Functional Equivalence in English Trademark Translation

《商务翻译》课程论文要求

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《商务翻译》课程论文格式

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（注：论文题目太长时，应该缩短，可加副标题。）

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一级标题：三号字体 二级标题：小三号字体 三级标题：四号字体 四级标题：小四号字体

标题一律用粗体（Boldface） 标题体系应该一致：

或：1 1.1 1.1.1 2 2.1 2.1.1

或：I II III A B C 1 2 3 1) 2) 3) a b c 中文：一、 （一） 1、 1）（用于例句编号） 字号：

正文字体大小：小四（12号字体），行距：1.5 引文字体大小：五号（11号字体）， 行距：1

段落：每一段开头缩进两个汉字（或四个英文）字符的位置，段与段之间不空一行。

Functional Equivalence in English Trademark Translation

摘要：商标是商品的标记，是商品区别于同类产品的标志。商标翻译的好坏直接影响

到商品的销售。本文以宝洁公司旗下的品牌为例，运用奈达的功能对等理论对英语商标的翻译进行分析，发现英语商标的翻译可以运用音译法，直译法，和意译法，从而达到功能对等。

Key Words: English Trademark Translation, Functional Equivalence, Transliteration,

Literal Translation, Free Translation

1. Introduction

As China is developing with a rapid speed, and has played a more and more important role in the international trade, more and more foreign companies have entered Chinese market and brought their goods into China. Since trademark is the symbol of the goods, the translation of trademark becomes important in people’s daily life.

A number of scholars have devoted themselves into English trademark translation. Generally, the methods of English trademark translation are transliteration, free translation, combination of transliteration, free translation, and adjustment. (郑畅,2006)

However, there are few comprehensive theories about English trademark translation. Since Procter & Gamble Co. is one of the world largest daily necessity manufacturers, which headquarters in America and has succeed in China, this paper will take some trademarks in Procter & Gamble Co. as examples, to analyze the methods in English trademark translation. The purpose of this study is to examine how Nide’s functional equivalence is applied in English trademark translation

2. Nide’s Functional Equivalence Theory

Eugene A. Nide is a distinguished American translator, and is regarded as the most influential one among all contemporary translation theorists. “Functional equivalence” is Nida’s major contribution to translator studies, which is firstly employed as “dynamic equivalence” in Toward a Science of Translation. Since the expression “dynamic equivalence” has often been misunderstood by some translator as referring to “anything which might have special impact and appeal for receptors”, Nida replaced it with “functional equivalence” in 1986. (马会娟, 2009:98) “ Functional equivalence” is defined as “the reader of a translated text should be able to comprehend it to the point that they can conceive of how the original readers of text should readers of the text must have understood and appreciated it.” (Nida, 1993:118) In Nida’s view, translating is not to get something completely identical, but to

reproduce “the closest natural equivalence to the source-language message. (马会娟,2009:91)

3. The Application of Functional Equivalence Theory in English Trademark Translation

3.1Transliteration

Transliteration means to translate a trademark with the same or similar target vocabularies according to the pronunciation of the original trademark. (赵树,2010) Transliteration is one of the most widely used methods in English trademark translation. “Pantene”(潘婷), “Tide”(汰渍), “Lenor”（兰诺）are good examples. Their translated words are sounded similar with the original one. Besides, since one pronunciation has different Chinese characters and different meanings, people should pay attention to choosing proper Chinese characters in transliteration. Though “蟠停” and “潘婷” have similar pronunciations, “潘婷” is better, because it will give people a beautiful image, which appears like a young girl with a long hair. As the proverb goes, “the love for beauty is a nature of all human beings”. Thus, under the translation “潘婷”, “Pantene” will attract large amount of Chinese customers, which means its translated trademark has made a same good effect with its original one. In this way, it meets “function equivalence”.

3.2 Literal Translation

Though transliteration is simple and easy to be applied, it does not work all the time, thus, another simple translation method—literal translation is needed. “Literal translation attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic structures of the second language allow, the exact contextual meaning of the original.”(Newmark, 2001:39) Since trademark generally consists of one or a few words, and has no sentence in it, literal translation in trademark translation only refers to translating the words in trademark. “If a more or less literal correspondence is functionally equivalent in both designative and associative meaning, then obviously no adjustments in form are necessary.”(Nida, 1993:125) That is to say, if the translated trademark could have the similar meaning with the original one, literal translation can be used. Take P&G’s cosmetics “COVERGIRL”, which is literately translated into “封面女郎”, as an example. The name “COVERGIRL” comes from the beautiful girl on the cover of international fashion magazines, and it is a best-selling in America. When it comes into

China with the name of “封面女郎”, it also has drawn Chinese people’s attention, and becomes a really famous trademark.

3.3 Free Translation

Sometime, it is really impossible for the translator to translate the English trademark in transliteration or literal translation. For instance, “Rejoice”, “Head&Shoulders”, “Safeguard”, and so on. If these trademarks are translated in transliteration or literal translation, like “快乐”, “头和肩”, “安全卫士”, their original meanings and spirits are lost, which is against “functional equivalence”. According to Nida’s functional equivalence, translating is to reproduce the closet natural equivalence to the source-language message. (马会娟,2009:91) As “Rejoice” and “Head&Shoulders” are kinds of shampoos, and their English name can make people fell comfortable and relaxed, “飘柔” and “海飞丝” are the proper translations. They have expressed the effectiveness of making hair soft and smooth by using these shampoos, which is easier to be accepted by Chinese people. As to “safeguard”, “舒肤佳” is better than “安全卫士”. “舒肤佳” is an elegant translation, which has kept the original meaning, that is to say, to keep the skin clean and comfortable, while “安全卫士” is hard for people to remember its original product., which means it is not a proper translation. So in these situations, people should use free translation.

4. Conclusion

In this paper, the author attempts to examine how Nida’s functional equivalence is well applied in English trademark translation under the methods of transliteration, literal translation, and free translation. According to Nida’s functional equivalence, a good trademark translation should work as efficiently as it does in the original one. It is hoped that this paper could give some idea to the translator in English trademark translation. However, due to the author’s limited knowledge and capacity, the paper is far from a perfect one, and more researches should be done in the future.

References

[1] Newmark，Peter. Approaches to Translation [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2001.

[2] Nida, Eugene A. Language, Culture, and Translating [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 1993.

[3]马会娟, A Study on Nida’s Translation Theory[M]. Foreign Language Teaching and

Research Press, 2009.

[4] 赵树, A Functional Equivalence Study on Brand Name Translation[D].上海外国语大学硕士学位论文,2010.

[5] 郑畅, On translation of English and Chinese Trademarks from the Approach of Functional Equivalence[D].广西师范大学硕士学位论文, 2006.