品牌和广告翻译中的归化与异化.docx

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毕业设计（论文）报告纸

二 ○ 一 四 届 毕 业 论 文

The Domesticating and Foreignizing Translation
of Brands and Advertisements
品牌和广告翻译中的归化与异化

学院：
外国语学院
专业：
英 语
姓名：
邹 阳
学号：
1301100106
指导教师：
赵 斌
完成时间：
2014年6月

二〇一四年六月

0

Acknowledgements

I am indebted to many people for their support and help in the procedure of my college study and thesis writing. My gratitude firstly goes to my tutor Mr. Zhao Bin. Without his constant encouragement and constructive suggestions, this thesis would not be finished on time. My thanks also go to teachers and leaders of foreign language school. I met a lot of excellent teachers in these four years. Their encouragement and help will leave a permanent memory on me in my later career. Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my classmates. They helped me a lot and provide me every convenience so that I can concentrate on my study and thesis writing.

Abstract

Brand name, or trademark, is a special language symbol. It is the concentration of the notable feature of commodity and an important part of the culture of the company, as well as advertisements. The translation of brands and ads are also important when it’s going to land on another country because the translation affects people’s acceptance, preferences and the brand positioning. A good translation can bring with wealth, while a bad one may bring with loss or even failure of the company. The translation of trademarks is of vital importance and closely related to a company. In this paper, started with the definition of domesticating and foreignizing translation, the application of these two translation methods will be discussed, by means of illustrating and analyzing some typical cases.

Keywords: trademark; brand; advertisement; translation

摘 要

品牌，或者说商标，是一种独特的语言符号，它是商品特点和公司文化的集中展示，广告也是一样。当一家公司计划进军海外市场时，品牌和广告的翻译就变得尤其重要，因为翻译的好坏直接影响了新市场民众的接受度、偏好度以及产品本身的定位。一个好的品牌翻译可以给公司带来巨大的海外市场，同样，一个不好的翻译则会给公司招致损失，甚至彻底失败。本文将从翻译中归化与异化的定义谈起，通过分析一些典型实例，论述归化和异化方法在品牌商标翻译中的运用。

关键词：商标；品牌； 广告； 翻译

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Contents

1. Introduction 1
1.1 Social Background and Development of Brand and Advertisement Translation in China 1
1.2 Research Done in This Field 1
1.3 Purpose of This Paper 1
2. Literature Review 1
2.1 Introduction of Laurence Venuti 1
2.2 Introduction of Laurence Venuti’s theory on domesticating & foreignizing translation 1
2.3 The Acceptance and Influence of L. Venuti’s Theory 1
2.4 Limitations of L. Venuti’s Theory 1
3. Methodology 1
4. Application of Domesticating & Foreignizing Translation in Commerce 1
4.1 Features of brand and advertisement translation 1
4.2 Analysis of Domesticating and Foreignizing in Brand Translation 1
4.2.1 Domesticating of Brand Translation 1
4.2.2 Foreignizing of Brand Translation 1
4.3 Analysis of Domesticating and Foreignizing in Advertisement Translation 1
5. Conclusions 1

1. Introduction

1.1 Social Background and Development of Brand and Advertisement Translation in China
With the development of China’s reform and open, the whole society and foreign trade are stepping forward as well. Nowadays, more and more foreign firms find it beneficial to launch their business in China. While international companies are flooding into Chinese market, a lot of Chinese enterprises are also pursuing an edge into the international market. But obviously there are losers and winners. The translation of their brands plays an important role in the competition. As we all know, brand, or trademark, is a kind of intangible assets for their owners and it influences sales directly. However, because the East and the West are different in many fields like location, history, culture, custom, religion, social system and economy, people’s recognition and appreciation of brands are different. This requires us to have to take many factors into consideration as possible while we translate foreign brands.

1.2 Research Done in This Field
Many papers and books are written to analyze the domesticating and foreignizing translation of brands and ads, such as Domesticating & Foreignizing Translation and Advertisement translation, and Naturalization and Dissimilation Strategy and Brand Translation. Both of them link Lawrence Venuti’s foreignizing and domesticating strategy with commercial applications, which is advertisement and brand translation.
According to Lawrence Venuti, an American linguist and translator, there are only two translation methods in this world; one is domesticating translation while another one is foreignizing translation. Although he favors foreignizing translation because he opposes culture hegemony, we have to admit that both domesticating translation and foreignizing translation are useful under different circumstances. And the most important thing is to learn how to adopt them flexibly in line with different cases.

1.3 Purpose of This Paper
In this thesis, I will connect Lawrence Venuti’s theory, which is about domesticating and foreignizing translation, with examples in commercial use, particularly with examples of different translations of brands and advertisements. In the first part, Venuti’s theory will be explained in detail. The importance and influence of his theory will be illustrated as well. In the second part, I’ll concentrate on the analysis of examples in commercial use, trying to find an efficient way to guide people how to translate a trademark or a piece of advertisement from one language to another.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Introduction of Laurence Venuti
Born in Philadelphia, Venuti graduated from Temple University. He has long lived in New York City. In 1980 he completed the Ph.D. in English at Columbia University. That year he received the Renato Poggioli Award for Italian Translation for his translation of Barbara Alberti’s novel Delirium.
Venuti is currently professor of English at Temple University. He has also taught as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton University, etc.
Venuti has concentrated on the theory and practice of translation. He is considered one of the most intense figures in modern translation theory and often differs from mainstream theorists. He criticizes the fact that the translator is an invisible figure. He has been engaged in translation criticism ever since he started his career.

His famous work, The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation, has been a source of some debate since its publication. In this book, he lays out his theory that so-called “domesticating practices” at work in society have contributed to the invisibility of the translator in translations, claiming that legal and cultural constraints make it so that “faithful rendition is defined partly by the illusion of transparency”, such that foreignizing or experimental types of translation are “likely to encounter opposition from publishers and large segments of Anglophone readers who read for immediate intelligibility”. This leads to a climate in which “fluency” is the most important quality for a translation and all traces of foreignness or alterity tend to be purposely erased.
From Wikipedia, Lawrence Venuti

2.2 Introduction of Laurence Venuti’s theory on domesticating & foreignizing translation
In 1813, Schleiermacher, a German classical linguist and translator, pointed out in his work The Theory of Translation Methods, that there are only two translation methods. One is that the translator makes readers get closer to the writer; another one is that the writer gets closer to readers. In 1995, Lawrence Venuti named these two methods as Domesticating Translation and Foreignizing Translation.
According to Lawrence Venuti, foreignizing translation refers to the translation that reserves foreignness of original text and deliberately breaches the rules of target language. Domesticating translation refers to the translation that reduces foreignness and doesn’t disturb readers, making the original text get closer to readers.
For Lawrence Venuti, domesticating translation is negative. He thinks it a kind of egoism and racism to simplify the original work, bowing to the so-called “mainstream culture” like English and American cultures. His book The Translator’s Invisibility: History of Translation provides a thorough and critical examination of translation from the 17th century to the present day. It shows how “fluency” prevailed over other translation strategies to shape the canon of translating foreign literatures in English countries. “Fluency” strategy has become a main method, actually, for Westerners to translate literatures of other cultures. Indeed, this is a typical phenomenon in mainstream cultures, which uses only one language blindly and arrogantly and refuses to accept other languages. He also thinks that mainstream cultures are getting used to accepting fluent and readable translation and concealing the values of other cultures into theirs. This makes readers appreciating their own culture, instead of exotic cultures, when they are reading foreign books. The word “conceal” here shows the role that a translator plays. In the society that favors domesticating translation, translators need to be “invisible” to make translation get closer to target language and make readers feel natural. Just like Norman Shapiro, an American mathematician, said, “A good translation is like a pane of glass. You only notice that it’s there when there are little imperfections ---- scratches, bubbles.”

2.3 The Acceptance and Influence of L. Venuti’s Theory
Before Venuti’s foreignizing and domesticating translation strategies being introduced to China, there were heated discussions about domestication and foreignization with different ideas from different aspects. In the early 1990s, with papers and books on western translation theories being introduced into China on large scale, Venuti’s foreignizing translation views have caused strong responses. And in turn, this strengthened the previous discussions about domesticating and foreignizing in China, pushing it to a new level.
The number of articles focusing on Venuti’s foreignizing translation view is considerable as well. Till April of 2014, I can get 1319 pieces of results with the key word “Venuti”, searching CNKI.NET, including monographs, journals, master theses and doctoral dissertations. This fact shows that the influence of Venuti’s foreignizing and domesticating translation strategy is accepted widely and spreading still.
With Venuti’s foreignizing and domesticating translation strategies being introduced to China, a new wave of discussions about translation methods and the social status of translators have become more and more aggravated. Obviously, Venuti’s foreignizing and domesticating translation views have produced some optimistic influences, for example, the position of translators has been raised; target languages have been enriched; translation studies have been concerned than ever before, etc.
Before that, translators had a pretty lower status than authors. Translators were “invisible” while authors were paramount. From Venuti’s point of view, translators and translation tend to be invisible in contemporary Anglo-American culture, which means that translators were willing to hide themselves in the target language culture. Fluent, or naturalized, translation has been emphasized in the translation industry. Foreignizing translation method opposes transparency in translation, and it helps make the translator’s works visible by involving a critical introspection about its cultural and political function.
In accordance with Venuti, a perfect translation should limit ethnocentrism and the main idea of his foreignizing translation strategy is to highlight the foreignness of foreign texts. Such strategy helps the target readers accept and understand foreign expressions and civilizations, which is helpful to promote a mutual culture exchange between the two countries. And it is also helpful to enrich vocabulary and expressions of target countries.

2.4 Limitations of L. Venuti’s Theory
Lawrence Venuti, as a deconstructivist, points out translating is a behavior both cultural and political. He opposes the cultural hegemonism of Anglo-English countries and any inequality in cultural communication. This is meaningful, but there are still some limitations about it.
First of all, Venuti’s foreignizing translation strategy is useful to resist hegemonism for mighty cultures. But for weak cultures, domesticating translation, instead of foreignizing, can stand up to cultural hegemonism. Under such circumstances, foreignizing may break the target language, which was already almost broken up.
Secondly, sticking to foreignizing translation may break up target languages. Now, among all the 5651 languages, more than half are vanishing. In this era where English has become a dominating language, foreignizing translation must be a threat to those target languages.
Thirdly, foreignizing translation sets a high requirement for readers. Venuti’s foreignizing translation is a “not fluent” one. Scholars’ acceptance to his theory doesn’t mean that readers will accept the strategy as well. Lu Xun, a Chinese novelist, translated a few works using foreignizing strategy. But the sales were gloomy because few people can accept them. Foreign works, translated by foreignizing strategy, requires much patience for readers.
Although Venuti’s translation theory has its limitations, it’s still meaningful for us to do researches on this base, because the concept and basic features of domesticating and foreignizing translation are illustrated by his thesis.

3. Methodology
In order to conduct this research and analysis, I have read many theses and monographs of other scholars on Venuti’s domesticating and foreignizing translation theory. Papers on brand and advertisement translation also have been collected for reference. Most of the examples are accumulated from websites and others’ theses before I started to write this thesis.
After reading the major part of Venuti’s The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation, I made up an outline of his idea on foreignizing translation. Combined with other theses that study his theory, then a survey of foreignizing and domesticating translation can be conducted.
…..
The standard Chinese translations of brands and advertisements are selected for study from Fortune 500 list, which is released by Fortune Magazine.

English Name
Chinese Name
Pepsi
百事
Fannie Mae
房利美
Peugeot
标致
Google
谷歌
Vodafone
沃达丰
Shell
壳牌
Hewlett-Packard
惠普
Procter & Gamble
宝洁
Warrior
回力
Hisense
海信
Rolls Royce
劳斯莱斯
Dongfeng Motor
东风汽车
Maotai
茅台
Confucius Family Liquor
孔府家酒
Li-Ning
李宁
BMW
宝马
Maxwell
麦斯威尔
Coca-Cola