1.1 Aims of the Research
With the rapid development of the economy as well as the help of the Reform and Opening up since late 1970s in China, it is no doubt that various foreign goods have been introduced into Chinese market, including lots of cosmetics brands. Over 30 years, lots of people have gained more money than before, so they would like to spend more money on inessentials such as cosmetics. According to “China Cosmetics Industry Production & Marketing and Investment Forecast Report, 2013-2017” (last modified December 14, 2015, http://en.qianzhan.com/report/detail/f316b38de623464d.html). “China has gradually become the second biggest cosmetic consumer country in the world which overall consumptive level has exceeded that of European Union and Japan, and next to America”. These brands, from different kind of countries, such as Japan, America, Europe, etc. exported into China, would also translate their advertising copies into Chinese too. Advertisements, as a very important business tool to assist commercial growth, has play an essential role in selling. According to Gillian Dyer, the author of Advertising as Communication (1982: 2) “the word advertising means ‘drawing attention to something’, or notifying or informing somebody of something.” A good piece of advertisement can to some extent make a great contribution to the success of a certain good. So, translating the original version in English (hereinafter referred to as English version) into proper Chinese is necessary. And of course, this thesis would mainly focus on English cosmetics advertisements.源:自'751.·论,文;网·www.751com.cn/
Compared with the translated Chinese version of English cosmetics advertisements (hereinafter referred to as Chinese version) and the English version, the Chinese version is definitely more complex, which means the Chinese version contains more words, has created many words which do not exist in Chinese vocabulary. This phenomenon is the focus content of this thesis.
With the help of functional approach (skopos theory) as well as the theory of fuzziness of language, this thesis makes a comparative analysis between the Chinese version and the English to find out the reason of this phenomenon.
1.2 Significance of the Research
In the thesis, the author is going to answer the following questions.
Firstly, why is the Chinese version of a piece of English cosmetic advertisement usually over- described than the original one in English;
Secondly, which principle does E-C translation of cosmetic advertisements follow, and why do they choose to follow this principle?
The author lists all the examples from different international cosmetic brands and try to make few contributions .to E-C translations in English cosmetic advertisements, helping consumers to avoid some irrational consumption behaviors from understanding the composing feature of a piece of advertisement.
1.3 Organization of the Research文献综述
The first chapter includes the aim, the purpose and the organization of this paper. While the second chapter is the literature review.
Then Chapter Three focuses on the E-C translation of cosmetic advertisements under the theory of functional approach. The author will pick up some typical examples from cosmetic brands including fresh, Estee Lauder, SKII, Lancôme and then make comparisons based on the skopos theory.
The next part interprets the topic from the perspective of fuzziness of language. And the last chapter of this thesis is the conclusion.