Abstract
With the increasing globalization of world economy, a great number of foreign products flood into Chinese market. In this competition, more and more enterprises have come to the realization that one of their most valuable assets is the brand name associated with its product. The brand name is of vital importance to a company or corporation, and to some extent, it represents the image of the enterprise itself. But brand name translation is a complicated art, in that it concerns many fields, such as linguistics, marketing, intercultural communication, translation principles and methods, and so on. Therefore, appropriate and successful brand name translation is a big challenge for translators.
Based on Eugene Nida’s Functional Equivalence with the reference of Western and Eastern culture, this thesis gives an overview of the current studies and problems in the translation of the brand name after a careful analysis of the achievements made by Chinese scholars. Moreover, five methods of translation have been illustrated. In a word, this study systematically discusses and analyzes the brand name translation in order to provide guidance for improving quality of the brand name translation.
Key Words: brand names; brand name translation; cultural factors; functional equivalence
Contents
Abstract 1
Contents 2
Introduction 3
1. Literal Review 4
1.1 Evolution of Brand Name 4
1.2 Cultural Difference of Brand Name Translation 4
1.3 Current Situation of Brand Name Translation 5
2. Functional Equivalence Theory 7
2.1 The Origin of the Theory 7
2.2 Theoretical Study in Translation 7
3. Principles and Methods of Brand Name Translation 9
3.1 Principles of Brand Name Translation 9
3.1.1 Principle of Concise and Simple 9
3.1.2 Principle of Respecting Cultural Differences 9
3.1.3 Principle of Catering Consumers’ Mentality 10
3.2 Methods of Brand Name Translation 10
3.2.1 Transliteration 10
3.2.2 Literal translation 11
3.2.3 The Combination of Transliteration and Literal Translation 12
3.2.4 Free Translation 12
3.2.5 Zero Translation 13
Conclusion 14
Acknowledgement 15
References 16
