三美论视角下服装品牌名的翻译

教学单位语言文学系存档编号本科毕业论文（设计）题目“三美论”视角下的服装品牌名翻译学生姓名黎珊学生学号2100214121专业名称英语（师范方向）指导教师熊俊2013年12月1日TRANSLATION OF CLOTHING BRAND NAMES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF “THREE BEAUTIES”byLi ShanDecember, 2013College of Technology, Hubei Engineering UniversityAbstractWith the development of Chinese reform and opening-up, more and more international clothing’s brands are trying to occupy the clothing market. As the same, Chinese brands are also entering into the world. A good translation of clothing brand name is an important link for a company to achieve global operation and to explore the international market. Owing to the aesthetic characteristics of the clothing brand names, the translator should pay more attention to the expression and transmission of beauty during the process of translating in spite of great differences between the oriental and occidental language and culture.Guided by Xu Yuanchong’s “Three Beauties”, this paper tries to discuss and study the translation of clothing brand names from three aspects, i.e., beauty in sense, beauty in sound and beauty in form. What’s more, it summarizes the main problems in the current translation of brand names, then puts forward 6 translation strategies of clothing brand names based on the “Three Beauties”,i.e., transliteration, literal translation, literal translation plus transliteration, free translation, free translation plus transliteration, and combination of free translation and literal translation. At last, it points out the great guidance of the “Three Beauties” in the translation of clothing brand names, and aims to provide some references for clothing brand names.Key words: clothing brand name; “Three Beauties”; translation strategies“三美论”视角下的服装品牌名翻译摘要随着中国改革开放的发展，越来越多的外国服装品牌打入中国市场，同时中国的服装品牌也正走向世界。

一个好的服装品牌名是企业实现全球战略开拓国际市场的重要环节。

鉴于服装品牌名本身具有美的属性，尽管中西方语言和文化存在巨大的差异，译者在翻译过程中更应该注重美得表达与传播。

本文以许渊冲先生的“三美论”为指导，试图探讨服装品牌名翻译问题，从意美、音美、形美三个方面对市场上大量的服装品牌名实例进行详尽研究分析，发现现在市场上服装品牌翻译中存在的问题，并结合三美论提出了6种服装品牌名的翻译方法，即音译法、直译法、音译与直译相结合法、意译法、意译与音译相结合法、意译与直译相结合法。

最后指出了“三美论”对服装品牌名的翻译具有强大的指导作用，并希望本文能对服装品牌名翻译提供一定的参考。

关键词: 服装品牌名；“三美论”；翻译策略Contents1.Introduction (1)2. Literature review (2)3. “Three Beauties” (3)3.1 Beauty in sense (3)3.2 Beauty in sound (3)3.3 Beauty in form (4)4. Clothing brand name and its translation (5)4.1 Definition of brand name (5)4.2 Clothing brand name and culture (5)4.3 Problems in current translation of brand name (6)5.Translation strategies of clothing brand name in the light of “Three Beauties”75.1 Transliteration (7)5.2 Literal translation (7)5.3 Literal translation plus transliteration (8)5.4 Free translation (9)5.5 Free translation plus transliteration (10)5.6 Combination of free translation and literal translation (10)6. Conclusion (11)Bibliography (12)Acknowledgements (14)Translation of Clothing Brand Names from the Perspective of“Three Beauties”1. IntroductionBrand name is a special kind of text, which has its own characteristic. Therefore, the translation of brand name is no longer a simple and static language translation nowadays, especially the translation of clothing brand names. In order to push forward more products into the markets and get more benefits, a great number of linguists both at home and abroad pay great attention to the translation of brand name(张晓芸, 2004). Therefore, it’s necessary to have a good clot hing brand name if you want to sell like hot cakes, because a good clothing brand is very crucial to improve the share of market. As the saying goes “the heart of beauty in everyone”, of course, the same to the brand name translation, especially in clothing field. Although it has had many scholars who have got a great success in accumulating the experience or put forward a method to discuss the translation of clothing brand name nowadays, the research about the clothing brand name is not full-scale enough, what’s more, no one study the clothing brand name from a perspective of “Three Beauties”, this paper provides a fresh perspective to discuss the clothing brand name.The translation of brand name can date back to 1990s, there are a lot of scholars, both in China or abroad, who addressed themselves to translate clothing brand names from many perspectives. V arious kinds of translation principles are applied to the translation of clothing brand names. Skopos theory is the most popular one. While in China, the great scholar Xu Yuanchong summarized the experience of predecessors and came up with the theory of “Three Beauties”, which was widely applied to many translation fields nowadays and provided a new perspective to the clothing brand. Therefore, to explore brand name translation through the aesthetic theory will leave a good impression on customer.This paper mainly discusses the translation of clothing brand names, and it points out the general strategies of translating them. The first chapter is an introduction, it mainly introduces why the translation deserves our research, and points out why the principle of “Three Beauties” is available to guide the translation of clothing brand names. Chapter two is literature review that presents development of clothing brand names. Chapter three explains the details of “Three Beauties” and the background of Xu Yuanchong. In chapter four, it talks about the definition of brand name and the current problems of clothing brand name. Chapter five is the key part of this paper, and it illustrates the translation strategies of brand name under the perspective of XuYuanch ong’s “Three Beauties” and gives the suggestion to the translation. The last part is the conclusion of the whole thesis, and it shows that “Three Beauties” can work effective during the process of translating clothing brand names, so it can beregarded as a general theoretical rule for the translation of clothing brand names.2. Literature reviewFrom the1990s, there are a lot of scholars in both China and abro ad devoted themselves into the translation of brand names and put forward a various theories about it. This paper summed up some main and typical examples as the following: Dong in his article Brand name translation model: A case analysis of US brand in China, stated that “Appropriate brand names make a significant difference in the successful introduction of new brand in the USA and abroad. Developing a world brand is more than just a careful translation exercise”(Dong, 2001: 99-115). After carefully sorting and ordering the applied remedies, the paper subsequently proposed the main potential orientation for a rejuvenation cure that relates the causes to their possible appropriate remedies. Since there was no unique and systematic solution for such a problem, the purpose was to propose a decision-making chart for brand managers in order to guide them towards the most appropriate strategic choices for specifically rejuvenating their brand.He Chuansheng(1999: 11-13), in his book Globalization Brand,systematically analyzed the features, motivations and formations of English brand name, and in his co-author book with Xiao Yunnan(2003: 146-148) Brand Name Translation in China: An Overview of Practice and theory, they pointed out that “brand names are an important part of advertising language but somehow neglected with very little literature on this topic”. By giving a detailed account of translating Chinese character brand names into English, they attempted to study the practice and theory of translating brand names in China, and summarized two stages which could be roughly set before and aider the Reforming and opening of China in the late 1970s and early 1980s.Hans J. V ermeer believed that a good brand name was crucial in acceleration products’market occupancy rate and pointed out the factors should be considered from a perspective of skopos theory, Meanwhile, He stated his main position in his work Framework for a translation theory in 1978, what’s more, he expressed Skopos theory that oriented a more functionally and socioculturally concept of translation was considered not as a process of translation, but as a specific form of human action. Wang Yiwei(2004) applied his theory to clothing brand name translation in his paper Translation of Clothing Brand Names: A Perspective of Skopostheory.Besides, there were some papers about the study of clothing brand name translation. Liu Hongquan mainly discussed the methods and words of clothing brand name translation in his paper from transliteration, free translation, and no translation. At last, he concluded that the most important element for a brand was to embody its features and avoid mixing with other brand names.Generally speaking, the translation of clothing brand name had went through a long history, but no body had employed Xu Yuanchong’s “Three Beauties”to study the clothing brand names, so this paper will study the translation of clothing brand name from a perspective of “Three Beauties”.3. “Three Beauties”Xu Yuanchong is one of the greatest scholars in our history, and he made a remarkable contribution to Chinese translation and had far-reaching influence in translation circles. Inspired by the theory of predecessor and contemporary translators in many years, Xu Yuanchong set forth the “Three Beauties”along with his experience. His translation, as a matter of fact, could date back to the paper From Language to Article in the Compendium of Chinese Literally History, written by Lu Xun, the great writer and thinker in China. In the paper he states that beauty in sense glads the heart i n learning a Chinese word, and it’s the most important. The second one is beauty in sound, which pleases the ear. The last but not least one is beauty in form, which is a perfect delight to the eyes(意美以感心, 一也, 音美以感耳, 二也, 形美以感目, 三也)(尹丹, 2009).3.1 Beauty in senseBeauty in sense refers that the translation must convey the beauty of artistic conception and association of the original content. As Xu Yuanchong remarks in his own book, beauty in sense sometimes caused by historical factors or association, and you can’t show the beauty of original content when you have no the same history. Th- erefore, you not only need to explain its surface meaning, but also need to express its profound meaning. A translated brand name is the combination of the original language and target language, and it should reflect the original culture and original beauty(许渊冲, 2003).According to Xu Yuanchong, beauty in sense is the most important in “Three Beauties”, and it not just means the content and surface structure of the original, but the deep structure—its image and spirit. The translator should be faithful to the original at least, and beautiful at best, that is to say, if the “Three Beauties”can’t achieve simultaneously, the resemblance in sound or form could be slackened. Never- theless, the conveyance of beauty in sense should be guaranteed in whatever circum- stance. In other words, the translator should pay more attention to reproducing the image, because imagery is the main idea that the original context want to convey, if destroy this characteristic in translation, we can not reproduce the original spirit to the receptor(郑卫, 2002). It is worth mentioning that the beauty of target context is not an arbitrary creation but a transfer of the beauty in sense from the original to the version. It should convey the designer’s emotion and the artistic conception.3.2 Beauty in soundIn XuYuanchong’s opinion,the second principle of translation is pursuit of the beauty in sound of the original content, the translator can reach the beauty in sound by using rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, assonance, etc.. The second principle must contain an echo to sense that means we must avoid words which are difficult to pronounce or has negative imagination in the process of translating. The version with loud sound, compatible rhyme and distinct syllable are easy to read and remember, which gives us an enjoyment of sense of ear(许渊冲, 2003). The translated work should be smooth and pleasant to ear. “The meter may be different, and the overall effect must be equivalent if the translation is to be in any sense adequate”(Nida, 1964). As we all know, a good rhyme will leave a deep impression on customers. Therefore, a translator should analyze the rhyme of the original brand names and understand it completely. In order to get a corresponding rhyme or similar rhyme, the translator should analyze the rhyme of the original adequately and then digest it very well from different aspects so as to achieve a successful translation. In this way, the customer may remember the brand name unconsciously and easily when the radio broads it in the air although we do not see the brand.3.3 Beauty in formAccording to Xu Yuanchong, the third principle of translation is the preservation of the beauty in form, which refers that the version should be as beautiful and vivid as the original, so as to enable the target readers to be aesthetically entertained as the source reader. As to the beauty in form, there are two aspects: the length and symme- try. The words and phrase in translation must satisfy the need of the special shape of the original. A translator should reproduce the graceful form of the original and try to correspond with the original. As we all know, brand names give the customers the direct stimulation of vision sense. Thus, as for a good brand name, you probably catch it immediately and hard to forget it once you see it.Taking all factors mentioned above into consideration, the translator should try to reach the “Three Beauties”.If it is difficult to get the “Three Beauties” simultaneously, the translators should try their best to convey the original beauty in sound on the premise of faithful reproduction of the original beauty in sense, furthermore, we should exert ourselves to convey the original beauty in form on the premise of both the reproduction of original beauty in sense and in sound. In a word, we should make the greatest endeavor to reproduce the original beauties in sense, in sound and in form comprehensively.4. Clothing brand name and its translation4.1 Definition of brand nameThe brand name is quite often used interchangeably with “brand”, although it is more correctly used to specifically denote written or spoken linguistic elements of anyproduct. The Trademark Administration Bureau of China gives an authoritative defini- tion as follows:“A brand combination is a mark of typical features, consisting of characters, words, or designs or a combination of these-adopted by the manufacturer or marketer of a particular good produced, selected or sold, or by the provider of certain services, to differentiate the source of the goods or services”(王怡薇, 2007).From the definition mentioned above, we can easily figure out that brand name plays an important role in advertising language. In our daily life, thousands of produc- ts presented at the store, the customers may feel confused about products availability, quality, and alternative prices. As a result, consumers trend to depend on brand names and company reputation, wh ile it will take a long time to understand the products’ specific information when they make a choice. On the contrary, it’s easier for custo- mer to notice the brand name within a few minute. Thus, brand names become an ext- re mely effective “shorthand” m eans of communication.4.2 Clothing brand name and cultureFor a long time, people have discussed culture in various ways, but what is culture? Different people have different opinions. Generally speaking, there are two kinds of thoughts. In a broad way, culture is the total of the inherited ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge, which constitutes the shared bases of social action. In a narrow sense, it just means spiritual civilization(郭著章, 2012).No matter what its broad or narrow way, it includes many aspects. Translation means to express the other cultural information by one language, therefore, translation can not be successful without culture. Tan Zaixi states, “translation to the original text is far from to simply understand the language, language is part of culture, and influenced and limited by culture”(谢建国, 2005). As the saying goes, learning a language is a kind of learning the culture and habit of the country where the language is spoken.Clothing brand names, as the part of language, are unavoidably influenced and restricted by the culture of various countries and nationalities. We can get the abundant implications of social history and culture by proceeding with the language and culture characters of the clothing brand names, and illustrate diction, cultural elements and methods of trademarks translation in details. Generally speaking, differ- ent culture would lead to different value and symbolic meaning. It mainly reflects the clothing brand name, so it demands the translation based on the conforming the culture to enhance the competition by imaginativeness and creative way. The cultural difference between Chinese and western is objective existence. They should focus on Chinese and western culture to find a spot between two kinds of culture mutualexchange, so as to promote the brand and slogan translation into their hearts, and stimulate the customer to buy. For example “peacock”is a popular animal in China, but in English it is the bird of bad luck. It has some idioms such as “as proud as a p eacock”(非常高傲), “play the peacock”(炫耀自己), so the use of “peacock” as brand name will harm the brand．If it needs to be translated as “kingbird”(必胜鸟类，极乐鸟的一种)would be a good choice(杜艳春, 1999).4.3 Problems on current translation of brand namesAlthough the translation of brand name has fast developed, there are also a lot of problems in current. As the brand name, poor or unsuccessful translations of brand names are usually due to language deficiency and cultural incompetence of the translator. Of course, unfamiliarity with consumer psychology can also result in poor translation. A successful translated brand name determines the international image of corporation and the market competitiveness. In terms of brand name translation, if attention is not paid enough to the needs, motives, and expectations of consumers, the translation may turn out to be an error. In the paper, the author concluded these main errors as the following.For example, there is too much application of Pinyin in Chinese trademarks, China’s previous trademark law showed that Chinese trademarks must make use of Chinese characters, but English can be used for export trademarks(李毅, 2009). Consequently, our brands generally use pinyin in the international market in the early time. According to the survey, it is about one fifth of Chinese brands use Pinyin as their English names, while it can not work well in introducing products. Chinese pinyin makes no sense in English. What’s more, the meaning is not fully conveyed and the cultural role is wholly ignored．What’s more, transliteration is also used too much in clothing brand name. But it means nothing. Sometimes, when translating a brand name, some translators purposely choose some novel or curious words, though the original intention is good and the effect is not very satisfactory. On the other hand, literal translation seems to be faithful to the original trademarks. In fact, it is easy to ignore the differences of cultural backgrounds, and lead to cultural misunderstanding.Besides, little attention paid to cultural implications. The change of cultural implications is a harsh, and perhaps a problem universally existed. Images with fine connotations may have contradictory meanings in another culture, and misunderstand- ings usually aroused by this diversity of cultures. However, many brand names ignored this point when choosing their translated names and failed in foreign market, some even became a joke. So it is quite necessary to find good counterpoints between cultures, and choose a suitable name to enter the target market．5.Translation strategies of clothing brand name in the light of“Three Beauties”5.1 TransliterationTransliteration means that clothing brand names are translated into similar names in pronunciation according to the original ones(李毅, 2009). And it attempts to be loss-less, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words. According to Chomsky, Jackeadoff, he once puts forward musical grammar language, and he holds the view that people born with the sense of music and common grammar music of inner language that stimulates people to speak, the writer tends to choose some rhythmic words and sentences to show the beauty in sound, pleasure of enjoy alone, or sharing with others. Clothing brand name should take advantages of the beauty in sound to improve the value of memory.For example, women’s clothing brand should convey the feeling of gentle and soft, so the designer chooses some beautiful and slight words in pronunciation, while in English short vowel often used in female clothing brand name, like “Imili”, “Sofani”and “Orchilily”. But man’s clothing brand names embody the great and majestic. In Chinese, “ao”and voiced consonant “d”is frequently used, while in English, the designer tend to use sonorous vowel and consonant that easy to read. For example, voiced consonant /d/ in Goldlion is more powerful and available then light vowel consonant /t/.When the translator translates English brand names into Chinese, the new name will be constructed using Chinese characters with similar pronunciation to the English one to keep the original beauty. There are many examples as the following, and the translator usually adopted the transliteration. Such as “波司登”(BOSIDENG), “ELL- E” (依尼), “DIESEL”(迪赛) and etc.. Those brand name sounds great, and produced from is pronunciation, what’s more, it embody its own advantage of the brand name. Because the brand name had left a impression on customers, and had a good reputation in the market. Sometimes the designer also uses transliteration to show the designer’s unique. Such as “Anna Sui”(安娜苏), “Yves Saint Laurent”(伊夫圣洛朗), “Zegna”(杰尼亚), “Christian Dior”(克里斯汀•迪奥). It had got a good effect in the original country, and in order to keep this advantage, transliteration is adopted. For example, the clothing brand name “Betty”, its Chinese translation is “贝蒂”, which comes from its pronunciation, and it is easy to read and remember for customer. It is not only simple but also has its own characteristics. Besides, it is not difficult to associate with a lovely and active girl when people see this brand, which obtains the satisfaction of mental requirement to customer.5.2 Literal translationLiteral translation refers to translate a brand name according to its literal meaning. It is generally believed that is faithful to the original text and form. In fact,literal translation emphasizes the “form similarity”, and it requires the accordance between the original passages and the translated one in the choice of word, syntax and styles. “Literal translation attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic structures of the second language allow, the exact contextual meaning of the original”(Newmark, 1988). It just keeps the original form and structure.There are a lot of brand names translated into another language by literal translation, because it would retain the features of the original and express the exact original messages and stimulate the potential purchase into real action.Literal translation is applied only if there are correspondent words in the target language. For example, “贵夫人”signifies nobility and elegance, and it is literally translated into “Fair Lady”. The two versions match well. “七匹狼”is literally translated “Septwolves”. “Sept”is a root of seven, in Chinese, it means “七”, and wolf means “狼”. As we all know, wolf is a symbol of brave, wise and smart. That means the men in this cloth contains those qualities. Take another example, “鳄鱼” is a famous Chinese clothing brand names, and it is literally translated into “Crocodile”, when people hear this brand name, they may associate with good quality, because no matter at home or broad, the customers know the skin of Crocodile is high quality and durable. Therefore, its English brand name is corresponding with Chinese one, and achieved a same good effect in the market. Some typical examples as the following are good examples and have a good effect among customers. Such as “云雀”(lark), “P layboy”(花花公子), “Five Color”(五色), “Pure Love”(纯爱), “Free Bird”(自由鸟), “Dream Fox”(梦狐),“RomanKing”(罗马帝国), all of these translated brand names are very suitable for their products.5.3 Literal translation plus transliterationLiteral translation and transliteration are totally different approaches in handing with translation of brand names, and the disadvantage of literal translation is obvious. It makes the translated version difficult for the target language readers to understand. Because different countries have different culture and orders about language. In order to get the best influence, translators should combine the literal translation and transliteration. In this way, it not only embodies the version beauty but also convey the auditory beauty so that the brand name will more attractive and acceptable in the target market. That is to say, we should combine the beauty in form and beauty in sound.For instance, “比祺” is a Chinese brand name for female cloth, its English versi- on is “bq”which is novelty in form, but if you know a little English, you probably associate it with “bitch”, which may prevent its further development in the word market. Therefore, the translator not only pays attention to the form, but also be careful the pronunciation when translates a brand name. Take another example, “柏盈”(women’s brand), whose English brand name is “Park Y ou”. It may easily think about “funk you”, the author doesn’t think people would like hearing this phrase!Of course, there are a lot of good translated clothing brand names, for example, “Jeanswest”is a casual clothing brand name, literally, it is western jeans which wore by cowboy who wants to pan the gold in the western area and whose pants are durable, during the period of 1930s, because of the promotion about cowboy’s movie, the jeans become a popular dress, and it is still continuing. Now it is a represent of active, young, casual, spirit, and become a fashion. From transliteration, its Chinese version “真维斯” is also good, in Chinese “真” means true, be real, and wonderful, “维” sou- nds like a beautiful, and “斯” makes people think about good and comfortable. On the other hand, it is translated by transliteration, the pronunciation is similar. Therefore, it is always popular among young people. Besides, “Dunhill”(登喜路), “P orts”(宝姿), “Yi-shion”(以纯), are also good examples.5.4 Free translationNewmark(1981) states:“Free translation reproduces the matter without the manner, or the content without the form of the original. Usually it is a paraphrase much longer than the original, a so-called “intralingual translation”, often prolix and pretentious, and not translation at all.”That is to say, free translation need not pay attention to the form of the original, including construction of the original sentences, meaning of the original works, achromatic of the original and so on. But free translation does not mean to delete or add content to the original. Translators must consider the original carefully, know its stress, translate it naturally, and express the meaning of the original. Free translation is a skill which translators must know the culture of both source language and target language, and must have extensive knowledge.In “Three Beauties”, beauty in sense has the same function with free translation. As for clothing brand names, it requires a good meaning that arouses a good asso- ciation and brings a nice feeling, so free translation is a demanded of the beauty in sense. A successful brand name will directly show us that this is clothing and bring a aesthetic feelings to the consumers by those good words that means luck, joviality, cheerfulness, wealth, beauty, loveliness, etc.. Therefore, “妮”, “丝”,“芬” are familiar words in translated brand names, while “泥”, ”死”, “分” are seldom seen to their association meaning.For example, the clothi ng brand name “E legant” is translated to “风韵雅”. This translated name completely conveyed its meaning, grace, charm, and elegant, what’s more, it suits to the customer’s psychological need. It is a very successful clothing brand. A good brand name or its translation should be easy to spread and feel its good。