Abstract

Advertisement with its own unique characteristics has drawn a lot attention from linguists. So far, many scholars have studied advertising style and language from the perspective of stylistics and pragmatics. But few books and articles published analyzed Chinese advertising translation. However, with the global economy and China's foreign policy of reformation and opening up, China's import and export business is in booming development. English translation of Chinese advertising plays an important role in promoting the sale of foreign goods in the process. But disappointingly, because of too many mistakes, confusion, and misunderstanding caused by different culture backgrounds, the advertising cannot achieve the expected effect. That is why the analysis of the English translation of Chinese advertising should be given high attention. From the perspectives of pragmatics and intercultural communication, this article focuses on the mixed language, based on the analysis of English translation of Chinese advertising, to reveal the pragmatic failures which can be divided into two kinds: pragma-linguistic failure and social pragmatic failure. Due to different cultural backgrounds, cognitive environment and values, the understanding of the same ads may vary and even be diametrically opposite in different regions. Therefore, usually literal translation may not consider these distinctions which are likely to cause conflict with the customs and beliefs of target consumers, finally leading to product sales setback in the international market. In this sense, the correct English translation of Chinese advertising requires not only accurate translation, but also absorbs and integrates different cultures together.

Based on Jenny Thomas’s Pragmatic Failure theory, this article will explore the causes and solutions of cross-cultural pragmatic failure, which will help us to reduce and even avoid pragmatic failures and promote the level of advertising language translation.

Key words：Pragmatic Failure, Culture Transfer, Advertisements Translation

CONTENTS

Abstract

摘要

I. Introduction . .1

  1.1 The definition of pragmatic failure .1

  1.2 Advertising language . 4 

II. Pragmatic failures in translated ads  .5

2.1Socio-pragmatic failure 5

2.2 Pragma-linguistic failure .7

2.3 Phenomenon on violating cooperative principle deliberately. 8

III. Causes of pragmatic failures .9 

3.1 Transference of pragma-linguistic rules of mother tongue to the target language. .  10

3.2 Transference of socio-pragmatic rules of mother tongue to the target language.11

IV. Solutions to avoid or reduce pragmatic failures .12

V. Conclusion .13

References . 15