摘 要
在全球化高度发展地背景下，中国的对外贸易取得了很大的进步，对外贸易量很大。就长远来说，中国改革开放的30年，不算是一段很长的时间。而且由于北京奥运会的成功申办，将会有更多外商来华投资。本文认为标准地道的企业对外宣传在这些贸易活动中显得尤为重要。首先好的对外宣传资料的翻译能够为企业树立良好的企业形象，从而吸引更多投资者。其次，在当今激烈的市场竞争中，它能提升企业的竞争力。鉴于企业外宣资料是一种特殊的文本形式，它有着自身的特点，而这些特点又是由企业活动者的目的决定的。国内企业想借助企业自身良好的企业形象来达到促销产品和推广服务的目的, 从而刺激人们的消费欲望。所以一系列的促销活动都以这个宗旨为根本。明白这一点，我们在翻译时应该围绕这一点。本文结合中国企业的外宣资料的特点——功利性，应用德国功能理论的目的论的核心观点——目的原则、连贯原则、忠诚原则，针对企业外宣翻译时存在的问题，如，中式英语，冗长，文化因素缺失以及表达不当等，提出相应的翻译策略和方法，如省译，增译，改译。 企业外宣的翻译方法皆无固定，但须以企业的目的为核心，来采取不同的方法和策略，能够达到预期的效果皆为好方法。
关键词：企业外宣翻译；目的论；翻译策略
ABSTRACT
Under the background of highly- developing globalization, China has made a big stride in foreign trade and has had a large amount of economic interaction with investors abroad. In the long run, the three decades for Chinese opening and reform is not a long period. However, with success of Beijing Olympic Games, China has attracted more attention from the foreigners. Thus, more and more foreigners will flock into China, carrying out many business activities. The author thinks that a well translated corporation publicity materials can help the company establish a good image open to the public, which in turn can bring more people into Chinese market. Also, it can strengthen Chinese companies’ competitiveness in the fierce international market. The corporate promotional publicity is, in general, considered as a special text type with its own features which are determined by the purposes corporate activities. These companies want to promote their products or services based on a good company image, and then stimulate people’s desire of purchase. So the ultimate objective is to benefit most from their promotional activities. Understanding this point, we should revolve around it while we do the translation. In this thesis, according to the company’s attribute——profit-orientation, the author supply a new theory——Skopostheorie to the translation of corporation promotional publicity. Based on the main problems of the corporate promotional publicity translation, such as Chinglish, overlength, lack the cultural element and improper expression, the author will propose corresponding translation strategies, like, addition, omission and adaptation,etc.
Of course, all these ways of corporation material translation are not still. All those strategies spinning around the company’s ultimate purpose are reasonable and hold water.
Keywords：corporate promotional publicity translation; Skopostheorie; strategies of translation
Contents
1
1．Introduction
2
2. The Development of Functionalist Approach and Skopostheorie
2
The Process of Functionalist Approach Development
2
Skopostheorie
3
3. Typical Problems in the Corporate Promotional Publicity Translation
3
Chinglish
4
Overlength
4
Lack of Cultural Element
5
Improper Expression
5
4. Principles for Corporate Publicity Translation
5
with Skopostheorie
5
Principle of Skopos Rule
7
Principle of Intratextul Coherence Rule
Principle of Fidelity Rule
8
10
5．Conclusion
12
Acknowledgements
13
References
1．Introduction
Speaking of “外宣翻译”, there are many versions, such as “translating for overseas audience”, “external publicity”, “translating for foreign- oriented publicity”. But Yu Jianming thinks, for the preciseness and simplicity, “promotional publicity”[1] is an ideal version, which is in accordance with my choice. Today, everyone knows that with the reform and opening-up policy, China is more open to the outside world. Facts prove that more and more foreign businessmen flock into China, so good C-E translations for foreign-oriented publicity surely contribute a lot to the development of domestic companies. Every aspect of the company ranging from company’s self-introductions to its products will be a name card, if effective translation strategies are used. Then many relevant researches have been done in decades. They mainly focus on five categories: 1) studies from the pure linguistic view；2) analysis of problems existing in the English translation of Chinese publicity materials; 3) translation strategies should be TT-centered；4）English translation should be a re-creation based on the ST; 5) cultural perspectives.
The traditional translation theories have always studied translation from the perspective of linguistics. When translating practical texts, many scholars have found that the theory of equivalence can’t solve all the problems in translation practice. However, German functionalist approach has placed the translation research into a wider background with action theory introduced. Functionalists have made theoretical breakthroughs by attaching importance to the intended text functions, addressees, time and place of reception, medium, the motive for the target text, etc. So an important concept “translation brief” has been put forward, intended to shed lights on the reasons why the translators adopt various strategies in their translation practice. Functionalist theorists have been pioneers in the two most important shifts in theoretical developments in translation theory: (1) the shift from source-oriented theories to target-oriented theories and (2) the shift to include cultural factors as well as linguistic elements in the translation training models. (Gentzler, 2004:70)[3]
We all know that almost all the companies are benefits-oriented and accordingly all the C-E translations are based on the purposes. Skopostheorie defines translation as “a complex action designed to achieve a particular purpose” which means that all the translation strategies and principles are up to the purpose of the translation activity. So a marriage between them is, of course, possible. Besides, with such a comparatively short time spent on the research of Skopostheorie, we necessarily should have a close look at the theory.
2. The Development of Functionalist Approach and Skopostheorie
The Process of Functionalist Approach Development
As early as 1971, Katharina Reiss, introduced a functional category into her book “Possibilities and Limits of Translation Criticism”, which may be seen as the prelude to the scholarly analysis of translation in Germany. Further on, Hans J. Vermeer tried to bridge the gap between theory and practice. He has broken the limits of translation theories proposed by the former scholars especially those linguists. Then Justa Holz-Manttari goes one step further than Vermeer, in her theory and methodology of “translational action” based on the principles of action theory (von Wright 1968：21)[4] and she gets rid of the traditional concepts and expectations connected with the word. Christiane Nord, who for the first time in her book entitled “translating as a purposeful activity” collects and analyzes the functionalist approach comprehensively and systematically in English. Her contribution to the functionalism is proposing the principle “Skopos plus loyalty”.
Functionalist approach as a comparatively new translation theory has been widely accepted and applied to many pragmatic translating processes. Not only does it account for different strategies in different translation situation, in which source texts are not the only factor involved. “Functionalist’ means focusing on function or functions of texts and translation.”[5] (Nord, 2001:1) It contains three major parts: 1) its definition and analysis on “translation”, 2) much importance attached to the roles of the participants in the translating process, and 3) the functional principle proposed.
Skopostheorie
Skopostheorie is a key theory of German functional approaches which serve as a new way to translation research. Skopostheorie defines translation as “a complex action designed to achieve a particular purpose” [6] (qtd. in Nord, 2001:13). It means that all the translation strategies and principles are up to the purpose of the translation activity. Even the same promotional material can be translated into many versions due to the specific purposes and the actual demand of the company given to the translator. According to Skopostheorie, there are three basic rules to govern the translator’s activities in the process of translation. They are Skopos rule, coherence rule and fidelity rule. They are especially important in the translation of corporation promotional materials. Meanwhile, Skopostheorie also emphasizes the initiative of the translator in the process of translation
3. Typical Problems in the Corporate Promotional Publicity Translation
In the book New Course Book on Pragmatic Translation by Chen（陈小慰2006：97）, “企业外宣资料”can be rendered into Corporate Promotional Material which covers printed advertisement, corporate introduction as well as product instruction, etc, which belong to vocative and operative texts. Corporate promotional material implies the material published or issued by the corporation, which transmits the information of the company via different channels, such as brochure, flysheet, newspaper, journals, homepages on the Internet, etc.
Through all the researches done in these years, there is no denying that much has been achieved by our domestic translators, scholars, professors and so on. But it is safe to say that there is still much room for improvement. Many mistakes or weaknesses have been deep-rooted during the whole translation of the corporate foreign-oriented publicity materials. The translation of publicity materials is a kind of translation concerning public image. However, inadequate, even wrong translation of the kind can be easily found at hotel, scenic spot and museum or at the public places such as park, street and market etc. It reflects the level of communication and humanities environment of a nation. The following paragraphs cover most commonly seen mistakes.
Chinglish
John Pinkham defines Chinglish in her book The Translator’s Guide to Chinglish as this: “Chinglish, of course, is that misshapen, hybrid language that is neither English nor Chinese but that might be described as ‘English with Chinese characteristics’”. Sometimes copying the original Chinese form may even go as far as to cause unnecessary misunderstanding.
A crawling slogan on East Nanjing Road reads “欢迎你到南京路”―”Welcome You to Nanjing Road”. Although the usage of “welcome” has been a cliche, what is strange here is that after so many years of criticism toward the translation of Chinese sentence pattern “欢迎你来…”, such a howler still appeared in Nanjing Road which crowned as commercial street of China. This mistake is mainly due to the fact that some Chinese translators are prone to put such Chinese sentence patterns into their English counterparts in a word-for-word manner. The above example has been translated regardless of the usage of the English verb “welcome”, which can not be used in the sentence pattern “welcome somebody to some place”.
Overlength
In China, opening speeches is never absent in any celebrations, such as “we have achieved a lot under the positive guidance of Chinese communist party, with so and so spirit and by certain guideline” etc. Unlikely, in the western countries people always express their gratitude to the distinguished guests or some one who made lots of contribution. To reach the specific purpose of promotional publicity, we can make the speeches more precise and shorter on such occasions, like, “If may I say, I’d like to take this rare opportunity to express our greatest gratitude to those who are so supportive to us in the past years. Our particular thanks should go to…”
Lack of Cultural Element
Each nationality has owned its own peculiar culture. Though their cultures may have something in common, great differences still exist among them, particularly between oriental and western cultures. Today, “Translation is no longer merely regarded as the transmission of language symbols. It is also regarded as a model of cultural transmission”.17
One typical example is the word “dragon”. In Chinese we often say “龙的传人”and “龙头企业”. In the west, the dragon is considered as a frightening and devilish monster while it has long been regarded as a legendarily auspicious animal in China. Chinese emperors often compared themselves to the dragon. In this case, we can not translate the Chinese words above literally in order to avoid cultural misunderstanding. Instead, we can turn to “functional equivalence” and translate “龙头” as “leader” or “flagship”. Though not equivalent in form, they are “functional equivalent” in meaning.
Improper Expression
Each language has its own language habits and its distinctive ways of expression and English is no exception. One of the most frequent problems in publicity translation is that an English phrase, expression, or sentence is exactly modeled after its Chinese counterpart. Such an improperly expressed phrase or sentence will probably sound awkward or odd to foreign readers.
For instance, we say “保存完好” in Chinese, but its English translation is “well preserved” rather than “preserved well” though the words are the same except their order.
Another important aspect of improper expression is the choice of words, which has long been important for both translators and writers. We must be careful in choosing the right word for the right context. In a great number of publicity materials, however, such mistakes do cause confusion among foreigners and seem quite ridiculous to them. In the expression “Bell-Knocking on the New Year’s Eve at Hanhsan Temple”[7], “knocking” is not so good as “tolling”, though they have similar meaning in Chinese. This is largely due to collocation.
4. Principles for Corporate Publicity Translation
with Skopostheorie
Principle of Skopos Rule
According to Skopostheorie (the Skopos is, generally, specified by the translation brief——translated as “commission” by Vermeer, “assignment” by Pochhacker and Kussmaul, etc. Here Nord adopts Janet Fraser’s term “brief”), the prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose of the overall translation action (Nord, 2001). In Vermeer’s point of view, three possible kinds of purpose in the field of translation are distinguished: the general purpose aimed at by the translation process, the communicative purpose aimed at by the target text in the target translation and the purpose aimed at by a particular translation strategy or procedure.
The (intended) text functions mean the ultimate goal that the target text is supposed to achieve. While translating the corporate publicity promotional material, we must have a clear idea of the company in mind. It is safe to say that translation here is motive-driven. Since the ultimate purpose of the company is to induce the customers to purchase their products or services. Therefore in order to achieve the goal, the translation must be customer-oriented, namely, the translation finally must be acceptable, appealing, satisfying. A translator who ignores the motive or intention will probably render the source text blindly, which always drives the translation meaningless. Let us look at the following example:
Source text:
亚龙湾最突出、最引人入胜的是她的海水和沙滩。这里湛蓝的海水清澈如镜，能见度超过10米，海底珊瑚保存完好，生活着众多形态各异、色彩缤纷的热带鱼种，是国家级珊瑚礁重点保护区，因此也成了难得的潜水胜地。亚龙湾柔软细腻的沙滩洁白如银，延伸约8 公里，长度约是美国夏威夷的3倍。
When a translator is going to render the paragraph into English, he or she is very clear about the expectation of the tourists, who are eager to know an objective description about the sand and sea in the scenic spot. So anything unrelated with the tourism should be deleted or adapted in the target text (see the underlined part and bold characters). The following target text justifies the motive of the production.
Target text:
The most striking view of the bay is the sea and the beach. The seawater is crystal clear, with visibility as far down as 10 meters. Under the surface are all kinds of coral and colorful tropical fish, making it an ideal destination for divers. The beach, covered with silver-white sand, extends 8 km, three times the length of the beach in Hawaii.
In summary, after reading the tourism brochure, the foreigners would get a good mastery of the highlights of the Yalong Bay, which is known for its sea and beach. And the beautiful bay boasts of its clear water, corals and tropical fish. Compared with the flowery expressions, the plain English used in target text rightly meets the needs of those foreigners who want to go there for a tour, which is the final purpose of those corporations. Therefore, the important concept “translation brief” has shed lights on the strategies that the translators adopt while they do the publicity-oriented C-E translations.
Principle of Intratextul Coherence Rule
Intratextual coherence rule means that target text should be coherent with the situation of the receiver, thus to make the receiver easily understand the translation. In order to achieve the goal, the target text must make sense in the culture in which the receiver lives. Vermeer defines a culture as:
the entire setting of norms and conventions an individual as a member of his society must know in order to be ‘like everybody’. (Nord 2001:33)
Thereafter, the author thinks culture element is one of the most important aspect(s) which deserves the translators much attention. While translating corporate promotional publicity, in order to make it more acceptable for foreigners, we must take their culture into consideration. Here is an example:
Original version: 在泰国，相信中医中药，了解同仁堂的人很多， 同仁堂如鱼得水。
English version: In Thailand, where most people subscribe to traditional Chinese medicine, and have heard Tong Ren Tang, this drug store is like a Chinese honey pot for Thai bees.
Analysis: “如鱼得水”is not translated literally as “like a fish getting the water”, instead, “like a Chinese honey pot for Thai bees”, which not only employs the established simile in the English language to lower the understanding barrier of the target readers, but also on the coinage basis , adds “Chinese” and “Thai” to modify the symbol words “honey” and “bees” so that the reputation of the Chinese drug group in Thailand is demonstrated in a vivid and distinct way. On the other hand, the small adaptation on the established simile produces an air of novelty that adds to the flavor of the news and thus interests the readers. (Xia Zhiqun, 2006)
Principle of Fidelity Rule
The ‘fidelity rule’, refers to the coherent relationship existing between source and target text. In the case of the Skopos rule, the important point is that intertextual coherence should exist between source and target text while the form it takes depends on the translator’s interpretation of the source text and on the translation Skopos. The intertextual coherence indicates the corresponding relationship between the source text and target text while the intratextual coherence focuses on the readability and acceptability of the target text. It is quite similar to what we often call that the target text is faithful to the source text. The faithfulness can be seen from linguistic level: words, sentences, grammars, figure of speech, or from the discourse perspective: structures, styles etc. The extent ranging between complete imitation and complete deviation, and the form it takes to maintain the coherence with the source text all depend both on the translator's interpretation of the source text and on the translation Skopos.
Translators’ offering some background information will make it easier and clearer for foreigners to understand what they care about. A senior translator Duan Liancheng pointed out that “Don’t underestimate the audience’s intelligence. But never over-estimate an ordinary foreigner’s knowledge of China.” Intratextual coherence means the TT receiver should be able to understand the target text, which should make sense in the communicative situation and culture in which it is received.
Here is an example in point:
Chinese version: 公司于2000年顺利通过IS9001：2000版国际质量体系认证，形成了一套完整的质量保障体系， 2002年11月被中国轻工业质量认证中心授予“环保陶瓷”荣誉称号；2003年10月被广东省用户委员会评为“广东省用户满意单位”；并于2003年12月被国家质检总局授予“国家免检产品” 荣誉称号。
English Translation: The company passed IS9001: 2000 International Quality System Certification in 2000, and has established a complete quality assurance system. It was awarded as “Environment-friendly ceramics” by China Light Industry Quality Certification Center in November 2002, entitled as “Guangdong Province Customer Satisfaction Enterprise” by Guangdong Province Customer Committee in October 203, and award as “National Inspection Free Product” by the National General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine in Dec, 2003.
In this short paragraph, the company exhibits four honorary titles: ISO9001: 2000版国际体系认证， “环保陶瓷“ 荣誉称号，“广东省用户满意企业” and “国家免检产品” ，without further explaining what the awards are about, what requirements should be met to win each and how this company is qualified to receive the glories. For people who are familiar with the awarding system, this information is able to serve as a strong support for the qualification of the company. However, the westerners are probably not so moved by these titles. Take the “Guangdong Province Customer Satisfaction Enterprise” as an example. Questions may haunt the reader, such as “What is the evaluation standard of the award?” “How often is the award granted?” “How many enterprises can get the award in each season?” In other words, only when the information becomes convincing enough can the foreigners acknowledge the qualification of the company.
In the perspective of functionalism, the source text is only an offer of information, from which a translator selects the information that can serve the ultimate function according to the commission of the commissioner (the company in this case), the translation brief and his promotional experience. Since the awards and titles make little sense to the foreign readers, it is no use listing all of them in detail in the target text. A translator only need summarize these glories by a short sentence like “The company has been awarded with many honorary titles for its quality product and excellent service by local, provincial and national institutions. To make the information concrete enough, he can add a brief explanation in the form of a note or an attributive clause to familiarize the foreign clients with the awarding system. In this way, the function can be expected to realize.
5．Conclusion
German functionalist approaches have revolutionized the traditional translation theory by Skopostheorie，which seeks to liberate translators from servitude to the source text, seeing translation as a new communicative act that must be purposeful with respect to the translator’s client and readership. The Skopos or purpose plays a guiding role in the translation process. Functionalists start from the analyses of text typology so as to make clear the functions of the source text. As far as the participants of translational action are concerned, the functionalist approaches give priority to the roles of the initiator and target receivers. The initiator gives the translation brief and the intended target receiver in a specific cultural context that is a decisive factor in translating. Of the guiding rules of translation, the Skopos rule and Fidelity rule are the top ranking rules for a translation which may determine which strategy to be employed: documentary or instrumental one.
Functionalists overthrow the traditional translation criterion—equivalence, and put forward a new one— adequacy. It is an adequate translation only if the target text fulfills its intended functions. Of course, the function of the translation can’t be drawn automatically from the analysis of the ST, but is determined by the Skopos of the intercultural communications. (Zhang，2000：91)
Although this theory has its own disadvantages: the western translation field holding 10 criticisms over German functionalist approaches which are involved with Skopostheorie (Nord, 2001: 109-122), and Schaffner and Christiane Nord consent to some of the criticisms that have been made of Skopos theory by other scholars, functionalist approaches break through the previous equivalence-based linguistic translation theories, widen the research scope and offer new perspectives for translation studies.
The functional theory which has developed from translator-training institutions will surely have a good guiding role in English translation of Chinese corporate material translations. In this thesis, the author used Skopostheorie to analyze the present situation of C-E translation of corporate material translations, because of their something in common——purpose-orientation (a new guideline for the translation). And this theory helps people avoid the limitations of the traditional translations theories, such as equivalence-based linguistic approach, the angle of communicative, relevance theory, etc. Meanwhile convenience and fluency are available.
In this thesis, the author employed this theory to solve some typical problems of corperate materials translation, such as Chinglish, overlength, lack of cultural element and improper expression. As you can see that good effects have been achieved above analysis. But they are not very satisfactory for no single translation theory can summarize all the translation situations. It has to be admitted that no theory is perfect. More relevant translation theories need to be found and applied there. Since the economic globalization keeps steeping forward, further studies of the translation of corporate promotion material need to be carried on to deal with new challenges in the field.
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