intention of communicating to the audience the same assumptions that the original