According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 6th，brand name is“ the name given to a product by the company that produces it”(Wehmeier,2004)。 Brand name, “As the kernel of advertisements，a successful brand name can swiftly draw the attention of consumers，evoke imagination and desires so that it can persuade the potential customers to buy a product，use a service or take specific action”(Han,2007)。论文网
Therefore, if one company wants to develop its oversea market, it must know the significance of its brand name’s translation。 Brand translation acquires translators not only to regard this name as an academic and commercial activity, but also to have a clear understand of another culture, and must have the consciousness and respect of these two cultures’ discrepancies, and translators are also required to know the proper usage of sociolinguistic knowledge。 Only in this way can the translated name become popular, readable and catchy by customers in other countries’。 This research is aimed at finding some existing problems in brand translation。 Some strategies and rules in brand translation process will be discussed。 And the application of sociolinguistics in brand translation will also be discussed。
2。 Literature Review
In recent years, the number of researchers who are concentrating on brand translation is increasing。 Former researches did research about brand translation for different purposes by different method, and on different perspectives。 Most of them got some serviceable discoveries and conclusions in their researches。
2。1 Principles and strategies of brand translation
Some similar points that most previous research essays would like to discuss are principles and strategies in brand translation。
The brand names generally contain specific meanings of a particular culture。 When brand names are translated from English into Chinese or vice versa, an adequate and appropriate conversion of cultural meanings can not only accurately reflect the product's quality but arouse the customer's cultural association so as to create the expected advertising effect and help publicize that particular culture。 (Hu,2001)。
It is not difficult for researchers to think about the cultural differences as the huge gap between western and eastern cultures, including the gap of traditions and gap of customs。 If you neglect this, your translation may become a joke and influence the sales volume of the product in the end。 And translators should realize there are several discrepancies on culture: geographical environment(for example, zephyr(the west wind)is warm and gentle in British people’s eyes because of Shelley’s famous poem “Ode to the West Wind”, but in China, people think zephyr is not propitious because in Chinese culture it means loneliness and sadness), number connotations(for example, Chinese people hate the number four because it sounds like “si” which in Chinese meaning death, end and misfortune, but for people in other countries, they do not have such connotation at all), color connotations(for example, in China red is regarded as blessing and happiness, but in western countries，red is always related to blood and violence) and so on。
Because there are too many aspects translators have to pay attention to, former researchers have already analyzed several key points they think are very important。 Like catering to consumers’ mentality, correctly informing consumer by proper market positioning, being concise and simple, avoiding special political connotations, respecting national feelings and reflecting pleasant association。 And another researcher, Xu Jinqi, proposed that while translating English brands into Chinese, translators should follow “the principle of equivalence theory, combined with the principle of ‘beauty in sense, form and sound’”(Xu,2002)。 文献综述 品牌翻译文化差异意识与社会语言学应用(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_172043.html