修辞学视角下的英语广告翻译研究_英语论文

On Translation of English Advertisements: A Rhetorical Perspective

摘要

本论文从修辞视角分三个方面探究英语广告的翻译：意译，直译和不同翻译方法的综合使用，希望能加深人们对英语广告的理解，提高英语广告的翻译质量。

修辞特征是英语广告的显著特征之一。由于英汉两种语言的共性及跨文化交流的发展，一些英语广告可以直译成汉语而不损失原文的意思与功能，甚至还保留原文的修辞特征。然而不同的语言和文化总存在着差异，因此，翻译英语广告时，译者不仅要理解英语广告的特征，还要考虑语言和文化的差异。有时语言和文化的差异会使直译译文达不到原文的功能，甚至失去意思。在这种情况下，就要采用意译，或不同翻译方法的综合使用，以求实现与原文等值的广告功能。

关键词：修辞学；英语广告；翻译

Abstract

The thesis aims to explore the translation of English Advertisements in three respects: literal translation, free translation, and the combination of different translation methods, from the rhetorical perspective, with an attempt to enhance people’s understanding of English advertisements and improve the quality of the translation of English advertisements.  

The rhetorical feature is one of the prominent characteristics of English advertisements. Owing to the commonness between English and Chinese, and the intercultural communication, some English advertisements can be literally translated into Chinese without the loss of meaning and function, and even without the loss of rhetorical devices. However, differences always exist among languages and cultures. So while translating English advertisements, the translator should not only understand the characteristics of English advertisements, but also pay attention to the differences between languages and cultures. The differences may make the literal translation weak or even meaningless to the target reader. In this case, free translation and the combination of different translation methods should be employed in order to achieve the same advertising function as the original advertisement.

Key words: rhetoric; English advertisements; translation  

Contents

1 Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the study 1

1.2 Objective and methods of the study 1

1.3 Overall structure of the thesis 2

2 Literature Review 2

3 Rhetorical Features of English Advertisements 3

3.1 A brief introduction to rhetoric 3

3.1.1 Concept of rhetoric 4

3.1.2 Categories of modern rhetoric 4

3.2 Rhetorical characteristics of english advertisements 5

3.2.1 Simile and metaphor 5

3.2.2 Repetition and parallelism 6

3.2.3 Alliteration and rhyme 6

3.2.4 Pun 7

3.3 Summary 8

4 Translation of English Advertisements from the Rhetorical Perspective 8

4.1 Literal translation 9

4.2 Free translation 11

4.3 Combination of different methods 12

5 Conclusion 13

References 15