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After analyzing the parody of famous idioms and proverbs, it is easy to find that the creative versions are short, concise, vivid and interesting. And this kind of translation is easier to catch people’s eye and raise the resonance. In next part, parody of well-known poems and songs will be expounded.
4.2.2 Well-known Poems and Songs
Poetry is the artistic language refined by poets, so it is the crystallization of language and culture. Songs are a highly concentrated form of delicate language, which focuses on rhythm. Therefore, they are easy to be caught and remembered by target people. In ad translation, successfully applying these popular verses and songs, translators can correctly deliver product information and quickly shape product images, which effectively cause the resonance of the audience and promote the sales of the products. Such as:
Example 5. 红玫相机新奉献。 (ad of a camera named “Hongmei”)
My love’s like a Red Rose!
This translation parodied a famous love poem of British poet Robert Burns “My love's like a red, red rose!” which is widely read and spread in the English-spoken countries. So the words in this poem are considered as strong memes in Memetics. In “My love’s like a Red Rose!”, “Red Rose” corresponds exactly to the brand “红玫” (means red rose in Chinese). And this translation is created from the perspective of a consumer, so as to tell Red Rose camera is worthy of being cherished. It not only indirectly conveyed the Red Rose camera quality, but also let people feel like meeting an old friend at the first sight.
Example 6．A Great Romance Above the Red wal1.(ad of a hotel with the red wall)
一片柔情出红墙。
This is a slogan of a hotel. The translation parodied a sentence “满园春色关不住，一枝红杏出墙来”from a well-known poem You Yuan Bu Zhi written by Ye Shaoweng, an ancient poet in song dynasty. If adopting literal translation, the Chinese ad will lose poetic and romantic connotation. So, to borrow strong memes from a poem is a good strategy to offer ads with picturesque and cultural color, and then refreshing the whole words with new meaning.
Example 7. 绿丹兰，爱你一辈子。(ad of cosmetics named “Ludanlan”)
Ludanlan Cosmetics: Love me tender, love me true.
This translation parodied a classic love song “Love Me Tender” sang by Elvis Presley. The tone of this song is full of love and gentleness. The lyrics of this song are populous and world-famous. So, the lyrics can be described as strong memes. The English ad does not literally translate as “Ludanlan cosmetics: Love you all my life”, but adopt the lyrics “Love Me Tender, Love Me True” as its translation. So, whenever people are listening to this tender song, they would remind of sweet love, and even hum along. In this way, the cosmetics would leave very deep impression on target audience. And the advertising effect is much better than simply literal translation.
Advertising slogans are concise and simple, subtle and meaningful, so translators should obey these principles to simplify the words and vividly depict its intention in the meanwhile. If there is no existing structures as strong memes to be directly quoted, translators can also approximately imitate some famous idioms, proverbs, poems, lyrics and so on to get rid of the shackles of the primitive forms of advertising, finally highlighting the ad's appearance in a creative way. After analyzing the parody towards poems and lyrics, next part will dwell on parody towards popular couplets and quotations.
4.2.3 Popular Couplets and Quotations
Chinese people appreciate duality and literary talent of couplets, which have stable forms and easy to understand. Nowadays, in various festivals, it is very popular to send auspicious and claptrap couplets to one’s friends and relatives. So couplets are close to people’s life, which could be called as a strong meme. Quotations are creative and interesting sentences in books, films, on Internet or just talked by some famous idles, which are widely repeated and imitated among people. Since advertising should cater to the psychology of target language consumers, it is more fashionable to use popular quotations to impress the hearts of Chinese consumers. There are two examples as follows: