Pragmatic Value and Translation Methods of Lexical Ambiguity in Advertising English

Abstract: Lexical ambiguity is a common phenomenon in advertising English. This paper discusses the formation and pragmatic value of lexical ambiguity from the aspects of homophones, polysemy (homophones), part-of-speech conversion and ambiguity caused by different usages in English and American English. On the basis of considering the multiple meanings of lexical ambiguity and the translation purpose of advertising English, this paper further analyzes the translation of lexical ambiguity in advertising English from the aspects of coincidence translation, decomposition translation, set translation, adaptation translation and compensation translation.

Keywords: advertising English; Lexical ambiguity; Value; translate

The meaning of the word "advertising" is not fixed from the beginning. In English, the word "advertisement" is "advertisement". This English word comes from the Latin "advertete", which means "a means to attract the public's attention to something and induce it to develop in a certain direction". 1932, the American professional advertising magazine "Advertising Times" publicly solicited the definition of advertising from the society. The definition of the candidate who gets the most votes is: "Advertisers pay fees to publicly display information about individuals, goods, services or sports through printing, writing, dictation or pictures to influence and promote sales, use, voting or approval." 〔 1〕。

Advertising is an indispensable part of social life. In addition to disseminating product news, advertising is also a major communication tool for our economic system and social culture. As a mechanism in society or economy, advertising mainly has the following functions: (1) What can advertising do for customers? A successful advertisement must put the needs of consumers first. (2) What advertising can do for business. Advertising can make new products attract consumers' attention quickly enough, thus effectively making up for the costs of manufacturers in research, development, production and sales of such products. (3) What advertising can do for society. In addition to its role in selling goods and services, advertisements also support a diversified and independent news system economically, which is controlled by the government or other special interest groups. [2] Therefore, since the reform and opening up, due to the expansion of foreign exchanges, foreign goods have been pouring into China. Foreign manufacturers advertise their products to attract the close attention of consumers in China. Due to the differences between Chinese and foreign languages, it is necessary to study the translation of advertising English. This paper will elaborate and study the manifestations, pragmatic value and translation of lexical ambiguity in advertising English.

A Form of Ambiguity at Lexical Level in Advertising English

The definition of "ambiguity" in English is that "an ambiguous sentence is generally suspicious because it can be explained in more than one way or many other ways", that is, ambiguity is a sentence that follows grammatical rules in structure and conforms to logical common sense in semantics, but contains two or more deep meanings. Strictly speaking, ambiguity is not a rhetorical device, but a phenomenon of semantic understanding differences in language use. [3] We know that ambiguity is a common linguistic phenomenon in natural language. According to the types of ambiguity, ambiguity can be divided into lexical ambiguity, syntactic ambiguity and pragmatic ambiguity. On the lexical level, ambiguity can be divided into four categories: the first category is homophones; The second category is polysemous words (or homographs); The third category is ambiguity caused by part-of-speech conversion; The last category is the ambiguity caused by the different usage of British and American English.

1 homonym

Homonyms refer to two words with the same pronunciation, different spelling and different meanings. For example:

Let every greeting be worth it. (Telephone advertisement)

This advertisement is well-meaning. It uses the homonyms of goodbye and good purchase to attract customers' attention and promote products. Another example is the food advertisement about B.C. muffins: With so many carrots, I will be a real gem. "So Dockwra (carrot), I am a real gem (hair cake)." The words "carrot" and "carat" in this advertisement are homophonic, and their meanings are borrowed here. Muffin is one of the products of Betty Crocker Food Company. It is a carrot-flavored cake. Advertising is to promote its solid materials, sufficient weight and rich nutrition.

2 polysemous words (or homographs)

Polysemy is a common phenomenon in English. Except for a few technical terms, most English words have several meanings, and some even have more than ten meanings. In a specific context, after filtering by context, only the unique meaning is usually retained and other meanings are excluded, but there are also some special circumstances. For example, the outdoor street sign advertisement made by Lloyd's Bank of England:

Money doesn't grow on trees. But it blooms on our branches.

-Lloyds Bank

The word branch in this advertisement has two meanings: the literal meaning, that is, the branch, and the deeper meaning refers to the branch of the bank. In this way, we can understand the true meaning of advertising: as long as customers deposit their money in Lloyds Bank, their money will continue to increase.

3 ambiguity caused by part-of-speech conversion

Sometimes in advertising, the purpose of advertising is to attract the attention of the public by using the ambiguity caused by the lexical meaning and temporary escape of words. However, using a phrase with double meanings increases the decoding difficulty, prolongs the decoding time and increases the decoding fun, and its commercial effect is self-evident. [4] such as:

Treat your family with beef-the most tender and juicy steak in the can. Large pieces of fine meat are rich, and rich gravy gives you satisfaction every time.

"beefy": beef (canned beef) is a deliberately misspelled word in the advertisement. "Satisfy you" has two meanings: you will be satisfied with the quality of meat. After eating meat, you will feel physically satisfied. "Give you satisfaction" is ambiguous, and its purpose is to better attract the attention of readers or listeners, force them to watch and buy, and even achieve commercial purposes.

4. The ambiguity caused by the different usage of English and American English.

English used by British people and Americans is basically the same. However, there are some differences in pronunciation, spelling, some words and idioms As far as words are concerned, the meaning and usage of some words are different, so there will be ambiguity. For example:

There is no gasoline today.

This sentence is a billboard, but Americans and Britons have different understandings of the meaning of this sentence, mainly: for Americans, "gas" (= gasoline) usually means "gasoline", but it can also mean "gas". In the United States, if the gas station is temporarily out of gasoline supply, take out this sign and say, "There is no gasoline supply today." For the British, "gas" usually means "gas" and "gasoline" is called "petroleum" (or "oil"). So the British understand that this sign means "there is no gas supply today".

Second, the pragmatic value of lexical ambiguity in advertising English

Generally speaking, we should try to avoid ambiguity, so as not to affect the expression of the content. However, due to the particularity of ambiguity (there are different interpretations in the same context or different contexts), it can also be used as a good rhetorical device to achieve excellent expression effect through clever use. 〔5〕

1 fun

If ambiguous words are used properly in advertising English, it can increase its interest and attraction, achieve humorous effect and leave a deep impression on people. For example:

Not drinking 7-up for seven days will make people weak.

This is an advertisement for a national best-selling beverage "7-up", which is called "7-up" in China market. "7 days" corresponds to "7-up" and "7 days" is a week. "Weak" and "Zhou" in the sentence are homonyms. And "one" can be interpreted by indefinite pronouns, which means "anyone", or by numerals, which means "a week". The message conveyed by advertisements to consumers is: if you don't drink "7-up" for a day, your body will become weak; A cup of "7-up" every day can fill life. It is interesting to read and memorable, which reflects the rhetorical effect of lexical ambiguity in advertising language.

2 temptation

The allure of advertising language is vividly displayed in many successful advertisements. Good advertising words have a strong temptation, which can arouse people's association and stimulate their desire to shop, thus achieving the purpose of promoting products or services. At the same time, due to the high cost of advertising, advertisers have to choose their words carefully to produce the greatest economic benefits. Ambiguity is a language form with two or more understandings, which is why it is favored by advertisers. On the one hand, it has the great advantage of "in a word, a thousand dollars is hard to buy", which meets the needs of people in modern society to pursue high efficiency and speed, and at the same time, it also saves advertisers time and effort; On the other hand, vague language makes advertisements bright and dark, true and false, which not only attracts people's attention, but also makes people associate, thus increasing the difficulty of decoding advertising language and prolonging the decoding time, thus achieving the advertising purpose. [6] such as:

Give your son and heir more sunshine and air.

This is a slogan of a travel agency to attract tourists: parents should take their children to the seaside for a holiday, because there is fresh air and bright sunshine there. Two groups of homophones "Sun/Zi" and "Kong/Si" are used in the sentence. Advertising language is ingenious, persuasive and artistic, because it can arouse parents' love for their children. People who plan to travel seem to hear the call: we have plenty of light and fresh air here (by the sea), which is of great benefit to the health of your son, the heir to your career and wealth. Can such advertising words not make tourists feel excited?

3 Language Art

Good advertising language must be literary and artistic. In advertising, we should convey the information of goods, at the same time, pour into the feelings of readers or stimulate readers' good feelings about goods or services, so as to achieve psychological communication, make readers fascinated by the products and services they sell, and thus have a strong desire to buy and consume. [7] In order to make consumers want to buy products after hearing or reading advertisements, advertisements must make good use of words and images to make the language concise and attractive. The positive ambiguity of words can produce this effect, so it is widely used in advertising style. For example, a beverage advertisement of Coca-Cola:

No drink can refresh you like coke.

In this advertisement, can can be seen as a jar of all kinds of drinks and beer, and can also be understood as omitting modal verbs in clauses. If it is the former, this sentence is: coke makes you feel refreshed, and there is no other kind of can (cans make you feel refreshed). This "can" stands for canned drinks. In the latter case, this sentence is: Coke refreshes you, and nothing else can. This "can" is a modal verb. This advertisement is full of literary interest and wit, which has left a deep impression on people.

Thirdly, several translation methods of lexical ambiguity in advertising English.

Advertising is a commercial activity with specific goals, which is restricted by marketing strategies, commercial laws, commercial regulations and cultural barriers. As a special style, advertising is characterized by the use of vague words in advertising to enhance its appeal and has strong persuasiveness to arouse consumers' purchasing power. Advertising translation is not only a language conversion, but also a commercial behavior. Its purpose is to pursue market benefits and commercial profits, strive for consumers as much as possible, give them what they want, impress them and promote their purchase. This is the only purpose of advertising and the only purpose of advertising translation. 〔8〕

Peter Newmark, a British translation theorist, divides texts into three types according to their contents, styles and functions in his book Translation Methods: informative texts, expressive texts and vocative texts. [9] Advertising is contained in the summoning text, and its text features are mainly manifested in the super-linguistic effect in content and form. Therefore, in order to achieve the same effect in advertising translation, the translator can change the content and form of the original text to some extent, so as to complete cross-cultural communication. [8] Advertising language is a refined, implicit, expressive and encouraging language, while ambiguity has double meanings, and there are insurmountable translatability obstacles in language structure and expression. The translation of lexical ambiguity in advertising English should choose appropriate Chinese expressions according to the content and characteristics of advertisements, which should not only take full care of the stylistic style of the original text, but also convey the information of the original text as much as possible; Appropriate translation methods should be adopted to minimize the information loss of ambiguous words in translation, so as to enhance the stylistic features of advertising language. Translation of lexical ambiguity in advertising English usually adopts the following methods:

1 in line with the translation method

Corresponding translation refers to finding ambiguous words corresponding to or basically corresponding to the original text in the target language. The basis of consistent translation is bilingual coupling. Due to the great differences between English and Chinese, bilingual coupling is rare, but it still exists. [10] On the basis of bilingual coupling, the corresponding translation method takes into account the form and content of advertising ambiguity, which is the highest realm of advertising double ambiguity translation. For example:

It is easier to remove dust with str-e-etch.

In this advertisement, the word "stretch" is not only used as the brand name of the dust removal cloth, but also its spelling is skillfully stretched, conveying the original intention of the word "stretch". It is easy for people to think that the dust-proof cloth can prolong the function of human arms, and truly and vividly render the effect of "stretching and pulling, strong dust removal". The repetition of the word "pull" in translation reproduces the effect of the word "stretch" in the original text and forms a sensory extension. 〔 1 1〕

2 Disassembly and translation method

If the double meanings of ambiguous words are fully expressed in translation, in addition to bilingual coupling, corresponding translation methods can be adopted to separate the ambiguous semantics and express them in two layers. For example:

The unique spirit of Canada.

This advertisement promoting Canadian whisky also uses the double meaning of the word "spirits": it refers to both "spirits" and "spirits", which constitutes a polysemy. Translation uses the method of disassembly: unique Canadian wine and unique Canadian national spirit. Another example is:

More (another cigarette, more moles. )

In this advertisement, the word "more" is vague. "More" is an adverb, which means "more, more, again, again". At the same time, when capitalized, it becomes the brand of this cigarette. Another example is:

Believe us, more than 5000 ears of experience (believe us. It has been tested by more than 5,000 ears and has more than 5,000 years of experience. This is a hearing aid advertisement. Literally, it shows that the product has been tested by many consumers, but at the same time, "ear" is the homonym of "years", so it also implies that the product has a long history. 〔 10〕

Three sets of translation methods

Due to the communication between English and Chinese, the spread of English language and culture in Chinese has gradually formed some fixed patterns or customary expressions. In English-Chinese translation, using these fixed patterns or idiomatic expressions is fixed translation. [10] The advantage of the set translation method is that it can convey the cultural connotation of the original advertisement, and at the same time, it can basically ensure the concise and clear language characteristics of the original advertisement. For example:

Everything is fine with a happy ending.

This advertisement is actually an English idiom, which means "Everyone is happy". But when advertisers use it in cigarette advertisements, "ends" has a double meaning: the verb "end" and the noun "cigarette end". Applying the translation mode of the original idiom, this cigarette advertisement word can be translated into "cigarette ends are good, cigarettes are good". Another example is:

We are not proud of prejudice.

This is a quip used by The Times to promote itself. It originated from Austin's masterpiece Pride and Prejudice, and was quoted by newspapers as an advertisement flaunting justice and upholding justice. This advertisement can be translated as: "We are not more conceited than your prejudice". For those who know Pride and Prejudice, the meaning of this translation is self-evident. 〔 1 1〕

4 Alternative translation

Due to cultural differences, English and Chinese have different expressions, so we should make different changes in translation according to the target language habits and different contexts. Due to the linguistic features such as ambiguity in the original text, it is extremely difficult to fully reflect it in the translation. Therefore, translators should give full play to their subjective initiative, start with the whole advertisement, grasp it as a whole, and make appropriate changes and adjustments. For example, a water purifier advertisement:

It turns our well water into magical water.

As you can see, this advertisement uses alliteration. If translated into "turning well water into wonderful water", although the meaning comes out, the original author's creativity is buried. If translated into "turn well water into pure water", it is closer to the original text, because "well water" and "clean water" are homophonic. 〔 12〕

5 compensation translation

Most advertising puns can be translated by focusing on translation. However, sometimes after one meaning of a pun is translated, the other meaning is also very important, but it cannot be translated at the same time. At this time, some compensation methods can be used to make up for it. For advertisements, these compensation means mainly refer to the media that carry advertisements, such as TV images, broadcast sounds, newspaper layout design, etc. [1 1] such as:

Katisak

Scotch Whisky

Some people wear fashionable clothes to attract attention. Others drive flashy cars. A glass of Katisak won't change anyone's mind. But if you insist on creating a sensation. You can always ask the bartender for a drink.

Scotch Whisky

Abnormal smoothness [13]

In this whisky advertisement, the advertiser used three ambiguous words: "turn your head" can mean "make someone's head hot; Outside the cloud nine can also be understood as "above (drinking)"; "Make a sensation" means "cause a sensation", "attract attention, enjoy yourself and be intoxicated"; "Smooth" not only means "mellow and gentle", "safe, harmonious and smooth", but also means "wonderful and attractive". The application of multiple ambiguities in advertisements has left a deep impression on people: wine can bring people a good feeling. Carters Scotch Whisky Some people stand out in gorgeous fashion, while others drive beautiful new cars and are enviable. Carters will never reach the top, nor will it make you feel very high. But you want romance, or carters. Scotch whisky, extraordinary enjoyment.

Four concluding remarks

To sum up, lexical ambiguity is a very common phenomenon in advertising English. If used properly, it can not only make advertising language concise, rich and humorous, but also make advertising attractive and easy to remember. However, the translation of lexical ambiguity in advertising English deserves further study. This paper only discusses the purpose of advertising English translation and several commonly used translation methods of lexical ambiguity. In practice, we should truly achieve the maximum equivalence between the translation and the original. You can't just use one or two methods at any time. We must choose the most appropriate method to convey the meaning of the original text from the specific situation, so as to achieve the true meaning of product advertising.

References:

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[1 1] Meng Lin, Zhan Jinghui Puns in English Advertisements and Their Translation [J] China Translation, 200 1 (5)

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For reference only, please learn by yourself.

I hope it helps you.