[Keywords:] psychological translation of advertising culture
1. Culture and advertising language are carriers of culture, which reflect the characteristics of a nation, including not only its historical and cultural background, but also its views on life, lifestyle and way of thinking. Advertising is an art. Advertising works should have artistic appeal, not only to attract the audience, but also to touch their emotions, so that they have a good impression on enterprises and commodities, and then guide their purchase behavior (Hu Yi 1999). In order to achieve the goal of attacking the heart, the translation of language and words in international advertisements must carefully seek goodness and beauty. Advertising itself also contains rich cultural connotations, revealing a nation's psychological characteristics, beliefs and values from one side. Therefore, the translator's understanding of advertising should not be limited to literal meaning, but also its extended meaning and rich cultural implication. Therefore, the translation of commodities should be easy to read, pleasant to hear and beautiful, so as to achieve the perfect unity of sound, form and meaning. When translating English advertising copy, whether it is English-Chinese translation or Chinese-English translation, we must never be satisfied with literal translation and make a "superficial article". It is necessary to make language translation accurate and authentic, especially to convey the "information" or implication in the original text, so as to convey the meaning vividly and achieve the effect of unity of meaning, spirit and form. Second, the analysis of advertising translation strategies Mr. Wang Zuoliang once pointed out that "the biggest difficulty in translation is the difference between two cultures ... the translator must be a real cultural person." As an important part of cross-cultural communication, advertising translation is also restricted by cultural factors. Advertising culture has obvious characteristics of popularity, commerciality, nationality and times, so cultural traditions, beliefs and values greatly affect advertising activities. This paper intends to elaborate advertising translation strategies from the aspects of Chinese and Western ways of thinking, cultural background and values, aesthetic taste, traditional customs, cultural psychology and national taboos. 1. From the differences between Chinese and Western ways of thinking, advertising translation strategy language is a tool of thinking, and the composition of culture can not be separated from thinking (psychological culture is the direct product of thinking). People's language expression is dominated by thinking, which affects and restricts language. There are great differences in the way of thinking between eastern and western cultures. Orientals advocate "harmony between man and nature" and "blending of things and me", pursue harmony and symmetrical balance, and emphasize synthesis, induction and suggestion. Westerners, on the other hand, advocate "the separation between man and nature" and "the difference between things and me", advocate individual thinking, and emphasize formal argumentation, analysis, subtlety and twists and turns for fear of endless description and carelessness. For example, in western countries, women's liberation is a focus of attention. In a perfume advertisement called "Why can't women be like women", the images of women are listed. The change of status and the contradictions and puzzles brought about by these changes finally wrote: Cabrio le is full of delicious contradictions. Just like the woman who is smart enough to enjoy being a woman. Perfume, as a commodity for women, has become the intermediary of women's feminization here. The originality of this advertisement makes full use of women's attention to their own image, analyzes the psychological confusion brought by women's liberation in detail, and emphasizes that women's thinking has won women's favor for goods, thus achieving good advertising results. If the translator does not understand the way of thinking of the audience, the advertisements made by advertisers will not only be difficult to achieve the purpose of promotion, but will bring some unexpected troubles. For example, unique is a word frequently used in English advertisements, which to some extent reflects the way of thinking in western society that emphasizes individuality. However, due to the unique cultural psychology of the Chinese nation, it is difficult to achieve the corresponding effect in Chinese advertisements. On the contrary, the slogan of "Dabao" brand cosmetics in Chinese advertisements: "One bottle for my son, one bottle for me, one bottle for my father and one bottle for my wife" caters to the popular psychology of paying attention to family. It can be seen that different nationalities have different ways of thinking. It is very important for successful advertisement translation to cater to people's way of thinking, arouse people's sense of identity, convey commodity information accurately and vividly, and stimulate the purchasing desire of advertising audience. 2. Examining advertising translation strategies from the perspective of cultural background and values, edward tylor, an American anthropologist, put forward that "culture" is a central concept in his book Primitive Culture, and that culture is a compound whole, including knowledge, belief, art, law, morality, customs and any other abilities and habits people acquire as members of society. The content of culture is so rich that a nation has formed a certain society and social groups after thousands of years of precipitation, development and inheritance. Different national cultures are deeply influenced by their backgrounds and form their different values. The core of language reflecting culture is traditional values. Advertisers use this to cater to people's values and seek the greatest commercial interests. It's also an aviation advertisement. Because of the different values, American Airlines' advertisement is "Bigthrillsmall bills", which emphasizes excitement, novelty and low price. These are the values that Americans advocate. For another example, the pursuit of success is the overriding theme in American mainstream culture, and success or even success is often measured by money. Based on this, a securities company issued such an advertising slogan: 1 Because Americans want to succeed, not just survive; The will to succeed is part of the American spirit. The last finishing touch is that you want us to help you succeed. It is not difficult to imagine that this advertisement will leave a deep impression on Americans who have a strong desire for success. Another example is Carrefour, a foreign supermarket, which translates as Carrefour, meaning "Everyone is happy". Indeed, it provides clothes, food, daily necessities and other commodities for urbanites, and has become a favorite shopping place for people. Coincidentally, the "safe and happy" sanitary napkin caters to China people's life values of "safe and happy", making women feel safe and happy. Another example is the translation of "Coca Cola" and "Pepsi Cola", which is homophonic with Chinese and implies beauty. For example, the trademark of "Le Kai" color film is transliterated as "luck", meaning "happiness"; Stone means "rock solid". Stone, as the English trademark of Stone computer, fully embodies the indomitable spirit of being the paving stone of China computer and creating a world famous brand. Similar translations also include Shanghai tonic "life" fruit milk "Robust" and so on. And a French company once launched "Opium" brand men's perfume in a certain area of China, hoping to make men in China addicted to it like opium because of its allure. However, because the company doesn't understand that China people's feelings about the word opium are not attractive, it hates advertisements, which seriously hurts the national self-esteem of our people. As a result, this brand of perfume was severely criticized by consumers after it went on the market. In view of this, the translation of this advertisement is best done by the translator in the advertising receiving country, because only the translator in the advertising receiving country is familiar with his own values can he translate an advertisement that conforms to his own way of thinking and cultural habits and make him like it. 3. Advertising translation strategies from the perspective of aesthetic taste differences. The aesthetic psychology of the public is closely related to advertising translation. Aesthetic psychology is a comprehensive cultural consciousness, involving political views, religious concepts, lifestyles and customs. The stable psychological structure of China citizens is based on kindness, pragmatism and patience. The formation of unique aesthetic orientation is greatly influenced by the Confucian thought and method of "golden mean". The aesthetic requirement of "introversion" and the conscious requirement of the unity of beauty and goodness are more objective than the grandiose idealistic fragmented thinking in western aesthetics. Western aesthetic psychology emphasizes the beauty produced by subjective feeling, imagination and intuition. Beauty is influenced by people's subjective ability in Kant's aesthetic thought, forming a completely publicized modernist aesthetic view, which is irrational and has an aesthetic tendency to grasp beauty itself from will, intuition and subconscious. This aesthetic psychological difference forms the different psychology of Chinese and western advertising culture. China people are culturally characterized by the concept of great unity, such as attaching importance to authority, ignoring facts and following the rules; Have the consciousness of small farmers, value material interests over ideas, and have the supremacy of personality. The cultural and psychological structure of westerners is complex, with "humanity", "cognition" and "behavior" as the basic contents. Aesthetic taste is a comprehensive cultural consciousness, involving lifestyle and customs. Advertising is an important means to publicize goods to the public, and it should cater to the aesthetic psychology of the public. There is no fixed model for advertising translation. Flexible methods should be adopted to reproduce the charm and style of the original advertisement to the maximum extent, advocate the popularity of attraction, temptation and expression, and respect the aesthetic taste of ordinary people. Therefore, it is particularly important for advertisers to deeply understand the cultural background of the exporting country and the aesthetic taste of foreign advertisers. For example, our country has a kind of lipstick called Fangfang. When people see the word Fangfang, they will have a beautiful association in their hearts, as if they saw a beautiful and kind girl and smelled the fragrance from her whole body. When consumers in English-speaking countries transliterate this trademark as "Fang Fang", they can't help feeling a sense of fear, because Fang happens to be an English word, which means the fangs of a snake. Therefore, what they think of is not a beautiful girl with lipstick, but a poisonous snake with poisonous juice. The sales of lipstick after this failure can be imagined. Hushubao sanitary napkin is transliterated as "Hushubao". Whisper in English means whispering and whispering, which is full of the image and femininity of female products. When translated into Chinese, it conveys the function and excellent quality of the product to the female consumers in China, giving people a comfortable, safe and wonderful feeling, thus achieving the famous brand effect. Another example is P&G shampoo Head & Shoulders. If it is literally translated as "Head & Shoulders" or "Helen Xian Duse" in Taiwan Province Province, consumers will feel at a loss, but the elegant meaning translated as "Head & Shoulders" caters to the aesthetic taste of advertisers, which reminds people of the pleasant sea and the elegant and supple hair of beautiful girls fluttering in the wind, which will naturally stimulate consumers' strong desire to buy. Elegant names are a kind of "packaging" for commodities and a kind of "temptation" for consumers. When translating advertisements, we should conform to the aesthetic taste of the public. Only when a translated name produces a similar aesthetic feeling to domestic consumers in people's minds will the product be accepted. 4. Examine advertising translation strategies from the perspectives of traditional customs, cultural psychology and national taboos. A country and a nation have customs, culture and aesthetic habits formed over thousands of years. Therefore, translators should fully consider the culture, history and customs of the countries and regions where goods are sold, and try to avoid words and images with cultural taboos, so as not to affect the sales of goods. For example, in China, the trademark of an electric fan is "Bat", because "Bat" and "Fu" are homophonic, and bats are considered auspicious animals. In Japan and Korea, bats also symbolize happiness. But if translated into Bat, it will cause resentment in the west. Similarly, the dragon is a totem image in the history of China, but in western culture; Dragons represent evil and evil. English people don't like magpies and elephants. Islamic countries are disgusted with pandas. There are also differences between Chinese and western preferences for numbers. Japan doesn't like "4" as the homonym of "death". "7" has positive significance in European and American countries. "13" symbolizes misfortune. It is best not to use "666" as a trademark for exporting to Britain, because it symbolizes the devil in the Bible. There are also differences between flowers and taboos. For example, Japanese people are afraid of lotus flowers and like cherry blossoms, while Italians prefer roses and hate chrysanthemums. Color advertising words can not be ignored in translation. For example, most Americans don't like purple; The French hate dark green and prefer blue; Belgians are most afraid of blue; In western countries, white symbolizes purity and black symbolizes death. In short, advertising translators should study all kinds of taboos. Advertising language carries rich cultural connotations. For example, MercedesBenz's Chinese translation of the word "Pingzhi" immediately reminds people of "managing the family, governing the country and leveling the world" in universities. Pingzhi car is a symbol of status. If the owner is not rich, it is expensive. Even if he is not the leader of the country and the world, he has at least some rights to participate in governance and equality. BMW, a famous car in Pingzhi, is translated into "BMW" with the pronunciation of B and M. A modern famous car is an ancient BMW. The translation of these two cars embodies the cultural connotation of China and caters to consumers' psychology. If you are not familiar with foreign culture and people's aesthetic psychology, trademark translation will fail. There is also a brand that exports dry batteries called "WhiteElephant", and the translation into English should be 100% correct. I don't know whether the fixed English phrase awhiteelephant means "heavy burden" or "useless and cumbersome things". Because of this translation failure, the sales of goods can be imagined. In order to faithfully convey the information of the original text to the translator and realize the artistry of advertising language, it is sometimes necessary to carry out appropriate cultural transformation. For example, the trademark "JadeRabbit" is translated into "MoonRabbit" instead of "Jaderabbit". The reason is that "Jade Rabbit" is a rabbit that accompanied WU GANG in China mythology to live under the osmanthus tree in the Moon Palace, so it became another name for the moon. Translating into the Moon Rabbit embodies the elegance of China's oriental culture, which makes it difficult for English to have different interpretations and will not be mistaken for the Jade Rabbit. Third, the conclusion advertising language itself is full of rich imagination and great creativity. Promotion is its sole purpose, and when translating a country's advertising language into another country's advertising language, due to social culture, language, national psychology and other reasons, this translation is not just one-to-one code-switching. Translators are required to have knowledge of language, social culture, folklore, psychology, economic marketing and advertising principles.
Second, the reference:
Wang Bingqin. Cultural translation [M]. Tianjin: Nankai University Press 1995
[2][ America] Sapir: On Language [M]. Beijing: The Commercial Press 1985.
Wang Zuoliang. Translation: thinking and writing [M]. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press 1989.