浅析英语广告语中双关语的翻译及作用 Analysis of the Function and Translation of Puns in English Advertisement
05-05, 2014
Analysis of the Function and Translation of Puns in English Advertisement 浅析英语广告语中双关语的翻译及作用
Abstract 摘要
With the further globalization of world economy, the modern advertising has become an indispensable part of international business activities. If advertising content is rich, it can stimulate people's motivation to consume and induce people's consumption behavior. Using puns appropriately in advertising will make the advertisement more diversification, and more competitive. It is the key to be successful advertisements. In this thesis, firstly, the author lists four kinds of puns frequently used in advertising English, namely, homophonic puns, semantic puns, grammatical puns and idiomatic puns. Then the author illustrates how puns are applied to achieve advertising effects in realizing some specific functions from pragmatic perspectives. At last, the author introduces four ways to translate puns.
随着经济全球化的进一步发展,现代广告已经成为国际商业活动必不可少的一部分。广告语内容丰富,能激发人的消费动机,左右人的消费观念, 诱导人的消费行为, 正确应用双关语能使广告更丰富,更有竞争力,是广告成功的关键。本文中, 作者首先列举了四种广泛应用于广告英语中的双关，然后作者从广告语的特点提出四种翻译方法，最后从语用学角度论述了双关语在广告英语中是如何通过实现广告的各种语用功能来达到广告的效果。
1. Introduction 引文
What is advertising? It conveys the information about the products, services or ideas without personal communication by the various media. Whose purpose is to persuade people to buy them, nowadays, we can find that we are surrounded by different advertisements everyday. Because there are so many advertisements, the main purpose of the advertisers is to .make the advertisement impressive to the public people. In order to increase the appeal of the advertisement, and to make the advertisement more beautiful and attractive, on the one hand, advertisers should pay much attention to such expressive devices; on the other hand to the choice of words or phrases. No matter it is a good advertisement or a public service advertisement, the creation of the advertisement is a comprehensive art. The skills show the vivid and interesting characteristic by the way of salesmanship are more important than other forms of writing. It. Therefore, advertisers pay close attention to the advertising literary language which is used accurately and appropriately. As a result, the figures of speech are frequently and widely used as an important characteristic of advertising English in making advertisements, and pun is one of the figures which are loved deeply.
广告是什么?它传达的是在没有个人沟通的条件下的运用各种媒体承载产品、服务或想法的信息。它的目的是说服人们购买他们,现在,我们可以发现, 因为有太多的广告,我们每天都被不同的广告所包围。而广告的主要目的:将广告令人印象深刻。#p#分页标题#e#
Pun as “humorous use of a word that has two meanings or of different words that sound the same” is defined by Oxford Advanced Dictionary. A pun can be understood that it has similar-sounding but words of phrases are different, whether humorous or serious. It leaves a deep impression on readers by its readability, wit and humor. It can satisfy the requirement of advertisement characteristics—selling power, memory value, attention value, and readability. So pun is very popular in advertisement. In this thesis, first of all, I list four kinds of puns which are frequently used in advertising English, that is, homonymic puns, homographic puns, semantic puns and idiomatic puns. Then the author introduces four ways to translate them. These are literal translations, free translations, annotated translations, and parody translations. At last, the author illustrates how puns are applied to achieve advertising effects in realizing some specific functions from pragmatic perspectives. These are information function, humorous function, persuasive function, economical function, readability function and association function.
2. Literature Review 文献综述
Scholars both at home and abroad have written some research papers on advertisement from different angles. These researches are so valuable for scholars who are interested in advertising for the further study.In the west, Leech researches some linguistic features used in advertising, such as grammar, vocabulary, discourses and rhetorical figures. However, he didn’t have any further explanation of why these features can draw consumers’ attention. Cook tries to explain advertisements by discussing in the book The Discourse of Advertising. Mcquarrie and Mick have discussed puns in advertisements in a broad sense in their study; puns are used as a play or twist to produce multiple meaning. However, in Macquarie's view, the process of constructing a resonant advertisement is unfinished (Macquarrie&Mick, 424-438). In the book advertising principles and practice written by William Wells (18), it points out, advertising is part of business. The whole goal of business is to obtain profit from the sales of products and services use the tool called advertising to carry a message to the consumer. Advertising is the voice and the expression of marketing. L. Bovee and William R Arens in their book Contemporary Advertising: “Advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about the products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media.” (Bovee&Arens, 7) In China, many scholars already have done some researches on advertisement from relevance theory. Li Guoqing(6) studies the problem of translation strategy of puns. He thinks the standard assessment of translation is based on the culture context. When the translators know the context well, then the translation can be translated well. Wang Ying(4) has made a systematic research which talks about the translation of puns in advertisements. She offers four types of strategy in translating puns. Lin Xinhua (195) has studied the classification and double contexts of puns. He thinks that puns are widely used in advertisements by advertiser, so it can encourage consumers to guess the background information of advertisement and make them enjoy the interpretation of puns in advertisements.#p#分页标题#e#
3. Definition and classification 定义和分类
t�9a XWk �kowman and Haire, but it is still subject to validity problems. In addition, there was no adjustment for risk, and the performance criterion of investor's yield is not necessarily an adequate surrogate for profitability: yield is a function of both capital gains and dividends, neither of which need be tied directly to profitability. Parket and Eilbirt (1975) conducted a study that took still another approach. In a previous study of corporate social responsibility the researchers had been able to get 96 firms from the Forbes 1971 Annual Directory to respond; they concluded that, since these firms had responded, they were clearly more oriented toward social responsibility than were nonrespondents. Parket and Eilbert point out that: The fact that all ninety-six of the replying forms identified them-selves as engaged in endeavors associated with social responsibility suggests that firms not actively undertaking such work are more heavily represented among our nonrespondents (1975: 6). They then compared 80 alleged socially responsible firms to the Fortune 500 firms (minus these 80 firms) on the performance criteria of dollar net income, profit margin, ROE, and earnings per share (EPS). The researchers conclude: "By all four measures, the 80 respondents who were considered to be the most socially active show up as more profitable" (1975: 8).
However, no significance test was performed, and it appears that the differences in both ROE and EPS are insignificant between the firms identified as socially responsible and other firms. Other methodological limitations exist. One problem was the assumption that the 80 firms in the sample had demonstrated a socially responsible orientation because they responded to a previous survey. Also, the data analysis methods were incomplete; there was no risk adjustment, and the profitability measures employed are not definitive and cover only one year.Another major research effort in this area was based on the judgment of Moskowitz, who had classified 67 firms over time as essentially high, moderate, and low in corporate responsibility (Sturdivant & Ginter, 1977). The researchers note that: The study was based on the sixty-seven corporations that had been cited by business journalist Milton Moskowitz as exhibiting exceptional social responsiveness or lack thereof. While no claim can be made about the accuracy of these ratings, they had the advantage of consistency in that they came from a single source (1977: 30). Sturdivant and Ginter used this sample to derive yet a smaller 28 firm sample that they subdivided into four industrial groupings. They compared firms showing high, moderate, and low social responsibility in each grouping on the basis of 10-year EPS growth, and then normalized each firm by dividing growth by the industry average. They found that firms from the high and moderate groups outperformed those from the low group (1977: 38). However, Sturdivant and Ginter did not really mention the fact that firms in the moderate group were the best performers, a result similar to what Bowman and Haire had discovered earlier. A number of methodological problems exist in this study, the first of which was sample selection: Sturdivant and Ginter derived their sample from a single source whose judgment was used in classifying the various firms in terms of orientation to corporate social responsibility. No criteria were offered for this classification. Moreover, the four industrial groupings reflect inconsistencies: for instance, Weyerhaeuser was grouped with U.S. Steel, Giant Food with S. S. Kresge Company, and Ralston Purina with Campbell Soup. In addition, the final sample, having been reduced to 28 firms, was small; there was no adjustment for risk; and the performance measure of growth in earnings per share is not definitive. These studies reflect both varying methodologies and different degrees of rigor. Although reputational surveys and content analysis of annual reports do provide useful beginning points, other exploratory methods also exist. Also, it is surprising that so much research has been based on the value orientations of a single business critic, and that none of the studies used a financial performance measure, like return on assets, that is less susceptible to corporate manipulation. Only one study realized the critical importance of adjusting performance on the basis of risk. The two studies employing the most rigor (Abbott & Monsen, 1979; Alexander & Buchholz,1978) found no relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance. However, two studies employing different methodologies (Bowman & Haire, 1975; Sturdivant & Ginter, 1977) found a curvilinear relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance, with moderately socially responsible firms being best performers. #p#分页标题#e#
3.1 Definition of puns in advertisement classification 广告双关语的分类定义
The word pun has been using in English from 1550. It is thought to be originally a contraction of the pundigrion. Puns have similar-sounding but words and phrases are different which have humorous and rhetorical effect. Such ambiguity may result in the intentional misuse of homophonic, homographic, homonymic, metonymic, or metaphorical language. And, not surprisingly, pun can be defined in many ways. There are so many humorous explanations about puns: “punning – to torture one poor word ten thousand ways (John Dryden)”. pun is defined as “An amusing use of a word or phrase that has two meanings, or words with the same sound but different meanings” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English., pun is defined as “the use of word in such a way as to suggest two or more meanings or different associations, or the use of two or more words of the same or nearly the same sound with different meanings, so as to produce a humorous effect” according to the Oxford English –Chinese Dictionary. Pun is defined as “A figure of speech depending upon a similarity of sound and a disparity of meaning” in Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.
3.2 Classification of puns in advertisement classification 分类广告双关语的分类
3.2.1 Homophonic Pun 双关语
A homophonic pun can be explained that it sounds exactly alike (perfect homophones), but it is not synonymous. It is used in words with the same or similar pronunciation but different spellings and meanings. It is also called phonetic pun, and phonetic pun is the basic form of English pun.
The copywriters of advertisements make the most of using homophonic pun for its humor, mock, vivid expression of the characters’ feelings, enhancing the persuasive power and influence; therefore it leaves a deep impression on the advertisement.
For example:
Make your every hello a real good-buy. (A telephone advertisement)
This is a telephone advertisement with the interesting homophonic pun of good-bye and good-buy. This cuteness perform high quality of the telephone, when we begin with a“hello”, and end with a“good-bye,” By making such a pun, readers’ attention is attracted and the advertisement makes them believe that to buy one of his telephone is a good and worthwhile deal.
3.2.2 Semantic Puns 语义双关语
Different words may have the similar meaning, but the same one word may have more than one meaning. This is what we call semantic puns.
For example:
(2) Spoil yourself and not your figure. (Liu Rongzheng, 5)
This is an advisement title for Weight-Watcher ice-cream, Pun exists not only in the brand label of product, but also in the title. The meaning of “spoil oneself” is “to love yourself”, while the meaning of “spoil one’s figure” is “someone’s figure is changed” This advertisement makes the dieter accept ice-cream easily and the copywriters of advertisements make full use of using homophonic pun for its humor, satire, vivid expression of the characters’ feelings, enhancing the persuasive power and influence, therefore it impresses the readers deeply.#p#分页标题#e#
(2) “From sharp minds, come sharp products.”
This is an advertisement for the Sharp copier. The word “sharp” not only compliments the consumers’ smart, but also refers to the sharp product. The advertisement compliments the consumers who are desired to buy the product which is sharp. The vanity of the audiences is aroused and they want to use it to show their intelligence, and they find the product is really sharp.
(3) “Money doesn’t grow on the trees. But it blossoms at our branches..”
It is the slogan of Lioyd Bank. “Branch” means “part of a tree which grows out from the trunk”, but here it implies the division of bank”. The slogan encourages people to store their money in Lioyd Bank, so their money will be like the blooming flowers, then they will have more and more money as times goes by. After understanding its meaning, readers will imagine that if they deposit their money in Lioyd Bank, their money will become more and more day by day, just like the leaves in spring.
(4) “There is never been a better time”
This is an advertisement about the watch. On the one hand, “time” means hour, such as what’s the time, but on the other hand, “time” means year, people’s time is limited, we should treasure our time.
3.2.3 Grammatical Puns 语法双关语
Grammar is also an important characteristic in puns’ translation. This kind of pun is mainly caused by different sentences. The same word has different meaning in various sentences. The change of part of speech of even one word will consequently cause the change of syntactic relationship within the sentence.
For example:
(1) ----Which lager can claim to be truly German?
----This can. (Xiang, 67-72)
This is the advertisement for a German beer. It exploits the two linguistic functions of the word “can”, working both as an auxiliary verb meaning “be able to” and a noun, “a kind of container for beverage, tin”. So the reply “This can” may be interpreted as “This tin of our beer is the only beer that can be called German.” Consumers who have read such an advertisement will surely be amused by the subtle yet impressive pun used here. The Coca-cola advertisement uses a similar pun.
(2) “Coke refreshes you like no other can.” (Xiang, 67-72)
Just like last example “can” so the sentence can be understood like that Coke refreshes you like no other (drink) can (refresh you). It suggests that their product is the best one. Of course, people like to buy the best one.
(3) “Shop with confidence”
This is an advertisement of a supermarket. In this sentence “Shop” has double meanings, when it is a noun, it means that the shop can be reliable; however when it turns into a verb; it means that you can buy the thing with confidence#p#分页标题#e#
3.2.4 Idiomatic Puns 惯用双关语
The flexible application of puns in advertisement English are full of difficulties because famous idioms and phrases are deeply rooted in the local culture. Besides, the application of idiomatic puns in advertisements, to some extents, can be understood as a means of arts. Advertisers make full use of the idioms and quotations which are rooted deeply in local culture. In this way, the idiomatic puns are easy to be remembered and are rather familiar to the audience. It proves that the appearance of idiomatic pun leaves a deep impression on the audience.
For Example:
(1) “An Apple everybody keeps doctor away”.
The popular saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. Therefore, it is deeply rooted in people's minds that “Apple” is not only the brand name of a computer or mobile phone, but a kind of fruit which keeps people fit.
(2) “Tasting is believing”.
When reading, we may be reminded of the saying “seeing is believing”, the advertiser wants to use it to attract the customers’ attention, and show its good quality of their food.
We can be told from this advertisement; it is obvious that the enterprise wants to tell their customers in an impressive way that their products are no harm on people's health.
From all of these definitions, we can make such a conclusion that pun is indeed a rhetorical device; wordplay is actually its vulgar name by the public. From those definitions, puns must be deliberate; they consist of homophone and homograph which means a word that is identical to another word in pronunciation but different in spelling and meaning and a word that is identical to another word in spelling but different in pronunciation and meaning respectively.
4. Functions of Puns in the advertisement 广告双关语的功能
In advertising language, puns, as a very important rhetorical device, can produce special pragmatic functions: firstly, informational function; secondly, humorous function; thirdly, persuasive function; fourthly, economical function; fifthly, association function; sixthly, readability function Puns serve the advertisers well. It also arouses the audiences’ interests and persuades the audience to have the eagerness to purchase the product, which is also the advertiser’s communicative intention.
4.1 Information Function 信息功能
An advertisement should contain effective, true information about commodity or service, so that consumers will know whether or not such things are needed by themselves. Generally, an advertisement should be easy to understand. However, according to the definition of puns, they have more than one meaning or they are different words that sound the same. It’s not easy to catch all their implicit meanings, especially the homographic puns.
For example:
Haier; the qualities and service become better and better; higher and higher:#p#分页标题#e#
By using puns, the advertisers can produce sufficient contextual effects. This example shows the informing feature of utterance interpretation. Any elements of indirectness and ambiguity in the advertisement demand extra processing effort. According to the definition of ideal relevance, the ambiguity of advertising puns encourages the audience to search for a more direct explanation. In this example, the advertiser expresses much more information in a single utterance “Haier and higher”. The advertiser not only expresses the brand name “Haier” in the utterance but also conveys the meaning that the brand of Haier products has higher qualities and better services than other brand of products. In the process of interpretation, in order to reach the optimal relevance and work out the advertiser's intended interpretation, the audiences have to eliminate the superficial meaning and endow the implication of the utterance. In this way, comparing with other rhetorical ways, puns can convey much more information in a comparatively economic way.
4.2 Humorous function 幽默功能
The major function of pun is to produce an humorous effect. These puns enable the speaker or the writer to express their intention indirectly, which can improve the tension. Sometimes puns can even relieve the embarrassed and create a light and happy atmosphere.
For example:
We have courses to make grown men young and young men groan. (Body building courses) (Liang Ting and Xia Tian, 145)
This slogan makes pun on a pair of homophones, “grown” and “groan”, which have the same pronunciation but different spellings. In the first half the advertiser stresses the effect of doing bodybuilding exercises, while the latter half warns frantically that the exercises will be hard and tiring “grown man young” and “young men groan” not only convey the benefits of taking the bodybuilding courses, but also make a sharp contrast and simultaneously make readers to laugh with the copywriter’s dry humor. Naturally, it adds to readers’ mind and the thought of exercises will trigger their association with this ad.
Advertising in a humorous style is more amusing and light-hearted. Thus readers would accept the product more quickly..
4.3 Persuasive Function 说服功能
Advertisement will provide many reasons to persuade consumers to consume. If the reasons will be impressed with consumer by the humorous effect created by puns. Then consumers may buy it
For instance:
Don't feel guilty to dawn your properties.
With the help of the context: it is a piece of advertisement for a pawnshop. The audience may be satisfied with this interpretation as this is a relevant interpretation of the advertisement. After the audiences interpret this slogan, as it advocates in the slogan, when the audience needs to give their belongings to the pawnshop, this slogan may help to promote the purchasing.#p#分页标题#e#
4.4 Economical Function 经济功能
Because the two meanings contained in a single word, puns can replace two or even more words meanings. Puns, which have highly economical (two meanings for the price of one word or a phrase), satisfy the advertisers as an effective labor-saving and space-saving device. The use of puns can enrich the content of a text with limited words in that a pun usually expresses the potential meaning as well as the surface meaning.
For Example:
Every kid should have an Apple after school. (Apple Computer) (Xia Zheng, 53)
The “Apple” in this ad refers to both one kind of fruit and the brand name of the computer called Apple. In the United States, kids usually eat the after-class snack every afternoon. Most of the time, the snack contains milk products, fruits or pastries. This ad tends to point out those children should eat apples after school to obtain more nutrition. Furthermore, they should have a personal computer named Apple, which is the “after school snack” of their minds and spirits. It indicates that every child should not only build up their health with apple nutrition but broaden their knowledge with the help of Apple computer. Then we can see, “Apple”, one word just conveys two meanings. That’s where the charm of puns for they not only save space for advertising but also appear persuasive and effective.
4.5 Readability Function 可读性功能
As a pun is concise and striking, it is often employed in advertisements, news headlines with more slogans. The use of the pun ensures that the message is communication; advertiser is particularly concerned with the problem of attracting and holding an audience’s attention. And function of puns is as the stimuli, which remain the most economical and efficient means to attract attention.
For example:
Better late than the late.
This advertisement imitates a popular idiom of English that is better late than never. The original meaning of this idiom is that on matter how late you are, it is better late to reach a place than never. The subtlety of this advertisement lies in two aspects: it not only imitates the structure of the idiom but makes good use of punny word “late”, which originally means “after the right, fixed or usual time”, and contains the new meaning “the dead” in the above advertisement. The use of pun highlights the non-commercial advertisement for traffic with powerful influence on readers.
4.6 Association Function 联系功能
Pun is very short and concise in form. As pun carries ambiguity and double context, it makes certain good associations to the audience. Let's have a look at the following example:
Red Bull gives you wings. (The ad for Red Bull)
In this advertisement, the word “wing” is a trigger. As we all know that, “give you wing” means “make the people fly”. Therefore, the slogan means Red Bull can give you wings to have the feeling of flying. Since the word “wing” is a homophonic pun, it is natural for the audience to associate with the word “win”. The audience may consider “Why can Red Bull make people have the feeling of flying?” As the word “wing" and the word “win” share the same pronunciation, and after the audiences have the encyclopedia information that Red Bull is a sports functional juice, it can give people energy and then the audience will work out the intended interpretation: Red Bull gives you energy to run fast and you win the game. Through this slogan, the audience can achieve positive associations as the advertiser reveals that this brand of juice can give you energy in sports and make you win.#p#分页标题#e#
Not all advertisement accomplishes the same goal. Every advertisement tries to achieve their basic goals, the language possesses another information-puns can make certain good associations. Through a good advertisement, the audiences can easily know there is a new product now, or they may know that a new firm has been established. The good advertisement not only conveys the basic information to the audience, but also gives certain good associations. If the audience makes out the good associations of the advertisement, they will appreciate the advertiser's wisdom and thus create a good impression on the new brand, and at last they may succeed in selling their products and then make profits.
5. Strategies for Translating Puns in Eng1ish advertisement 双关语在英语广告翻译中的策略
Puns can be found in almost all languages. Each language has its specific characteristics of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and figures of speech. While the original pragmatic meaning can be conveyed in the target language, the linguistic meaning cannot be remembered during the translation process. In other words, puns are hard to transfer from one language to another because they are different specific language characteristics. Therefore, many people even consider those puns as “untranslatable”. It is a hard job to translate puns perfectly. Therefore, in order to translate a pun into another language successfully, people have to master both languages and techniques of translation. The combination of the linguistic meaning of puns together with the pragmatic equivalent effect of the source language is the ideal translation that most translators like.
Of course, the difficulty in the translation of puns is lack of the background meanings. The problem of translation exists as long as linguistic and cultural differences exist. However, there is no source text that is absolutely untranslatable. We should try to transform untranslatability into translatability, or make compensation in translation.
5.1 Literal translation 直译
Literal translation means that translators follow the original advertisement’s syntax, rhetoric even structure. When a translator translates one language into another, the first element to be taken into consideration is to equal the word level. Literal translation can be applied to cases when the translated version is grammatically correct, functionally equivalent to the original language, so the readers can understand both the designative and associative meaning. Sometimes it is called word-for-word translation. Literal translation is that the original forms are kept as much as possible, even though those forms are not the best natural forms to preserve the original meaning. It is used when the content and form are very close in the two languages and it is an indispensable way in translation, because there are some concepts that are universal and shared by both Chinese and English cultures, though these two are sharply distinctive in many ways and for some sentences there is no other way to translate them. This kind of translation is the faithful reflection of the original; therefore, there are two advantages. First, it shows the differences between the source language culture and target language culture. Second, it enriches the vocabulary of the target language. For those excellent advertisements, literal translation is very suitable. Here goes an advertisement:#p#分页标题#e#
(1) After you get married, kiss your wife in places where she's never been kissed before.
The original version is rendered into“ 结婚后，亲吻你妻子从没被吻过的地方。”
This advertisement contains two meanings: on the one hand after you get married, kiss somewhere of your wife where she’s never been kissed before; on the other hand after you get married, take your wife to the places where your wife has never been to and kiss her there. Here “places” is literally converted into “地方”，which is exactly the Chinese equivalent of “places”. The translation successfully conveys “地方” into double meanings “a place to go” and “the part of one’s body”, which makes the readers of the Chinese version to understand the intention of this advertisement easily just as the English readers do. The advertiser uses this homographic pun perfectly so as to attract the new couple. Some advertisements are written in unique structure and rhetoric, which demands literal translation only.
(2) In HongHu day is going to break．(Zhang Aiping, 3)
“洪湖就要天亮了”
On one hand, here “day is going to break” means that first light will appear when the sun is going to rise above the horizon, that is daybreak; on the other hand, this sentence has another meaning that is the revolution is going to succeed. We will win the battle; the dawn of victory is coming. Both in English and Chinese version，this sentence contain two levels of meanings. However, the readers can immediately understands the double meanings．
(3) A business in Million, A profit in pennies.
“百万生意，毫厘利润”。
The advertisement is written in symmetric structure. Literally, we can translate the advertisement into Chinese with the same structure and rhetoric. Literal translation is not equal to dead translation that is word for word translation. It may begin, from a word-for-word translation, but make change in conformity with Chinese grammar it can change structures at any rank by inserting additional words. Especially the source language constructions are converted to their nearest target language equivalence. It seems that literal translation not only reproduces the form and the content of the original, but also introduces some new things from the foreign countries.
5.2 Free Translation 意译
Sometimes, because of social and cultural differences between English and Chinese，the translators can’t use literal translation. The translators have to use free translation. There are two free translations. First, it shows the differences between the first language culture and target language culture, second, it enriches the vocabulary of the target language. Because there are so many differences between the Chinese and English languages in culture, sometimes literal translation fails to get the communicative functions of advertisements. However, free translation tries to express the original meaning in another form of the target text.#p#分页标题#e#
For example:
Spoil yourself and not yow figure.
“尽情的吃吧，别担心体重”.
The phrase “spoil” oneself means to “enjoy oneself to hearts content” (Wang Yanxi, 96)，At the same time “spoil one’s figure” means to “make a damage on one’s body”, who may become fat. In this ad，the punny word is “spoil”. The advertiser uses the pun to persuade the Ice-Cream lover to eat without worrying about their weight. It achieves a good effect．
However, using free translation can only express the general meaning of the original version, the humor, wit, satire or even complicated feelings that are expressed uniquely by the use of puns may not be fully conveyed.
5.3 Annotated Translations 注释翻译
Pun translation has its limitations; there is no doubt that a translator will face obstacles more or less, in both language and culture in translating. In such cases, if he or she cannot make them clear, a translator may seek to other translation techniques, such as, annotation. Annotation in translation not only makes the sense of the original, but also easy to see and easy to understand. And it offers an opportunity for the reader to appreciate the beauty of the source language. People don’t need to worry about when they don’t know.
For example:
OIC make you “Oh, I see”.
“OIC 眼镜让你重新清” (Xu, 6)
This is an advertisement for eyeglasses. The copywriter uses pun skillfully, there are two meanings. First, OIC sounds like “Oh, I see”. At the same time, the interesting image of the picture is just like a pair of glasses. It can give readers a deep impression. It is a successful case which has the wisdom and humor in it. However, when we translate this advertisement into Chinese, there are some problems. Because of the different pronunciation system, Chinese readers have a difficulty in enjoying the wisdom in it. Therefore, translators need to seek other means so as to make the punny sense of the original to see easily and easy to understand, such as OIC which should be stated in other words to explain the meaning, thus offering a chance for the reader to appreciate the beauty of the source language
However, adopting annotation in translation is always the last choice, because the humor in the original version is difficult to convert completely in the translated version.
5.4 Parody Translations 模仿翻译
Every country’s culture has its own idioms, slangs, set phrases and so on, they are culture-bounded and they usually have the difficulties of translation when a product is to be introduced into another culture. Most of the time, they do not make any sense in another culture, while using of idioms familiar to or favored by target customers who may cause a surge of warm feeling. Thus, translations are more likely to be achieved successfully when parody translation is used in the text of advertisement.#p#分页标题#e#
Parody translation is that the meaning of the original is translated into forms that the meanings of the original forms are preserved almost accurately and naturally. The goal of parody translation is to achieve the closest natural equivalent in target language to match the ideas of the original text.
For example:
All is well that ends well.
“烟蒂好，烟就好”.
This is an advertisement for a kind of cigarette. The slogan “all is well that ends well” is from one of Shakespeare’s famous play, which means that if the result is good, everything is good. The copywriter writes this advertisement skillfully, so when western consumers read this advertisement, the certain appearance of cigarette with good quality can appear in their mind. And the word “end” in the advertisement contains double meanings: one is the original meaning "result", and the other refers to “cigarette end” or “butt”. When it is translated into Chinese, it goes to the version “烟蒂好，烟就好”, which successfully applies a rhetoric rhyme in translating. It not only transfers the original meaning successfully, but also has some effect in form. When Chinese readers read the translation of slogan, they would be attracted by the use of the rhetoric device easily, and then they would think about the advertisement carefully and to find the background meaning of this product. It not only possesses excellent raw materials but also has a good cigarette end. This is because the product meets a great demand in Chinese market.
6. Conclusion 结论
To make a conclusion, pun is one of the most used rhetoric devices in English advertisement. It can make products more competitive and profitable. In today’s society, the better use of advertisement will help a company a lot in winning lots of consumers. There are main four kinds of puns which are applied in advertising English, that is, homonymic puns, homographic puns, semantic puns and idiomatic puns. The four strategies used in the paper are some of possible methods in the translation of pun in advertisement. Puns, as a very important rhetorical device, can produce special pragmatic functions: they are information function, humorous function, persuasive function, economical function, readability function and association function. In the actual translation, it must be based on the concrete condition and then use other effective methods to express the meaning of text. It will help people to study Chinese advertisements through the analysis of English advertisement. And the successful translation of examples also helps translation agencies have a further development.
Works Cited 引用文献
Bovee, Courtland L. & Arens, William F. Contemporary Advertising. Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1992.
Cook, G. The Discourse of Advertising. London: Routledge. 1992.
Delabastita, Dirk. #p#分页标题#e#Translating Puns: Possibilities and Restrains. New Comparison（1987）, 143-159.
Dirk Traductio: Essays on punning and Translation. New York: St Jseome, 1997: 207-232.
McQuarrie, E. F.&Mick, G. M. Journal of Consumer Research. Figures of Rhetoric in Advertising Language. Vol. 1996, 22, 424-438.
Oxford Advanced Learner’s English—Chinese Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 1997: 1202.
Oxford English-Chinese Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press and Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2005.
Tanaka, Keiko. A Pragmatic Approach Advertising language. Lingua, 1992(87).
Wells William, John Burnett, and Sandra Moriarty. Advertising-Principles and Practice. 6 th ed. New York: Pretice Hall, 2002
Abstract 摘要
With the further globalization of world economy, the modern advertising has become an indispensable part of international business activities. If advertising content is rich, it can stimulate people's motivation to consume and induce people's consumption behavior. Using puns appropriately in advertising will make the advertisement more diversification, and more competitive. It is the key to be successful advertisements. In this thesis, firstly, the author lists four kinds of puns frequently used in advertising English, namely, homophonic puns, semantic puns, grammatical puns and idiomatic puns. Then the author illustrates how puns are applied to achieve advertising effects in realizing some specific functions from pragmatic perspectives. At last, the author introduces four ways to translate puns.
随着经济全球化的进一步发展,现代广告已经成为国际商业活动必不可少的一部分。广告语内容丰富,能激发人的消费动机,左右人的消费观念, 诱导人的消费行为, 正确应用双关语能使广告更丰富,更有竞争力,是广告成功的关键。本文中, 作者首先列举了四种广泛应用于广告英语中的双关，然后作者从广告语的特点提出四种翻译方法，最后从语用学角度论述了双关语在广告英语中是如何通过实现广告的各种语用功能来达到广告的效果。
1. Introduction 引文
What is advertising? It conveys the information about the products, services or ideas without personal communication by the various media. Whose purpose is to persuade people to buy them, nowadays, we can find that we are surrounded by different advertisements everyday. Because there are so many advertisements, the main purpose of the advertisers is to .make the advertisement impressive to the public people. In order to increase the appeal of the advertisement, and to make the advertisement more beautiful and attractive, on the one hand, advertisers should pay much attention to such expressive devices; on the other hand to the choice of words or phrases. No matter it is a good advertisement or a public service advertisement, the creation of the advertisement is a comprehensive art. The skills show the vivid and interesting characteristic by the way of salesmanship are more important than other forms of writing. It. Therefore, advertisers pay close attention to the advertising literary language which is used accurately and appropriately. As a result, the figures of speech are frequently and widely used as an important characteristic of advertising English in making advertisements, and pun is one of the figures which are loved deeply.
广告是什么?它传达的是在没有个人沟通的条件下的运用各种媒体承载产品、服务或想法的信息。它的目的是说服人们购买他们,现在,我们可以发现, 因为有太多的广告,我们每天都被不同的广告所包围。而广告的主要目的:将广告令人印象深刻。#p#分页标题#e#
Pun as “humorous use of a word that has two meanings or of different words that sound the same” is defined by Oxford Advanced Dictionary. A pun can be understood that it has similar-sounding but words of phrases are different, whether humorous or serious. It leaves a deep impression on readers by its readability, wit and humor. It can satisfy the requirement of advertisement characteristics—selling power, memory value, attention value, and readability. So pun is very popular in advertisement. In this thesis, first of all, I list four kinds of puns which are frequently used in advertising English, that is, homonymic puns, homographic puns, semantic puns and idiomatic puns. Then the author introduces four ways to translate them. These are literal translations, free translations, annotated translations, and parody translations. At last, the author illustrates how puns are applied to achieve advertising effects in realizing some specific functions from pragmatic perspectives. These are information function, humorous function, persuasive function, economical function, readability function and association function.
2. Literature Review 文献综述
Scholars both at home and abroad have written some research papers on advertisement from different angles. These researches are so valuable for scholars who are interested in advertising for the further study.In the west, Leech researches some linguistic features used in advertising, such as grammar, vocabulary, discourses and rhetorical figures. However, he didn’t have any further explanation of why these features can draw consumers’ attention. Cook tries to explain advertisements by discussing in the book The Discourse of Advertising. Mcquarrie and Mick have discussed puns in advertisements in a broad sense in their study; puns are used as a play or twist to produce multiple meaning. However, in Macquarie's view, the process of constructing a resonant advertisement is unfinished (Macquarrie&Mick, 424-438). In the book advertising principles and practice written by William Wells (18), it points out, advertising is part of business. The whole goal of business is to obtain profit from the sales of products and services use the tool called advertising to carry a message to the consumer. Advertising is the voice and the expression of marketing. L. Bovee and William R Arens in their book Contemporary Advertising: “Advertising is the nonpersonal communication of information usually paid for and usually persuasive in nature about the products, services or ideas by identified sponsors through the various media.” (Bovee&Arens, 7) In China, many scholars already have done some researches on advertisement from relevance theory. Li Guoqing(6) studies the problem of translation strategy of puns. He thinks the standard assessment of translation is based on the culture context. When the translators know the context well, then the translation can be translated well. Wang Ying(4) has made a systematic research which talks about the translation of puns in advertisements. She offers four types of strategy in translating puns. Lin Xinhua (195) has studied the classification and double contexts of puns. He thinks that puns are widely used in advertisements by advertiser, so it can encourage consumers to guess the background information of advertisement and make them enjoy the interpretation of puns in advertisements.#p#分页标题#e#
3. Definition and classification 定义和分类
t�9a XWk �kowman and Haire, but it is still subject to validity problems. In addition, there was no adjustment for risk, and the performance criterion of investor's yield is not necessarily an adequate surrogate for profitability: yield is a function of both capital gains and dividends, neither of which need be tied directly to profitability. Parket and Eilbirt (1975) conducted a study that took still another approach. In a previous study of corporate social responsibility the researchers had been able to get 96 firms from the Forbes 1971 Annual Directory to respond; they concluded that, since these firms had responded, they were clearly more oriented toward social responsibility than were nonrespondents. Parket and Eilbert point out that: The fact that all ninety-six of the replying forms identified them-selves as engaged in endeavors associated with social responsibility suggests that firms not actively undertaking such work are more heavily represented among our nonrespondents (1975: 6). They then compared 80 alleged socially responsible firms to the Fortune 500 firms (minus these 80 firms) on the performance criteria of dollar net income, profit margin, ROE, and earnings per share (EPS). The researchers conclude: "By all four measures, the 80 respondents who were considered to be the most socially active show up as more profitable" (1975: 8).
However, no significance test was performed, and it appears that the differences in both ROE and EPS are insignificant between the firms identified as socially responsible and other firms. Other methodological limitations exist. One problem was the assumption that the 80 firms in the sample had demonstrated a socially responsible orientation because they responded to a previous survey. Also, the data analysis methods were incomplete; there was no risk adjustment, and the profitability measures employed are not definitive and cover only one year.Another major research effort in this area was based on the judgment of Moskowitz, who had classified 67 firms over time as essentially high, moderate, and low in corporate responsibility (Sturdivant & Ginter, 1977). The researchers note that: The study was based on the sixty-seven corporations that had been cited by business journalist Milton Moskowitz as exhibiting exceptional social responsiveness or lack thereof. While no claim can be made about the accuracy of these ratings, they had the advantage of consistency in that they came from a single source (1977: 30). Sturdivant and Ginter used this sample to derive yet a smaller 28 firm sample that they subdivided into four industrial groupings. They compared firms showing high, moderate, and low social responsibility in each grouping on the basis of 10-year EPS growth, and then normalized each firm by dividing growth by the industry average. They found that firms from the high and moderate groups outperformed those from the low group (1977: 38). However, Sturdivant and Ginter did not really mention the fact that firms in the moderate group were the best performers, a result similar to what Bowman and Haire had discovered earlier. A number of methodological problems exist in this study, the first of which was sample selection: Sturdivant and Ginter derived their sample from a single source whose judgment was used in classifying the various firms in terms of orientation to corporate social responsibility. No criteria were offered for this classification. Moreover, the four industrial groupings reflect inconsistencies: for instance, Weyerhaeuser was grouped with U.S. Steel, Giant Food with S. S. Kresge Company, and Ralston Purina with Campbell Soup. In addition, the final sample, having been reduced to 28 firms, was small; there was no adjustment for risk; and the performance measure of growth in earnings per share is not definitive. These studies reflect both varying methodologies and different degrees of rigor. Although reputational surveys and content analysis of annual reports do provide useful beginning points, other exploratory methods also exist. Also, it is surprising that so much research has been based on the value orientations of a single business critic, and that none of the studies used a financial performance measure, like return on assets, that is less susceptible to corporate manipulation. Only one study realized the critical importance of adjusting performance on the basis of risk. The two studies employing the most rigor (Abbott & Monsen, 1979; Alexander & Buchholz,1978) found no relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance. However, two studies employing different methodologies (Bowman & Haire, 1975; Sturdivant & Ginter, 1977) found a curvilinear relationship between corporate social responsibility and financial performance, with moderately socially responsible firms being best performers. #p#分页标题#e#
3.1 Definition of puns in advertisement classification 广告双关语的分类定义
The word pun has been using in English from 1550. It is thought to be originally a contraction of the pundigrion. Puns have similar-sounding but words and phrases are different which have humorous and rhetorical effect. Such ambiguity may result in the intentional misuse of homophonic, homographic, homonymic, metonymic, or metaphorical language. And, not surprisingly, pun can be defined in many ways. There are so many humorous explanations about puns: “punning – to torture one poor word ten thousand ways (John Dryden)”. pun is defined as “An amusing use of a word or phrase that has two meanings, or words with the same sound but different meanings” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English., pun is defined as “the use of word in such a way as to suggest two or more meanings or different associations, or the use of two or more words of the same or nearly the same sound with different meanings, so as to produce a humorous effect” according to the Oxford English –Chinese Dictionary. Pun is defined as “A figure of speech depending upon a similarity of sound and a disparity of meaning” in Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics.
3.2 Classification of puns in advertisement classification 分类广告双关语的分类
3.2.1 Homophonic Pun 双关语
A homophonic pun can be explained that it sounds exactly alike (perfect homophones), but it is not synonymous. It is used in words with the same or similar pronunciation but different spellings and meanings. It is also called phonetic pun, and phonetic pun is the basic form of English pun.
The copywriters of advertisements make the most of using homophonic pun for its humor, mock, vivid expression of the characters’ feelings, enhancing the persuasive power and influence; therefore it leaves a deep impression on the advertisement.
For example:
Make your every hello a real good-buy. (A telephone advertisement)
This is a telephone advertisement with the interesting homophonic pun of good-bye and good-buy. This cuteness perform high quality of the telephone, when we begin with a“hello”, and end with a“good-bye,” By making such a pun, readers’ attention is attracted and the advertisement makes them believe that to buy one of his telephone is a good and worthwhile deal.
3.2.2 Semantic Puns 语义双关语
Different words may have the similar meaning, but the same one word may have more than one meaning. This is what we call semantic puns.
For example:
(2) Spoil yourself and not your figure. (Liu Rongzheng, 5)
This is an advisement title for Weight-Watcher ice-cream, Pun exists not only in the brand label of product, but also in the title. The meaning of “spoil oneself” is “to love yourself”, while the meaning of “spoil one’s figure” is “someone’s figure is changed” This advertisement makes the dieter accept ice-cream easily and the copywriters of advertisements make full use of using homophonic pun for its humor, satire, vivid expression of the characters’ feelings, enhancing the persuasive power and influence, therefore it impresses the readers deeply.#p#分页标题#e#
(2) “From sharp minds, come sharp products.”
This is an advertisement for the Sharp copier. The word “sharp” not only compliments the consumers’ smart, but also refers to the sharp product. The advertisement compliments the consumers who are desired to buy the product which is sharp. The vanity of the audiences is aroused and they want to use it to show their intelligence, and they find the product is really sharp.
(3) “Money doesn’t grow on the trees. But it blossoms at our branches..”
It is the slogan of Lioyd Bank. “Branch” means “part of a tree which grows out from the trunk”, but here it implies the division of bank”. The slogan encourages people to store their money in Lioyd Bank, so their money will be like the blooming flowers, then they will have more and more money as times goes by. After understanding its meaning, readers will imagine that if they deposit their money in Lioyd Bank, their money will become more and more day by day, just like the leaves in spring.
(4) “There is never been a better time”
This is an advertisement about the watch. On the one hand, “time” means hour, such as what’s the time, but on the other hand, “time” means year, people’s time is limited, we should treasure our time.
3.2.3 Grammatical Puns 语法双关语
Grammar is also an important characteristic in puns’ translation. This kind of pun is mainly caused by different sentences. The same word has different meaning in various sentences. The change of part of speech of even one word will consequently cause the change of syntactic relationship within the sentence.
For example:
(1) ----Which lager can claim to be truly German?
----This can. (Xiang, 67-72)
This is the advertisement for a German beer. It exploits the two linguistic functions of the word “can”, working both as an auxiliary verb meaning “be able to” and a noun, “a kind of container for beverage, tin”. So the reply “This can” may be interpreted as “This tin of our beer is the only beer that can be called German.” Consumers who have read such an advertisement will surely be amused by the subtle yet impressive pun used here. The Coca-cola advertisement uses a similar pun.
(2) “Coke refreshes you like no other can.” (Xiang, 67-72)
Just like last example “can” so the sentence can be understood like that Coke refreshes you like no other (drink) can (refresh you). It suggests that their product is the best one. Of course, people like to buy the best one.
(3) “Shop with confidence”
This is an advertisement of a supermarket. In this sentence “Shop” has double meanings, when it is a noun, it means that the shop can be reliable; however when it turns into a verb; it means that you can buy the thing with confidence#p#分页标题#e#
3.2.4 Idiomatic Puns 惯用双关语
The flexible application of puns in advertisement English are full of difficulties because famous idioms and phrases are deeply rooted in the local culture. Besides, the application of idiomatic puns in advertisements, to some extents, can be understood as a means of arts. Advertisers make full use of the idioms and quotations which are rooted deeply in local culture. In this way, the idiomatic puns are easy to be remembered and are rather familiar to the audience. It proves that the appearance of idiomatic pun leaves a deep impression on the audience.
For Example:
(1) “An Apple everybody keeps doctor away”.
The popular saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away”. Therefore, it is deeply rooted in people's minds that “Apple” is not only the brand name of a computer or mobile phone, but a kind of fruit which keeps people fit.
(2) “Tasting is believing”.
When reading, we may be reminded of the saying “seeing is believing”, the advertiser wants to use it to attract the customers’ attention, and show its good quality of their food.
We can be told from this advertisement; it is obvious that the enterprise wants to tell their customers in an impressive way that their products are no harm on people's health.
From all of these definitions, we can make such a conclusion that pun is indeed a rhetorical device; wordplay is actually its vulgar name by the public. From those definitions, puns must be deliberate; they consist of homophone and homograph which means a word that is identical to another word in pronunciation but different in spelling and meaning and a word that is identical to another word in spelling but different in pronunciation and meaning respectively.
4. Functions of Puns in the advertisement 广告双关语的功能
In advertising language, puns, as a very important rhetorical device, can produce special pragmatic functions: firstly, informational function; secondly, humorous function; thirdly, persuasive function; fourthly, economical function; fifthly, association function; sixthly, readability function Puns serve the advertisers well. It also arouses the audiences’ interests and persuades the audience to have the eagerness to purchase the product, which is also the advertiser’s communicative intention.
4.1 Information Function 信息功能
An advertisement should contain effective, true information about commodity or service, so that consumers will know whether or not such things are needed by themselves. Generally, an advertisement should be easy to understand. However, according to the definition of puns, they have more than one meaning or they are different words that sound the same. It’s not easy to catch all their implicit meanings, especially the homographic puns.
For example:
Haier; the qualities and service become better and better; higher and higher:#p#分页标题#e#
By using puns, the advertisers can produce sufficient contextual effects. This example shows the informing feature of utterance interpretation. Any elements of indirectness and ambiguity in the advertisement demand extra processing effort. According to the definition of ideal relevance, the ambiguity of advertising puns encourages the audience to search for a more direct explanation. In this example, the advertiser expresses much more information in a single utterance “Haier and higher”. The advertiser not only expresses the brand name “Haier” in the utterance but also conveys the meaning that the brand of Haier products has higher qualities and better services than other brand of products. In the process of interpretation, in order to reach the optimal relevance and work out the advertiser's intended interpretation, the audiences have to eliminate the superficial meaning and endow the implication of the utterance. In this way, comparing with other rhetorical ways, puns can convey much more information in a comparatively economic way.
4.2 Humorous function 幽默功能
The major function of pun is to produce an humorous effect. These puns enable the speaker or the writer to express their intention indirectly, which can improve the tension. Sometimes puns can even relieve the embarrassed and create a light and happy atmosphere.
For example:
We have courses to make grown men young and young men groan. (Body building courses) (Liang Ting and Xia Tian, 145)
This slogan makes pun on a pair of homophones, “grown” and “groan”, which have the same pronunciation but different spellings. In the first half the advertiser stresses the effect of doing bodybuilding exercises, while the latter half warns frantically that the exercises will be hard and tiring “grown man young” and “young men groan” not only convey the benefits of taking the bodybuilding courses, but also make a sharp contrast and simultaneously make readers to laugh with the copywriter’s dry humor. Naturally, it adds to readers’ mind and the thought of exercises will trigger their association with this ad.
Advertising in a humorous style is more amusing and light-hearted. Thus readers would accept the product more quickly..
4.3 Persuasive Function 说服功能
Advertisement will provide many reasons to persuade consumers to consume. If the reasons will be impressed with consumer by the humorous effect created by puns. Then consumers may buy it
For instance:
Don't feel guilty to dawn your properties.
With the help of the context: it is a piece of advertisement for a pawnshop. The audience may be satisfied with this interpretation as this is a relevant interpretation of the advertisement. After the audiences interpret this slogan, as it advocates in the slogan, when the audience needs to give their belongings to the pawnshop, this slogan may help to promote the purchasing.#p#分页标题#e#
4.4 Economical Function 经济功能
Because the two meanings contained in a single word, puns can replace two or even more words meanings. Puns, which have highly economical (two meanings for the price of one word or a phrase), satisfy the advertisers as an effective labor-saving and space-saving device. The use of puns can enrich the content of a text with limited words in that a pun usually expresses the potential meaning as well as the surface meaning.
For Example:
Every kid should have an Apple after school. (Apple Computer) (Xia Zheng, 53)
The “Apple” in this ad refers to both one kind of fruit and the brand name of the computer called Apple. In the United States, kids usually eat the after-class snack every afternoon. Most of the time, the snack contains milk products, fruits or pastries. This ad tends to point out those children should eat apples after school to obtain more nutrition. Furthermore, they should have a personal computer named Apple, which is the “after school snack” of their minds and spirits. It indicates that every child should not only build up their health with apple nutrition but broaden their knowledge with the help of Apple computer. Then we can see, “Apple”, one word just conveys two meanings. That’s where the charm of puns for they not only save space for advertising but also appear persuasive and effective.
4.5 Readability Function 可读性功能
As a pun is concise and striking, it is often employed in advertisements, news headlines with more slogans. The use of the pun ensures that the message is communication; advertiser is particularly concerned with the problem of attracting and holding an audience’s attention. And function of puns is as the stimuli, which remain the most economical and efficient means to attract attention.
For example:
Better late than the late.
This advertisement imitates a popular idiom of English that is better late than never. The original meaning of this idiom is that on matter how late you are, it is better late to reach a place than never. The subtlety of this advertisement lies in two aspects: it not only imitates the structure of the idiom but makes good use of punny word “late”, which originally means “after the right, fixed or usual time”, and contains the new meaning “the dead” in the above advertisement. The use of pun highlights the non-commercial advertisement for traffic with powerful influence on readers.
4.6 Association Function 联系功能
Pun is very short and concise in form. As pun carries ambiguity and double context, it makes certain good associations to the audience. Let's have a look at the following example:
Red Bull gives you wings. (The ad for Red Bull)
In this advertisement, the word “wing” is a trigger. As we all know that, “give you wing” means “make the people fly”. Therefore, the slogan means Red Bull can give you wings to have the feeling of flying. Since the word “wing” is a homophonic pun, it is natural for the audience to associate with the word “win”. The audience may consider “Why can Red Bull make people have the feeling of flying?” As the word “wing" and the word “win” share the same pronunciation, and after the audiences have the encyclopedia information that Red Bull is a sports functional juice, it can give people energy and then the audience will work out the intended interpretation: Red Bull gives you energy to run fast and you win the game. Through this slogan, the audience can achieve positive associations as the advertiser reveals that this brand of juice can give you energy in sports and make you win.#p#分页标题#e#
Not all advertisement accomplishes the same goal. Every advertisement tries to achieve their basic goals, the language possesses another information-puns can make certain good associations. Through a good advertisement, the audiences can easily know there is a new product now, or they may know that a new firm has been established. The good advertisement not only conveys the basic information to the audience, but also gives certain good associations. If the audience makes out the good associations of the advertisement, they will appreciate the advertiser's wisdom and thus create a good impression on the new brand, and at last they may succeed in selling their products and then make profits.
5. Strategies for Translating Puns in Eng1ish advertisement 双关语在英语广告翻译中的策略
Puns can be found in almost all languages. Each language has its specific characteristics of pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and figures of speech. While the original pragmatic meaning can be conveyed in the target language, the linguistic meaning cannot be remembered during the translation process. In other words, puns are hard to transfer from one language to another because they are different specific language characteristics. Therefore, many people even consider those puns as “untranslatable”. It is a hard job to translate puns perfectly. Therefore, in order to translate a pun into another language successfully, people have to master both languages and techniques of translation. The combination of the linguistic meaning of puns together with the pragmatic equivalent effect of the source language is the ideal translation that most translators like.
Of course, the difficulty in the translation of puns is lack of the background meanings. The problem of translation exists as long as linguistic and cultural differences exist. However, there is no source text that is absolutely untranslatable. We should try to transform untranslatability into translatability, or make compensation in translation.
5.1 Literal translation 直译
Literal translation means that translators follow the original advertisement’s syntax, rhetoric even structure. When a translator translates one language into another, the first element to be taken into consideration is to equal the word level. Literal translation can be applied to cases when the translated version is grammatically correct, functionally equivalent to the original language, so the readers can understand both the designative and associative meaning. Sometimes it is called word-for-word translation. Literal translation is that the original forms are kept as much as possible, even though those forms are not the best natural forms to preserve the original meaning. It is used when the content and form are very close in the two languages and it is an indispensable way in translation, because there are some concepts that are universal and shared by both Chinese and English cultures, though these two are sharply distinctive in many ways and for some sentences there is no other way to translate them. This kind of translation is the faithful reflection of the original; therefore, there are two advantages. First, it shows the differences between the source language culture and target language culture. Second, it enriches the vocabulary of the target language. For those excellent advertisements, literal translation is very suitable. Here goes an advertisement:#p#分页标题#e#
(1) After you get married, kiss your wife in places where she's never been kissed before.
The original version is rendered into“ 结婚后，亲吻你妻子从没被吻过的地方。”
This advertisement contains two meanings: on the one hand after you get married, kiss somewhere of your wife where she’s never been kissed before; on the other hand after you get married, take your wife to the places where your wife has never been to and kiss her there. Here “places” is literally converted into “地方”，which is exactly the Chinese equivalent of “places”. The translation successfully conveys “地方” into double meanings “a place to go” and “the part of one’s body”, which makes the readers of the Chinese version to understand the intention of this advertisement easily just as the English readers do. The advertiser uses this homographic pun perfectly so as to attract the new couple. Some advertisements are written in unique structure and rhetoric, which demands literal translation only.
(2) In HongHu day is going to break．(Zhang Aiping, 3)
“洪湖就要天亮了”
On one hand, here “day is going to break” means that first light will appear when the sun is going to rise above the horizon, that is daybreak; on the other hand, this sentence has another meaning that is the revolution is going to succeed. We will win the battle; the dawn of victory is coming. Both in English and Chinese version，this sentence contain two levels of meanings. However, the readers can immediately understands the double meanings．
(3) A business in Million, A profit in pennies.
“百万生意，毫厘利润”。
The advertisement is written in symmetric structure. Literally, we can translate the advertisement into Chinese with the same structure and rhetoric. Literal translation is not equal to dead translation that is word for word translation. It may begin, from a word-for-word translation, but make change in conformity with Chinese grammar it can change structures at any rank by inserting additional words. Especially the source language constructions are converted to their nearest target language equivalence. It seems that literal translation not only reproduces the form and the content of the original, but also introduces some new things from the foreign countries.
5.2 Free Translation 意译
Sometimes, because of social and cultural differences between English and Chinese，the translators can’t use literal translation. The translators have to use free translation. There are two free translations. First, it shows the differences between the first language culture and target language culture, second, it enriches the vocabulary of the target language. Because there are so many differences between the Chinese and English languages in culture, sometimes literal translation fails to get the communicative functions of advertisements. However, free translation tries to express the original meaning in another form of the target text.#p#分页标题#e#
For example:
Spoil yourself and not yow figure.
“尽情的吃吧，别担心体重”.
The phrase “spoil” oneself means to “enjoy oneself to hearts content” (Wang Yanxi, 96)，At the same time “spoil one’s figure” means to “make a damage on one’s body”, who may become fat. In this ad，the punny word is “spoil”. The advertiser uses the pun to persuade the Ice-Cream lover to eat without worrying about their weight. It achieves a good effect．
However, using free translation can only express the general meaning of the original version, the humor, wit, satire or even complicated feelings that are expressed uniquely by the use of puns may not be fully conveyed.
5.3 Annotated Translations 注释翻译
Pun translation has its limitations; there is no doubt that a translator will face obstacles more or less, in both language and culture in translating. In such cases, if he or she cannot make them clear, a translator may seek to other translation techniques, such as, annotation. Annotation in translation not only makes the sense of the original, but also easy to see and easy to understand. And it offers an opportunity for the reader to appreciate the beauty of the source language. People don’t need to worry about when they don’t know.
For example:
OIC make you “Oh, I see”.
“OIC 眼镜让你重新清” (Xu, 6)
This is an advertisement for eyeglasses. The copywriter uses pun skillfully, there are two meanings. First, OIC sounds like “Oh, I see”. At the same time, the interesting image of the picture is just like a pair of glasses. It can give readers a deep impression. It is a successful case which has the wisdom and humor in it. However, when we translate this advertisement into Chinese, there are some problems. Because of the different pronunciation system, Chinese readers have a difficulty in enjoying the wisdom in it. Therefore, translators need to seek other means so as to make the punny sense of the original to see easily and easy to understand, such as OIC which should be stated in other words to explain the meaning, thus offering a chance for the reader to appreciate the beauty of the source language
However, adopting annotation in translation is always the last choice, because the humor in the original version is difficult to convert completely in the translated version.
5.4 Parody Translations 模仿翻译
Every country’s culture has its own idioms, slangs, set phrases and so on, they are culture-bounded and they usually have the difficulties of translation when a product is to be introduced into another culture. Most of the time, they do not make any sense in another culture, while using of idioms familiar to or favored by target customers who may cause a surge of warm feeling. Thus, translations are more likely to be achieved successfully when parody translation is used in the text of advertisement.#p#分页标题#e#
Parody translation is that the meaning of the original is translated into forms that the meanings of the original forms are preserved almost accurately and naturally. The goal of parody translation is to achieve the closest natural equivalent in target language to match the ideas of the original text.
For example:
All is well that ends well.
“烟蒂好，烟就好”.
This is an advertisement for a kind of cigarette. The slogan “all is well that ends well” is from one of Shakespeare’s famous play, which means that if the result is good, everything is good. The copywriter writes this advertisement skillfully, so when western consumers read this advertisement, the certain appearance of cigarette with good quality can appear in their mind. And the word “end” in the advertisement contains double meanings: one is the original meaning "result", and the other refers to “cigarette end” or “butt”. When it is translated into Chinese, it goes to the version “烟蒂好，烟就好”, which successfully applies a rhetoric rhyme in translating. It not only transfers the original meaning successfully, but also has some effect in form. When Chinese readers read the translation of slogan, they would be attracted by the use of the rhetoric device easily, and then they would think about the advertisement carefully and to find the background meaning of this product. It not only possesses excellent raw materials but also has a good cigarette end. This is because the product meets a great demand in Chinese market.
6. Conclusion 结论
To make a conclusion, pun is one of the most used rhetoric devices in English advertisement. It can make products more competitive and profitable. In today’s society, the better use of advertisement will help a company a lot in winning lots of consumers. There are main four kinds of puns which are applied in advertising English, that is, homonymic puns, homographic puns, semantic puns and idiomatic puns. The four strategies used in the paper are some of possible methods in the translation of pun in advertisement. Puns, as a very important rhetorical device, can produce special pragmatic functions: they are information function, humorous function, persuasive function, economical function, readability function and association function. In the actual translation, it must be based on the concrete condition and then use other effective methods to express the meaning of text. It will help people to study Chinese advertisements through the analysis of English advertisement. And the successful translation of examples also helps translation agencies have a further development.
Works Cited 引用文献
Bovee, Courtland L. & Arens, William F. Contemporary Advertising. Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1992.
Cook, G. The Discourse of Advertising. London: Routledge. 1992.
Delabastita, Dirk. #p#分页标题#e#Translating Puns: Possibilities and Restrains. New Comparison（1987）, 143-159.
Dirk Traductio: Essays on punning and Translation. New York: St Jseome, 1997: 207-232.
McQuarrie, E. F.&Mick, G. M. Journal of Consumer Research. Figures of Rhetoric in Advertising Language. Vol. 1996, 22, 424-438.
Oxford Advanced Learner’s English—Chinese Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 1997: 1202.
Oxford English-Chinese Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press and Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2005.
Tanaka, Keiko. A Pragmatic Approach Advertising language. Lingua, 1992(87).
Wells William, John Burnett, and Sandra Moriarty. Advertising-Principles and Practice. 6 th ed. New York: Pretice Hall, 2002
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