Abstract

With the rapid growth of global economic and trade exchanges, import and export of commodities are becoming more and more frequent, and many kinds of products are distributed to different countries. Meanwhile, trademarks, which attract customers to buy, need to be translated into different kinds of languages. As English is most used as a universal language, and the Chinese total volume of import and export is large, the demand for the translation of trademarks between the two languages is ever increasing. The research object of this thesis is the translation of trademarks between Chinese and English. Trademarks have been analyzed and researched from a variety of angles. Some research are under the guide of Skopostheorie, some are from the perspective of contrastive discourse analysis of interpersonal function, and some are based on the text features and style of directions or reception of readers, and so on. This thesis will study the translation of trademarks from the perspective of aesthetics. That is a comparatively new perspective as far as the translation of trademarks is concerned, and relative researches are still in the initial stage, since trademarks have long been just regarded as direct explanations without aesthetical feelings. As a kind of pragmatic text, the basic function of trademarks is certainly to introduce products or the use of products to customers. However, trademarks are endowed with the new role of sales promotion in the background of the commodity economy, and to play this role, they must attract customers’ attention by providing aesthetical enjoyment. Therefore, aesthetic study on translation of trademarks is imperative and necessary. This thesis includes five chapters:  Chapter One is the introduction; Chapter Two is a literature review, to review the theory applied in this thesis—translation aesthetics; Chapter Three introduces the existing problems in translation of cosmetic trademarks; Chapter Four is translation strategies of cosmetic trademarks in the field of aesthetic, to apply aesthetics to the translation of trademarks and try to put forward some translation methods; Chapter Five is the conclusion.  Keywords: Trademarks; translation aesthetics; aesthetical feelings; sales promotion; commodity economy.

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

Chapter 1 Introduction-1

1.1 Research Background-1

1.2 Significance of the Research-1

1.3 Purpose for the research-2

1.4 Approaches and arrangement-2

Chapter 2 Literature Review-2

2.1 The contents of Aesthetics-3

2.1.1 Definition of Aesthetics-4

2.1.2 General aspects of Aesthetics-4

2.1.3 Principles of Aesthetics-5

Chapter 3 Achievements and deficiencies in the translation of cosmetic trademarks from the perspective of aesthetics-6

3.1 Achievements in the translation of cosmetic trademarks from the perspective of aesthetics-6

3.2 Deficiencies in the translation of cosmetic trademarks from the perspective of aesthetics-8

Chapter 4 Translation strategies of cosmetic trademarks in the field of aesthetic-8

4.1 Transliteration-8

4.2 Literal translation-9

4.3 Combination of transliteration and literal translation-10

4.4 Free translation-10

4.5 Coinage-10

Chapter 5 Conclusion-11

References-13