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Based on Relevance Theory, this paper will tackle translation of puns in English advertisements from the following aspects: In section1, the author will make a brief introduction of Relevance Theory. In section 2, puns and advertisements will be discussed in detail. In section 3, the paper will explore some translation strategies of puns in English advertisements from the angle of Relevance Theory. In section 4, the thesis will finally arrive at a concise conclusion.
2. Literature Review源:自'751.·论,文;网·www.751com.cn/
In the wake of surging global economy, the market and customers are increasingly putting more requirements on businesses. Thus, all enterprises incessantly resort to various new marketing strategies, among which advertisements are one of the most direct and efficient methods. Nowadays, advertisers endeavor to make their advertising slogans novel, unique and eye-catching to promote their brands. And punning ranks as the most favored strategy.
The increasing need for advertisement translation has galvanized many scholars into carrying out researches on the translation of puns from various perspectives. Now there are three different views on the translation of the puns at home and abroad: translatability, limited translatability and untranslatability. 文献综述
Those scholars who are exponents of untranslatability hold that since English and Chinese are two languages distinct from one another in terms of language structures, means of expression and cultural background, there exists little similarity between these two languages or similarity is outshined by inpiduality owned by each language, leading to untranslatability of English puns. Those who advocate limited translatability contend that the degree of the transformation of the original information depends on the level of translator’s ability to integrate two distinguished languages. Among those who are in favor for translatability, the most representative scholar abroad is the Belgian scholar Delabastita. He pided puns into four categories as follows: homonymy, homophony, homography and paronymy. And then he further pided each category into vertical puns representing the concurrence of the two layers of meaning and linear puns, the two layers of meaning are separate. He offered ten methods for pun translation. Delabastita’s translating theory has brought convenience to the translation of puns. At home, many scholars have put forward many relevant techniques of translation of puns. Xu Zhongbin proposed four methods for pun translation: matching translation, compensating for translation, focusing on the significant meaning and providing endnotes or introductions. Meng Lin and Zhan Jinghui studied the translation of puns in English advertisement and proposed five strategies: matching translation, expressing the double meaning separately, using well established translation, focusing on the significant meaning and compensation. All these findings and methods shed light on translation of puns in advertisements. However, researches on this topic are far from mature.