Translation skills of advertising English language characteristics
First, the language characteristics of advertising English
1。 Lexical features
(1) Easy-to-understand words. Use less or no obscure words to make consumers understand and make it clear. Like Nike, justdoit. Many people still remember this slogan of Nike. (2) Innovative vocabulary, highlighting the novelty, strangeness and strangeness of products. In English advertisements, many advertisements deliberately misspell well-known words or add prefixes or suffixes to create new words, thus not only retaining the original meaning of words, but also promoting the uniqueness of products in a brand-new way. For example: the most orange beverage world. The best orange juice in the world. ) Orangemostes here is actually Orange+most+est. Most and est are superlatives of adjectives. Here, the high quality and purity of this orange juice drink are impressive. (3) Flexible use of words and vivid images. The purpose of advertising is to let consumers know as much about the product as possible in an instant. Therefore, it is necessary to grasp the main characteristics and advantages of the product and express them in vivid language so that consumers can see the efficacy of the product at a glance. For example, the tide. Discharge the dirt (put it in the tide to wash it off). This is a very targeted advertisement for Tide washing powder. Consumers can understand this information without too many languages.
2。 Syntactic features
(1) concise short sentence, eye-catching. Advertising sentence patterns are concise and easy to understand. Concise sentences can catch the audience and arouse interest. For example: FreshUpwithSeven-up. -Get up. You can drink seven-up to refresh yourself. Complex and lengthy expressions can be boring, and it is difficult to achieve the purpose of publicity. (2) imperative sentences to enhance appeal. In order to impress customers and reduce advertising costs, advertising planners will always rack their brains and strive to achieve the best effect of commodity promotion with concise and powerful forms and attractive words. As an "encouraging language", advertising English often uses imperative sentences with the meaning of request and command to achieve the purpose of concise and impressive writing. For example: Turniton! Put it on! (Puma Puma)/You deserve it! You deserve it! (l' oreal). (3) Elliptic sentences are short and powerful. Because the characteristic of advertising is to achieve the best publicity effect in limited time, space and cost, the extensive use of ellipsis has become one of the characteristics of advertising English. We read other microscopic examinations. We are in the lead, and others are close behind. Although this advertisement only uses two simple verbs "quote" and "copy", it cleverly points out its copying function as a copier and the leading position of Ricoh brand in similar products, which can be said to be ingenious and kill two birds with one stone. Another example is Alwayswithyou. Walk with you. (China Telecom) "Forever" vividly shows the wide coverage of telecommunications, and plain words have narrowed the distance between customers and companies.
3。 Rhetorical features
Rhetoric is a powerful weapon to enhance language expression. As a purposeful language, advertising English often uses some rhetorical methods in literature to make its advertisements unique and eye-catching. These rhetorical methods include metaphor, personification, rhyme and pun. Various figures of speech endow advertisements with concise, vivid and humorous features. In Featherwater:lightasafeather (Fazewatt glasses: as light as a feather. ) In this advertising language, figurative techniques vividly express the advantages of lightweight products. Another example is: oh, Isee! Oh! I saw it! (OIC Glasses Company) The slogan of the American "OIC" glasses company is homophonic with the company name OIC, giving OIC "Oh! I saw it! " At the same time, "Isee" skillfully links the brand and product quality.
Second, the translation skills of advertising English
When translating advertising English, we should not only fully understand its stylistic features, but also consider language and cultural differences, rhetorical devices and language variations, so that the translated advertisements can achieve the expected social effects.
1。 Pay attention to cultural differences
There are great differences between Chinese and western cultures in psychology, aesthetics and customs, so we must pay attention to the differences between language and culture when translating advertising English. As we all know, "whiteelephant" brand dry batteries once sold well all over the country, which means "useless and heavy things" in English translation. The consequences of this advertising translation in the British and American markets can be imagined.
2。 Make good use of rhetorical devices
Rhetoric can make language expression accurate and vivid, and can also strengthen the content of expression. To some extent, with the help of rhetoric, we can improve the attractiveness of advertisements and reach the goal of impressing consumers, so rhetoric is widely used in advertising English. For example, mommy depends on Kool-Aid, just as a child depends on mommy. The simile here, using mothers and children, has a strong flavor of life, which makes the product very intimate.
3。 Diversification of translation forms
(1) literal translation. In the translation of direct advertising, try not to change the style and sentence structure of the original sentence, such as: Makedreamscometrue. Make dreams come true. (Disneyland) TakeTOSHIBA, taketheworld. If you own Toshiba, you will own the world. (Toshiba Electronics) The above two literal translations vividly express the intention of product advertising and achieve the purpose of the original advertisement. (2) Free translation. The so-called free translation is to excavate, extend or expand the meaning of the original text. Sometimes, due to the need of expressing habits, neat antitheses are used, which are catchy and meaningful. Goodtothelastdrop. Didi is fragrant, and the meaning is still unfinished. The omnipresent intelligence. Wisdom is everywhere. As can be seen from the above examples, the translator appropriately expresses the characteristics of the product. Literal translation is far less effective than the former.
Third, the conclusion
With the progress of the times, advertising English is constantly updated, and novel and unique words emerge one after another. Only by keeping up with the pace of language development and carefully studying and mastering the language characteristics and translation skills of advertising English can we achieve the best effect of commodity promotion.
References:
1 Zhao Jing: Advertising English M. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press,1993:150 ~156.
Liao Ying is not in the book. A Study on Language and Translation of International Business English M Beijing: Machinery Industry Press, 2005: 3 10 ~ 3 12.
3 Lu Guoqiang: Modern English Lexicology M. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press,1999:161~165.
4 Wang Zhikui: College English-Chinese Translation Course M Jinan: Shandong University Press, 2004: 148 ~ 150.
5 Fang Wei: Modern English Advertising Course M Nanjing: Nanjing University Press, 1997
6 greed. Language value and its social background. Kegan Paul Limited, 198 1
I think if you want to write an advertising paper, you should highlight the characteristics of advertising language and write it brilliantly. My experience is to find more advertising words, classic parts and the classification of the results achieved, and then analyze them. Hehe, the above are articles and related materials, O(∩_∩)O haha ~