商标英语的翻译.doc

【精品文档】如有侵权，请联系网站删除，仅供学习与交流商标英语的翻译.精品文档.商标语的翻译Abstract Translation of brand names is a form of intercultural communication. However we translate the Chinese brand names into English ones or translate the English brand names into Chinese ones, language laws, cultural psychology, aesthetic interest and some other factors will be involved. The translators should also pay attention to some cultural taboos and choose appropriate method to translate. Of course, brand name translation is not a simple thing. Sometimes the good translated name likes the inherent one, when we translate brand name there is something we can do to strive for perfection. One good kind of commodity adding on a good name is not different with improving on perfection, and its charm is infinite. Key Words Translation of brand names; principles; methods; cultural taboos; Introduction The human society has entered the 21st century. The international trade is developing fast. The national boundary concept desalinates gradually, when the scale of the commercial cooperation and the commodity import and export expand unceasingly. Import and export product in foreign land whether can develop the market and seize the market successfully; the brand name translation is playing the pivotal role, besides medium advertisement. The commodity brand name is similar to human's name. The translated brand name is the second name of commodity in other country, its importance is self-evident.The Principles of Brand Name TranslationA successful brand name translation both must retain the original text the essence, has with the original text same level effect, and must conform to consumer's brand name psychology simultaneously, but also must give dual attention to the cultural difference of English and Chinese.A. The Advertising Nature of Brand Name TranslationThe translated brand name must conform to the products nature and the characteristic, manifests the localization concept in the original text, plays role which informs widely. At the same time, the translated name should conform to the commodity characteristic, succinct novel, the pronunciation is sweet. It is advantageous to spell, read, write and remember, and easy to cause the consumer to produce the good association and impression about the commodity. For example, “Dynasty” -the English trademark of “皇朝葡萄酒”, let us cannot help associating the old mystical orient country, so we have deep image of the good aged wine. “Forever” is the trademark of “永久自行车”. It tally with the advertisement “经久耐用，直到永远”of the bicycle completely. “飞鸽自行车” was translated “Flying Pigeon”. “Pigeon” is the symbol of peace and “flying” makes the character of the bicycle vivid. “蜂花化妆品”is translated into “Bee & Flower”. We may feel comfortable and fragrant after we use it. The translated names above give consumers relaxed feeling and they also can be remembered easily.B. Inductive Principle of Brand Name TranslationThe final goal of the brand name is bringing consumer's attention, taking consumer's demand, stimulating consumer's purchase desire, and finally serving with the purchase behavior. Inductive principle of brand name should regard as the soul of brand name translation. The Chinese-foreign joint venture washing product “飘柔” is the classics of brand name translation about inductive principle work. The translator did not transliterate the “Rejoice” or translate it literally to “欢乐”or “欢欢”, but adopt free translation boldly. He used “飘柔”to show the brilliance of it. At the same time, this translation also has the very strong inductive. Generally speaking, the shampoo expense group is almost female, and each woman vainly hoped for has mild-mannered sharp luxuriant. “飘柔” has held the dream of the expense groups, lured them to choose this product. Prokids (小淘气婴儿用品) using the love of mother to the child indicated all these are for your lovely baby; Are you not willing to take out money? Therefore, when translation brand name, we must study consumer's psychology carefully, consider repeatedly, translate exquisitely, lofty, brief, easy to record, can arouse the customer interest, let persons have the happy association, makes the deep impression to the customers.C. Aesthetic Principle of Brand Name TranslationThe translated brand name cannot let the consumer have the bad association; otherwise the good product also cannot sell out. This requests the translator considering the culture and the historical perspective fully. For example, if “Goldlion” (mens clothes) is translated into “金狮”, it has a homophonic one as “金失”. That is the taboo of factory. They believe that if they use the translated name, the product never be sold well in China. But “金利来”is a lucky name. It has already been familiar and loved by consumers. In Japan, lotus is the symbol of death, so the brand name“荷花”should be changed to another one. However a ship has the best quality and the lowest price, if it uses the name “Titanic”, nobody may buy it. Japanese car manufacturer “Toyota” presents a kind of luxurious car whose brand name is “Lexus”. When the car begins to sell in china, the administrant of Toyota company decided to translate “Lexus” to Chinese “凌志”. To the mainland Chinese, the name may recall their memory about Chairman Maos majestic poem “久有凌云志，重上井冈山”. So when we translate brand names, we have to avoid the words which are tabooed by consumers carefully, and choose propitious names meticulously.D. Equivalence Principle of Brand Name TranslationEquivalence is the core in the west translation theory. In 1961, a famous person pointed out: “The influence which the translated works gives us should be identical with the influence which the original text gives its first audience.” The principle of equivalence is suit for brand name translation best in all the translation theories. According to the principle of equivalence, translated brand name must have two factors: a. Translated name should have the brand name form. b. The translated one must have the ability to produce the same or approximate functions of the original brand name. That is to say, the translated name should be reading easily, pleasant to hear, good-looking. It must be the perfect unity of tone, form and meaning. Let us see some examples: cosmetic “Clean&Clear” means clean and fresh. The information of the original is if you use the product, your skin will be clean and fresh. The original name is bright and makes consumers feel clean and neat. If it is translated into “干净清爽”, the comfortable feel which it gives us may disappear. If we use “可伶可俐”,the product is the girls favor sure. Because it makes consumers associate it with clever and bright girls. In the example, both the original and translated words give the same influence to different accepters.E. Observing the International StandardThe general country all stipulated that, the word of brand name must not have narration to the commodity nature, the quality, the function, raw material and so on. As a result of the historical reason, there are many registration trademarks opposed the above stipulation in our country. For example, “永久自行车”,“金杯足球”,“羊毛毯”, “钻石手表”and so on. If uses their English names which are translated directly in the overseas application registration, they are easy to encounter the veto. The Shandong “Qinqi” group produces “Qinqi” motorcycle, “Qinqi “are not translated into English directly, so as to evade the suspicion of implication commodity quality, but used Chinese Pinyin form " Qinqi ", it passed on Chinese pronunciation and meaning by used Latin alphabet. Compared with "Forever " (永久), “GoldCup” (金杯) and " Best " (百得), it registers easily in overseas.F.  Observing Our Country's Relevant Laws"The People's Republic of China Brand Name Law" stipulated that we can not use the word which is similar with the name of People's Republic of China, also can not use the word which has the national prejudice. In 1988, a factory in Hangzhou registered brand name “PRC “for its product industry chain link. But “PRC " is the English abbreviation of People's Republic of China, therefore, this brand name is impossible to allowed to register. As a result of the contrast intense, black's tooth appear very white, therefore some one used " 黑人 " as the brand name of the toothpaste. But its English name " Darkie " is one kind of derogatory names to black's, so this brand name which has used several dozens years in mainland China cannot continue to register and be avoided to use just because of including the racial discrimination ingredient. Revised in February, 1993, "the People's Republic of China Brand Name Law" didnt limit the kind of language of brand name; we might use the Chinese word, Chinese Pinyin, the foreign language or the minority language. If we use Chinese and the foreign language together as a brand name, the industry and commerce department requests that the two kinds of language are mutually consistent, or requests that Chinese and the foreign language divide into two brand names to register, and then use the combined form of the brand names. In fact, commodity packing design should take into consideration the internationalization and the modern market, if it is, we can use the foreign language as the commodity brand name. There are many Chinese products only thought the local role during the development period, and till the scales are big enough to march to the international scene, they just then discovered the images fall behind America, Japan and some other countries obviously. The Methods of Brand Name Translation“Brand name means business.” Brand name concerns image, credit, and actual strengtha series of significant elements of enterprise. When the west advertisement designers design the brand name, product and manufactory, they rack their brains to produce vivid and unique brand name which in order to give consumers deep impression and win in the fierce market competition. When The Standard Petroleum Company designed the brand name “EXXON”, they invited many faceted specialists including package-linguists to research the language situation of 55 countries. It took 6 years and cost more than 1,400,000 dollars to complete. Of course, brand name translation doesnt likely cost so much effort, but we should adopt different methods carefully on the basis of different conditions.A. The Method of Chinese PinyinChinese Pinyin is the form of Latin words and the sound, meaning of Chinese. It is popular in Chinese brand name words. Chunlan （春兰空调）, Lishen（力神咖啡）, etc. Some use the abbreviation of Chinese Pinyin to express brand names: LL（露露饮料）, LC（浪潮集团）, TG（天歌集团）. When we use Chinese Pinyin to translate brand names, we should pay attention to that it only marks tone to brand names, but it has no sense itself and its meaning is the content of corresponding Chinese words. Some Chinese Pinyin words have sense in English in some translation practices. “芳芳”cosmetics Pinyin is “Fang Fang”, and “Fang” is “the teeth of snake” in English. There is a brand name “F·U·C·K” of pliers. Maybe it is the abbreviation of company name. But “fuck” is also an English word. Its meaning is “cheat, dupe”, even “have sex” in slang. So when we use Pinyin to translate, we have to be careful. “永芳”cosmetic supplies us some inspirations. “永芳”has been marked as “Yin Fang” to avoid ambiguity.B. The Method of ParaphraseIt is popular that brand names of company and commodity are translated into English according to their sense in daily life. “开元集团”is translated into “Create”, “雪莲羊绒衫”into “Lotus”, “椰风饮料”into “Coconut Hit”, “巨人集团”into “Giant Group”, “H型强场磁化杯”into “H-Type Magnetize a Drinking Water Cup”. When we paraphrase brand names, except that some registered English words have other senses in their culture background, we must pay attention to that because the brand names of most enterprises in China are ready-made words; maybe they are same with the brand names which have been registered abroad. For example, there is a “浪潮计算机集团公司”in China, and there is also a famous “Fiae” （浪潮）company in America which produces detergent specially; Or some brand names involve the quality, nature, function and raw material etc. All the above cannot paraphrase to English directly. We need re-consideration. Maybe we can register another English brand name. The brand name “美加净”has another corresponding Latin brand name “MAMAM” abroad; “广”beer of Guangzhou Beer Company has another English brand name “Guangs”.C. The Method of TransliterationWe can adopt or create English words which the tones are near to the Chinese words to translate brand name. These English words are very particular because they not only have the approximate tone of Chinese, but also meaning of itself. “风华”refrigerator has been translated into “Forward”（向前）,“四通计算机集团公司”into “Stone”（石头）,“黛妹牌生眉笔”into “Dame”（夫人）,“好娃友口服液”into “How Are You Oral Liquid”（你好口服液）,“海信电器公司”into “Hisense”（高灵敏）. All these give people deep impression.D. The Method of Word-BuildingWe can use mechanics, spelling wrongly on purpose and adding prefix or suffix to create many new words according to the specialty of English. Then adopt these words to translate brand name and express the distinction of the product. Although the sharps of new and original words are different, the meanings are remained. The new words not only are vivid and interesting, but also can spread information of product effectively.1. The Method of Piecing Together and Adding AffixSometimes we tailor two words and choose the beginning or end to make up a new word which is used as a brand name. 东方星表is translated into “Eastar” （East东方+Star星）, 新意达集团is into “Newit”（New新+Wit智慧），肤美灵化妆品is into “Skinice”（Skin皮肤+Nice美）, 金霸王电池is into “Durable cell” （Durable耐久的+Cell电池）, 康立戒烟灵is into “Convene Smohquit” （Smoke烟+Quit戒除）.2. The Method of MisspellingThere is a “Kasn Karry Supermarket” abroad. “Kasn” and “Karry” is the wrongly spelling word of “Cash” and “Carry”. It indicates the supermarket where if you pay money you can leave at once. Although there are only a few examples which use this method to translate brand names, its very successful. “奥林饮料”is translated into “Orien”. Although “Orien” is the wrongly spelling word of “Orient” （东方）, the sense is remained. It makes consumers recall the mystical “orient” life spring in the west legend; “清妃化妆品”is into “Chine”. “Chine” corresponds to “China ” （中国）. Consumers didnt use the product yet; they have seemed to see the beauty of Chinese woman already.3. The Method of Compounding WordsThe method means we make up new word by arrange two or more than two words according to some order. “Hisense” is a good example. There are many example: “梦月广告公司”is translated into “Dream Moon ”（Dream梦+Moon月亮）, “清脑助学器”is into “Brain Bright”（Brain大脑+Bright聪明）. At present, we use paraphrase or pinyin to translate trad.Ch.medicine and health products generally. 胃苏冲剂is translate