Abstract

Advertisement, an important communication media, plays an irreplaceable role in boosting consumption. With the rapid growth of globalization in China, various international brands have moved into China, and more and more English advertisements have been translated into Chinese. However, because the Chinese version of English advertisements (hereinafter referred to as Chinese version) are everywhere. Their translating methods and techniques is worth discussing. 

Cosmetics advertisement, as a typical advertising type which be frequent translated into Chinese, is often over descripted in Chinese version than in English one. Aiming at this phenomenon, this thesis will analyze the translation skills and techniques mainly focusing on different kinds of translation theories, and discuss its reason combined with stylistic features of advertising. 

This thesis, at first, will illustrate the necessity of the study and some previous studies of this topic. Then, make an explanation to the reason of using them. Finally, the analysis is given to the stylistic features of English cosmetics advertisements supported by plenty of examples of both English and Chinese versions of an advertising copy, in order to explain the over descripted phenomenon. It is hoped that, this thesis could have some reference for the following studies of English advertising translations, especially in cosmetics advertising translations.

Keywords: cosmetics advertisement, functional approach, vogue language

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 Aims of the Research-1

1.2-Significance of the Research-1

1.3-Organization of the Research-2

2. Literature review-3

2.1 Skopos Theory-3

2.1.1 What is Skopos Theory-3

2.1.2 Skopos theory and advertisement translation-3

2.2-Fuzziness in Language and Translation-4

3. Skopo theory in E-C translation of cosmetic advertisements-6

3.1 Brevity vs Rhythmicity-6

3.2 Verbs vs Nouns-7

4. Fuzziness in E-C Translation of Cosmetic Advertisements-9

4.1 Fuzziness in Phonetic Sound-9

4.2 Fuzziness in Words-10

4.3 Fuzziness attributed to Trans-cultural Communication-10

5. Conclusion-12

5.1 Summary of the Research-12

5.2 Limitations of the Research-12

References-13