从关联理论看英语广告中双关语的翻译

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Abstract Everyday people get access to varied advertisements through internet and traditional mediums such as broadcast, television and newspaper. As a mode of mass media, the advertisement can convey information, promote products, and expand the market. A good advertisement not only introduces details of the product to customers, but also arouses their interests. Meanwhile, rhetorical devices are always employed to enhance the beauty of the advertisement. With the development of global economy, a lot of foreign brands and products come in our sight. In English advertisements there are also vivid and varied rhetorical devices, among which puns are a commonly used one. Puns can arouse the audience’s interests in the products and then encourage them to consume. However, these vivid and varied rhetorical devices make it more difficult to translate English advertisements into Chinese. As a well-known pragmatic theory, Relevance Theory with strong explanatory power has provided a good theoretical framework for translation studies. This thesis first briefly introduces the application and effects of puns in English advertisements. Then, translation of puns in English advertisements rendered with various translation strategies are analyzed from the perspective of relevance theory. The author aims to present a different perspective for translation of puns in English advertisements, and attempts to promote the researches on puns translation to some degree.57060

Keywords: translation of puns; English advertisements; Relevance Theory

摘要日常生活中，人们可以通过互联网和传统媒体例如广播、电视和报纸接触到各式各样的广告。作为一种大众传媒方式，广告可以发布信息，推销产品，扩大市场。一则好的广告不仅向客户介绍产品的详细信息，还将引起他们的兴趣。因而，修辞手段总是用来增强广告的美感。随着全球经济的发展，许多外国品牌和产品出现在国人的眼前。英语广告中使用生动多样的修辞手段也，而双关语就是其中常见的一种。双关语能引起观众对产品的兴趣，鼓励他们消费。然而，这些生动、多样的修辞手段使翻译英语广告变得更为困难。作为知名的语用学理论，关联理论的强大解释力为翻译研究提供了一个很好的理论框架。本文首先简要介绍了双关语在英语广告中的应用和影响，然后，从关联理论的角度对英语广告中双关语的翻译策略进行了分析，旨在为英语广告双关语的翻译提出一个不同的视角，试图为双关语翻译的研究产生一些促进作用。

毕业论文关键词：双关语翻译；英语广告；关联理论

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

2.1 A Brief Introduction of Puns in English Advertisements 1

2.2 An Introduction of Relevance Theory 2

2.3 A Historical Review on Translation of Puns in English Advertisements 4

3. An Analysis of Translation of Puns in English Advertisements from the Perspective of Relevance Theory 5

3.1 Explication 6

3.2 Corresponding 7

3.3 Recasting 8

3.4 Compensation 10

4. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 13

1. Introduction

With the development of global economy, more and more advertisers tend to use rhetorical devices to attract attention and interests of the public, and finally achieve the purpose of stimulating their desire of purchasing. Rhetorical devices commonly used in advertising English include metaphor, parody, parallelism, pun, and so on. Among all of them, puns are one of the most widely used rhetorical devices. As a difficulty in the advertising translation, pun translation is getting more and more attention gradually. In the past decade, translation researchers have studied the translation of puns in English advertisements from Functional Equivalence Theory, Teleology Theory, Adaptation Theory and Relevance Theory. Sperber and Wilson proposed Relevance Theory in 1986. It aims to explain the process of language communication and is the basis of cognitive pragmatics. Relevance Theory relates to the philosophy of language, cognitive psychology, communication, and so on. Relevance theory not only plays a role in the promotion of linguistic research, but also has the profound theoretical and practical significance in other areas like translation studies which is commonly accepted as interdisciplinary. From the perspective of Relevance Theory, this thesis attempts to analyze translation of puns in English advertisements rendered with perse methods, hoping to promote the researches on translation of puns.