Domestication in Advertising Translation

Domestication in Advertising Translation

Every time when we are watching television, surfing the internet, or walking through the underpass, we are being exposed to advertisements. With or without being aware of it, we buy products because when shopping, something-a catchy phrase or a picture in the advertisement-triggered in our mind. This is how advertisement influences the consumer decision making.

Hence, the translation of advertisement is significant for multinational corporations. The words and phrases that function the same way as the source text should be chosen so as that the same impact is exerted on the target customer. This is how a correct choice of translation strategy involved in good advertising translation: domestication. Domestication refers to the target-culture-oriented translation in which unusual expressions to the target culture are exploited and turned into some familiar ones so as to make the translated text intelligible and easy for the target readers.

The first chapter of this thesis will compare the linguistic habits between English and Chinese. Furthermore, the cultural differences will be discussed.

The second chapter will discuss why the domestication is the dominant way used in advertisement translation. In this chapter, I will compare the two translation strategy: domestication and foreignizing. Plus, I will review the history debate over the two strategies and resort to the functional equivalence theory by Eugene Nida.

The third chapter will elaborate the domestication used in translation from both cultural and linguistic perspective.

The fourth chapter will specifically discuss the adoption in advertising translation by giving the examples of multinational corporations' advertising translations.